Bona84

Here you go. Something other than youtube music videos, hot wives and Dutch field hockey teams...

http://espn.go.com/ncb/notebook/_/pa...27/atlantic-10

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Bona84

Blue Blobster

aw shoot you just beat me

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Xavier likes to Play in the NCAA tournaments
Dayton likes to host them while they play in the NIT

Bona84

Funny Blobster. I was surprised nobody had posted it already.

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Bona84

Blue Blobster

Thats what I was thinking as well

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Xavier likes to Play in the NCAA tournaments
Dayton likes to host them while they play in the NIT

BM-GW

Associated article from Katz:

Why the A-10 Gets it

MudFlap

seis bade would be nice. We could beat the hell out of Juan Bid and his brother Otto for good.

vaNtR

"Fran Dunphy's program has been the model of consistency for the past three seasons, in which Temple has won 29, 26 and 24 games, with two second-place finishes and one A-10 regular-season title."

Not that it matters, but Temple tied for the regular season title in 2009-2010, before winning the conference tournament, and won the regular season title last year. I wouldn't call that two second place finishes. Khalif Wyatt also plays guard -- not forward.

I don't like Eamonn Brennan covering this conference. He'll stand up on his soapbox making proclamations about the A-10, but the guy overlooks major details constantly.

paulxu

Wait a sec! Does he post on this forum?

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...he went up late, and I was already up there.

A10fan2

so vaNTR, is it Andy Katz or Eamonn Brennan that you don't like?

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Muddy's from 2009

He has since made the same "prediction" this year. CLASSIC

vaNtR

I like both, I just don't like ESPN's coverage of the Atlantic 10 -- particularly from Brennan. I think they both cover college basketball well, I'd just like to see a dedicated writer for the league. Every major conference has a beat writer and the A-10 deserves to be in that discussion.

jpschmack

I hear you a bit, but I think Brennan understands.

Last season, I emailed him about the updates they did ranking the members of the "Power Six" and just unloaded an explosion of violent truth on him: The Pac-12 is awful / The A-10 has been lockstep with the Power Six for decades and clearly superior this season / It's only "Power Six" and not "Power Eight" because of football and football shouldn't dictate basketball editorial decisions.

And he replied back with something along the lines of:
"You're 100% correct, and I've many of the very same arguments. How do you think I feel having to write about the Pac-12 every week? But I gotta do it because they crank out at least four times the alums the A-10 does."

But I think it's KATZ missing the major details here:

These two weren't going to be allowed to play in the respective conference tournaments so the choice was obvious -- bolt to the A-10.
I never heard anyone besides Andy Katz report that the Horizon was going to bar Butler from the conference tourney in 2012-13. The CAA had the well-publicized rule. (Don't get me wrong, it makes sense for the Horizon to do it, because they know it could mean TWO bids instead of one and more money). But I just assumed Butler bailed early because VCU had to, and we were willing to get them in ASAP to schedule with 16 instead of 15.

The league can make a strong case to be a top-seven conference in the country
This is the exact backhanded compliment the ESPN folks ALWAYS give us.

We've CLEARY been a top-seven conference way more than we haven't been for the last 20+ years. Seven conferences had more bids than we did only five times in the last 21 years. We had the 8th-most bids four times and then the one horrible one bid year we should never speak of again.

And when were were eighth, you could still make arguments that were a top seven conference:
Like when we got three bids and were #5 in the Conference RPI. Or when we had two top 50 RPI teams left out and were #7 in the RPI.

The A-10 had a hard time finding a home for its conference tournament. The perfect location would've been the Palestra in Philadelphia, but it's simply too small…. The league's Big Apple debut might result in a record number of bids for this stacked conference.
What? The reason we left Philly was because the far-away schools (Xavier, Dayton, URI, UMass, Richmond) were consistently providing four of the top six in the league in the early 2000s and the crowds suffered when it was Richmond-Xavier, Dayton-URI, etc, etc. How is the Palestra going to be perfect with Temple leaving and Butler joining?

The record number of bids won't be the RESULT of moving the tourney. It's the result of having better cred as a league from idiots like Katz.

The best part about the unbalanced schedule is that it gives the teams a chance to crown as true a champion without a round-robin slate. Every team will play each team once with one rivalry game twice.
My head is about to explode thinking of all the ways this is messed up.
#1 - "Every team will play each team once" IS a round-robin slate. We just have a "round-robin + 1."
#2 - You can't crown a true champion with games beyond a round-robin slate.

How about saying "The best part about the new schedule is that it becomes a more fair way of determining a champion. No longer will playing the top teams only once be a factor in the seeding. Instead of each team playing three teams a second time in match-ups that weren't historical rivalries, each team will have only one opponent a second time. Only the marquee rivalries will be retained, like Dayton and Xavier, UMass-Rhode Island and VCU-Richmond.

(Just once I'd like to reply with a short post).

xavierhoops

Attention Muddy and other Xavier-obsessed UD posters- You may want to take some pointers from ESPN before you continue to predict the demise of the Xavier program this year: (This was put under "Worst-case scenario")

"Even so, the Musketeers lose talent all the time, but Chris Mack always has his team in contention for the conference title. Xavier always goes to the NCAA tournament, and almost always makes some noise while there. Projecting anything less than that this season feels like folly."

A10BBall

I hope you send this right to him

jpschmack

You sound like a Yankee fan using the word "rings" right now. Everyone knows how good Xavier's program is. Even Dayton fans. You know why they say stuff like that? Because it makes you go nuts. If you don't seek any other validation but the score at 0:00.00, you'll be a lot happier in life.

I've also heard from some media folks that Katz can't walk and chew gum at the same time, so when he makes little mistakes like that, I just assume he got distracted by something shiny while writing the sentence.

There's more important things to raise hell about later.

I'd like to see ESPN treat a BCS Power Five conferences like they treat the A-10, and watch that fan base go ballistic

"With the additions of Missouri and Texas A&M, the SEC could be primed for as many as FIVE bids!"
-- Um, what? We get five all the time! A record would be SEVEN!

The SEC can now say they're one of the top five conferences in college basketball!"
-- We've been a top five conference for about 16 of the past 21 years! You're crazy.

The Big 12 has THREE teams in the Top 25. They think it could be a multi-bid year"
-- WTF! We had three of the top SIX in the polls at point, last season!

It would be really funny to see someone besides me yelling at their TV: "We had ONE BAD YEAR! Why is everyone making it sound like we're a one-bid league! We're a MAJOR CONFERENCE! We've ALWAYS BEEN A MAJOR CONFERENCE! MY GOD! OPEN YOUR EYES! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!"

xavierhoops

I honestly think there are some Dayton fans on here and otherwise that still believe Dayton and Xavier are on the same level as a program.

And I don't seek validation from UD fans. I realize many are delusional about UD and X.