Week #12 - Games of Interest

[Obadiah]

We begin Week #12 of the college basketball season. The A-10 has no teams in the rankings. Saint Louis does get three votes in the AP poll.

Tennessee assumes the #1 position in both polls, only the second time in school history that the Vols have been so ranked.

With the win over St. Bonaventure at Ryan and the road win over La Salle, URI rankings in the key measurements all improve.

NET - 128
BPI - 111
Sagarin - 101
Pomeroy - 116

The cumulative record to date for URI OOC opponents now stands at 116-95, .549, another drop from earlier.


No games in the A-10 on Martin Luther King day:

In games involving URI OOC opponents:

In a game already completed, Harvard beat Howard, 84-71.

Old Dominion at Charlotte, 4 PM. On ESPN+.

St. Francis (PA) at Bryant, 5 PM.

Baylor at West Virginia, 9 PM. On ESPNU.

[ace]

Bryce Aiken finally returned for Harvard in that game. Injuries have made a mess out of what could have been a very good season for them, but I guess they could still salvage it if they can qualify for their conference tournament.

[Rhody83]

Interestingly the Ivy League Tournament is just the top 4 teams. I like that.

[reef]

WVU let's down after beating a Kansas loses to Baylor at home

[Rhody83]

Interesting bracketology from Joe Lunardi today. Big East 4, American 3 & A10 with 2.

[rambone 78]

Makes sense for now for the A10.....St. Louis and VCU....Dayton and Davidson NIT teams.

Far from locks though. Long way to go.

[ramster]

Makes sense for now for the A10.....St. Louis and VCU....Dayton and Davidson NIT teams.

Far from locks though. Long way to go.

But it’s a 1 bid league this year

[rambone 78]

ramster, it still might be...it could be close whether we get 1 or 2. 3 would be a surprise but then it was last year when Davidson stole a bid.

If VCU, Dayton or maybe Davidson stumble it will be 1 unless an upset in the A10 tourney.

I think St. Louis is the closest thing to a bid at least right now.

Might not be ANY locks for an at large is what I'm saying.

[theblueram]

Watching Villanova vs Butler. If V wins the nbe will have 6 teams with a losing record in conference.

[NYGFan_Section208]

Pitt hosting Duke...expecting them to get beat tonite, but... did not realize Pitt is 12-6, 2-3.
I expected them to win this year about as often as UConn''s football team. To have 12 wins is borderline amazing.
I don't even care who they've played, someone might be doing something right there.

[Rhody15]

Pitt hosting Duke...expecting them to get beat tonite, but... did not realize Pitt is 12-6, 2-3.
I expected them to win this year about as often as UConn''s football team. To have 12 wins is borderline amazing.
I don't even care who they've played, someone might be doing something right there.

Quick off topic post, but did anyone see how’s bad UCONN football defense was this year?

Statically it was the worst defense of all time.

Ok back to your regular scheduled programming.

[ramster]

Watching Villanova vs Butler. If V wins the nbe will have 6 teams with a losing record in conference.

[reef]

Watched that Pitt Duke game and Pitt is definitely heading in the right direction

[rjsuperfly66]

Makes sense for now for the A10.....St. Louis and VCU....Dayton and Davidson NIT teams.

Far from locks though. Long way to go.

But it’s a 1 bid league this year

I wouldn't be puffing your chest just yet ... If you look at BracketMatrix.com, they have VCU as the automatic and St. Louis as the last team in the field (and if you gave St. Louis the automatic, VCU becomes the last team in the field), and the next 5 teams (Temple, Baylor, Alabama, Florida, and San Francisco) are all breathing down their necks. St. Louis and VCU are both in the precarious situation of needing marquee wins to boost their resume while avoiding bad losses, but both kind of need that head-to-head win versus the other, at least at the moment. That said, there is definitely a road for both teams to make it, but the margin for error is extremely small.

[rambone 78]

Any A10 team that finishes worse then 13-5 minimum is out as an at large candidate, given that the margin for error [as RJ said] is so small.

There will be upsets to come. VCU losing to URI tonight likely won't hurt them too much as it is a road game to a mid pack or better opponent.

Losing one or 2 to a bottom feeder though will likely knock them out.

By the end of the season, one team will hopefully emerge as a lock at large candidate...but 2? Doubt it.

Then when that team gets beat in the conference tourney, the A10 will end up with 2 in...

[ramster]

Makes sense for now for the A10.....St. Louis and VCU....Dayton and Davidson NIT teams.

Far from locks though. Long way to go.

But it’s a 1 bid league this year

I wouldn't be puffing your chest just yet ... If you look at BracketMatrix.com, they have VCU as the automatic and St. Louis as the last team in the field (and if you gave St. Louis the automatic, VCU becomes the last team in the field), and the next 5 teams (Temple, Baylor, Alabama, Florida, and San Francisco) are all breathing down their necks. St. Louis and VCU are both in the precarious situation of needing marquee wins to boost their resume while avoiding bad losses, but both kind of need that head-to-head win versus the other, at least at the moment. That said, there is definitely a road for both teams to make it, but the margin for error is extremely small.

Many have said this is a 1 bid league this season. Many are the same people who the past 5 years have said the A10 will not get 3 teams in the NCAA
Every year we get 3
I'll bet very heavily that the A10 will NOT get only 1 team in the NCAA as has been repeatedly said here.
Bottom line I'll "eat my computer" if the A10 gets only 1 team in the NCAA Tournament.

[rambone 78]

ramster, we'll get 2.....3 though is a huge stretch....will we get 2 lock at large teams and then an upset like last year?

And even then, the Bonnies barely squeaked in as the last at large team.

[ramster]

ramster, we'll get 2.....3 though is a huge stretch....will we get 2 lock at large teams and then an upset like last year?

And even then, the Bonnies barely squeaked in as the last at large team.

Agree 2, three tough but not impossible

But again, many have called this a one bid year, and incredibly some said this after 1 week of play in November and some after only 1 game of A10 play

There is no way the A10 gets only 1 bid

[rjsuperfly66]

ramster, we'll get 2.....3 though is a huge stretch....will we get 2 lock at large teams and then an upset like last year?

And even then, the Bonnies barely squeaked in as the last at large team.

Agree 2, three tough but not impossible

But again, many have called this a one bid year, and incredibly some said this after 1 week of play in November and some after only 1 game of A10 play

There is no way the A10 gets only 1 bid

I think the one major thing to watch for is two-fold ...
1) If the NET is supposed to be an improved version of the RPI, then it should be align better with team selections.
St. Louis currently has a current NET of 67. It would be interesting to see if that has any significant impact.
2) The NCAA has somewhat realigned their quadrants.
In the team sheets, they have broken Q1 and Q2 into some sort of Q1A and Q1B.
For example, facing a Q1 team at home with a NET between 1-15 falls into one section, facing a team between 16-30 falls into another.
Both fall under Q1, but there is differentiation between the two on the team sheet now.

Lastly, the A10 will very likely be a 2 bid conference, but there is a strong chance that is not an earned 2-bid, just like last year was not an earned 3-bid. And by "earned," I mean quality teams that would make the tournament with or without an automatic bid. For historically purposes, it doesn't matter. But last year, I think many became fooled because the A-10 snuck in 3 teams. This year is playing out just like a worse version of last year, since there is not a surefire tournament team like URI to help boost resumes.

[ramster]

ramster, we'll get 2.....3 though is a huge stretch....will we get 2 lock at large teams and then an upset like last year?

And even then, the Bonnies barely squeaked in as the last at large team.

Agree 2, three tough but not impossible

But again, many have called this a one bid year, and incredibly some said this after 1 week of play in November and some after only 1 game of A10 play

There is no way the A10 gets only 1 bid

I think the one major thing to watch for is two-fold ...
1) If the NET is supposed to be an improved version of the RPI, then it should be align better with team selections.
St. Louis currently has a current NET of 67. It would be interesting to see if that has any significant impact.
2) The NCAA has somewhat realigned their quadrants.
In the team sheets, they have broken Q1 and Q2 into some sort of Q1A and Q1B.
For example, facing a Q1 team at home with a NET between 1-15 falls into one section, facing a team between 16-30 falls into another.
Both fall under Q1, but there is differentiation between the two on the team sheet now.

Lastly, the A10 will very likely be a 2 bid conference, but there is a strong chance that is not an earned 2-bid, just like last year was not an earned 3-bid. And by "earned," I mean quality teams that would make the tournament with or without an automatic bid. For historically purposes, it doesn't matter. But last year, I think many became fooled because the A-10 snuck in 3 teams. This year is playing out just like a worse version of last year, since there is not a surefire tournament team like URI to help boost resumes.

Which A10 Team are you saying last year was unjustifiably included in the NCAA Selections?
Did the Big East have any unjustifiably selected as well last year?

[steviep123]

Agree 2, three tough but not impossible

But again, many have called this a one bid year, and incredibly some said this after 1 week of play in November and some after only 1 game of A10 play

There is no way the A10 gets only 1 bid

I think the one major thing to watch for is two-fold ...
1) If the NET is supposed to be an improved version of the RPI, then it should be align better with team selections.
St. Louis currently has a current NET of 67. It would be interesting to see if that has any significant impact.
2) The NCAA has somewhat realigned their quadrants.
In the team sheets, they have broken Q1 and Q2 into some sort of Q1A and Q1B.
For example, facing a Q1 team at home with a NET between 1-15 falls into one section, facing a team between 16-30 falls into another.
Both fall under Q1, but there is differentiation between the two on the team sheet now.

Lastly, the A10 will very likely be a 2 bid conference, but there is a strong chance that is not an earned 2-bid, just like last year was not an earned 3-bid. And by "earned," I mean quality teams that would make the tournament with or without an automatic bid. For historically purposes, it doesn't matter. But last year, I think many became fooled because the A-10 snuck in 3 teams. This year is playing out just like a worse version of last year, since there is not a surefire tournament team like URI to help boost resumes.

Which A10 Team are you saying last year was unjustifiably included in the NCAA Selections?
Did the Big East have any unjustifiably selected as well last year?

I can't speak for rj, but in my opinion all 3 A10 teams deserved to be there. URI and SBU based on their season, and Davidson because they won the tournament. I don't think Davidson gets in otherwise. As for the Big East, I don't remember who/how many got in, so I can't speak to that. But for 2017, I remember people saying that URI winning the A10 Tournament knocked PC into the First Four (which seemed to have been confirmed by the selection committee if memory serves). In my opinion that year, I feel that Marquette was the team that should have been bumped instead of PC. Marquette in my opinion should have been left out of the whole field that year as I didn't think they were deserving. I know it's good drama or fodder or whatever for some of us here to think us winning the A10 tourney kept us out of the first four and dropped PC down to the first four, but to me they picked the wrong team.

[bigappleram]

Agree 2, three tough but not impossible

But again, many have called this a one bid year, and incredibly some said this after 1 week of play in November and some after only 1 game of A10 play

There is no way the A10 gets only 1 bid

I think the one major thing to watch for is two-fold ...
1) If the NET is supposed to be an improved version of the RPI, then it should be align better with team selections.
St. Louis currently has a current NET of 67. It would be interesting to see if that has any significant impact.
2) The NCAA has somewhat realigned their quadrants.
In the team sheets, they have broken Q1 and Q2 into some sort of Q1A and Q1B.
For example, facing a Q1 team at home with a NET between 1-15 falls into one section, facing a team between 16-30 falls into another.
Both fall under Q1, but there is differentiation between the two on the team sheet now.

Lastly, the A10 will very likely be a 2 bid conference, but there is a strong chance that is not an earned 2-bid, just like last year was not an earned 3-bid. And by "earned," I mean quality teams that would make the tournament with or without an automatic bid. For historically purposes, it doesn't matter. But last year, I think many became fooled because the A-10 snuck in 3 teams. This year is playing out just like a worse version of last year, since there is not a surefire tournament team like URI to help boost resumes.

Which A10 Team are you saying last year was unjustifiably included in the NCAA Selections?
Did the Big East have any unjustifiably selected as well last year?

Davidson would not have earned a bid last year without winning the tourney. And Bonnies needed a 10 game winning streak that included a win over a sure-fire NCAA team in URI to get them in as Last 4 in. There was an easy scenario where the A10 was a 1 bid league last year - we beat Bonnies in Olean and we win the A10 tourney and likely its a 1 bid league. That simple. That scenario is not far fetched and easily could have happened.

The issue this year and why people were saying in November that it looked like a 1 bid (and still does) is that no one beat a surefire NCAA team in OOC. Right now the Texas win by VCU is the best OOC win by the numbers, and Texas is a fringe bubble team right now. Last year we had beaten Seton Hall, PC and Bonnies had wins vs Syracuse and Buffalo - all of which were seen as NCAA teams during the OOC. So the real question is, short of resume building OOC wins, can teams like VCU, SLU or even Davidson win a slew of games in the league including beating each other enough to raise all their NET ratings above the cut line. To do so they almost have to avoid any landmine losses to sub 150 NET teams and there are a few of those standing in their way. Look it could happen, but they also could all beat each other up yielding no clear cut NCAA qualifier and leaving the 1 bid to whomever wins the tourney. To just keep saying "we always get more than 1 bid" is not a logical argument, things change year to year in college basketball landscape. The A10 and even the Big East are in transition years, lots of young teams, lots of transfers, etc. So I would bet our typical 3-4 bids becomes 1-2, and the Big East typical 5-6 bids becomes 3-4.

[ramster]

I think the one major thing to watch for is two-fold ...
1) If the NET is supposed to be an improved version of the RPI, then it should be align better with team selections.
St. Louis currently has a current NET of 67. It would be interesting to see if that has any significant impact.
2) The NCAA has somewhat realigned their quadrants.
In the team sheets, they have broken Q1 and Q2 into some sort of Q1A and Q1B.
For example, facing a Q1 team at home with a NET between 1-15 falls into one section, facing a team between 16-30 falls into another.
Both fall under Q1, but there is differentiation between the two on the team sheet now.

Lastly, the A10 will very likely be a 2 bid conference, but there is a strong chance that is not an earned 2-bid, just like last year was not an earned 3-bid. And by "earned," I mean quality teams that would make the tournament with or without an automatic bid. For historically purposes, it doesn't matter. But last year, I think many became fooled because the A-10 snuck in 3 teams. This year is playing out just like a worse version of last year, since there is not a surefire tournament team like URI to help boost resumes.

Which A10 Team are you saying last year was unjustifiably included in the NCAA Selections?
Did the Big East have any unjustifiably selected as well last year?

Davidson would not have earned a bid last year without winning the tourney. And Bonnies needed a 10 game winning streak that included a win over a sure-fire NCAA team in URI to get them in as Last 4 in. There was an easy scenario where the A10 was a 1 bid league last year - we beat Bonnies in Olean and we win the A10 tourney and likely its a 1 bid league. That simple. That scenario is not far fetched and easily could have happened.

The issue this year and why people were saying in November that it looked like a 1 bid (and still does) is that no one beat a surefire NCAA team in OOC. Right now the Texas win by VCU is the best OOC win by the numbers, and Texas is a fringe bubble team right now. Last year we had beaten Seton Hall, PC and Bonnies had wins vs Syracuse and Buffalo - all of which were seen as NCAA teams during the OOC. So the real question is, short of resume building OOC wins, can teams like VCU, SLU or even Davidson win a slew of games in the league including beating each other enough to raise all their NET ratings above the cut line. To do so they almost have to avoid any landmine losses to sub 150 NET teams and there are a few of those standing in their way. Look it could happen, but they also could all beat each other up yielding no clear cut NCAA qualifier and leaving the 1 bid to whomever wins the tourney. To just keep saying "we always get more than 1 bid" is not a logical argument, things change year to year in college basketball landscape. The A10 and even the Big East are in transition years, lots of young teams, lots of transfers, etc. So I would bet our typical 3-4 bids becomes 1-2, and the Big East typical 5-6 bids becomes 3-4.

1-2 teams is significantly different from saying only 1

As for what if games, every conference has them every year.

What RJ said was that the A10 got a team in the NCAA Tournament that was "unjustifiably included" and the A10 snuck in a team. As if the A10 had an "in" and other teams from other conferences got screwed.

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

[ramster]

For teams like URI with 3 Freshmen playing more and more minutes this represents a team that should improve more than a URI Veteran Team of Seniors like last year. The improvement of a Senior laden team is not as much - they perform very well in OOC games and steady throughout the year.

URI this year could surprise more on the upside than previous years teams. I hate hearing that we have already written off this year as a rebuilding year. We were too slow to put Martin in for Thompson - much too slow.

Harris needs to play more minutes than he is currently being allowed.

But come A10 Tournament time I think URI has the potential to be right there with Davidson, Dayton, VCU, George Mason. And if we win the A10 we deserve every last ounce of that beautiful A10 Tournament Championship Trophy and the NCAA Automatic Bid that goes with it. No apologizing.

[rjsuperfly66]

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

I'm only insinuating that teams that require an automatic bid to make the tournament are not fair barometers of conference success. URI deserved it. St. Bonaventure deserved it, regardless of late season run or not. Davidson got hot, but for their full season body of work, was not deserving. It would be like the MAC trumpeting themselves extremely successful if Buffalo choked in their conference tournament and another team snuck in for a second bid. "Yeah, we got two bids, what a great season." No, you got two bids because your top team by far choked in arguably it's biggest game of the season. And to be fair, that is from a conference perspective. Davidson should celebrate last year's conference championship, just like URI should if they won it this year. It's not their faults that teams choked or that they got hot at the right time. But if the A10 gets 2 bids and one is result of an automatic, it doesn't eliminate the fact that the conference had a bad OOC. Essentially, it confirms the nightmare that the A10 was essentially a one-bid conference that got two only because of an automatic bid/upset in the conference tournament.

[Shaolin Swat]

Which A10 Team are you saying last year was unjustifiably included in the NCAA Selections?
Did the Big East have any unjustifiably selected as well last year?

Davidson would not have earned a bid last year without winning the tourney. And Bonnies needed a 10 game winning streak that included a win over a sure-fire NCAA team in URI to get them in as Last 4 in. There was an easy scenario where the A10 was a 1 bid league last year - we beat Bonnies in Olean and we win the A10 tourney and likely its a 1 bid league. That simple. That scenario is not far fetched and easily could have happened.

The issue this year and why people were saying in November that it looked like a 1 bid (and still does) is that no one beat a surefire NCAA team in OOC. Right now the Texas win by VCU is the best OOC win by the numbers, and Texas is a fringe bubble team right now. Last year we had beaten Seton Hall, PC and Bonnies had wins vs Syracuse and Buffalo - all of which were seen as NCAA teams during the OOC. So the real question is, short of resume building OOC wins, can teams like VCU, SLU or even Davidson win a slew of games in the league including beating each other enough to raise all their NET ratings above the cut line. To do so they almost have to avoid any landmine losses to sub 150 NET teams and there are a few of those standing in their way. Look it could happen, but they also could all beat each other up yielding no clear cut NCAA qualifier and leaving the 1 bid to whomever wins the tourney. To just keep saying "we always get more than 1 bid" is not a logical argument, things change year to year in college basketball landscape. The A10 and even the Big East are in transition years, lots of young teams, lots of transfers, etc. So I would bet our typical 3-4 bids becomes 1-2, and the Big East typical 5-6 bids becomes 3-4.

1-2 teams is significantly different from saying only 1

As for what if games, every conference has them every year.

What RJ said was that the A10 got a team in the NCAA Tournament that was "unjustifiably included" and the A10 snuck in a team. As if the A10 had an "in" and other teams from other conferences got screwed.

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

[Obadiah]

Wednesday games in the A-10, in addition to URI hosting VCU, 7 PM, on CBSSN:

George Washington at Davidson, 7 PM. On ESPN+.

George Mason at Dayton, 7 PM. On ESPN+.

Richmond at Saint Joseph's, 7 PM. On ESPN+.

St. Bonaventure at UMass, 7 PM. On ESPN+.

La Salle at Fordham, 7 PM. On ESPN+.

Saint Louis at Duquesne, 8 PM. On ESPN+.


In games involving URI OOC opponents:

PC at Xavier, 6;30 PM. On FS1.

Holy Cross at Army, 7 PM.

Stony Brook at Albany, 7 PM. On ESPN3.

Loyola (MD) at Bucknell, 7 PM.

UC Irvine at Hawaii, 11;59 PM.

[ramster]

Davidson would not have earned a bid last year without winning the tourney. And Bonnies needed a 10 game winning streak that included a win over a sure-fire NCAA team in URI to get them in as Last 4 in. There was an easy scenario where the A10 was a 1 bid league last year - we beat Bonnies in Olean and we win the A10 tourney and likely its a 1 bid league. That simple. That scenario is not far fetched and easily could have happened.

The issue this year and why people were saying in November that it looked like a 1 bid (and still does) is that no one beat a surefire NCAA team in OOC. Right now the Texas win by VCU is the best OOC win by the numbers, and Texas is a fringe bubble team right now. Last year we had beaten Seton Hall, PC and Bonnies had wins vs Syracuse and Buffalo - all of which were seen as NCAA teams during the OOC. So the real question is, short of resume building OOC wins, can teams like VCU, SLU or even Davidson win a slew of games in the league including beating each other enough to raise all their NET ratings above the cut line. To do so they almost have to avoid any landmine losses to sub 150 NET teams and there are a few of those standing in their way. Look it could happen, but they also could all beat each other up yielding no clear cut NCAA qualifier and leaving the 1 bid to whomever wins the tourney. To just keep saying "we always get more than 1 bid" is not a logical argument, things change year to year in college basketball landscape. The A10 and even the Big East are in transition years, lots of young teams, lots of transfers, etc. So I would bet our typical 3-4 bids becomes 1-2, and the Big East typical 5-6 bids becomes 3-4.

1-2 teams is significantly different from saying only 1

As for what if games, every conference has them every year.

What RJ said was that the A10 got a team in the NCAA Tournament that was "unjustifiably included" and the A10 snuck in a team. As if the A10 had an "in" and other teams from other conferences got screwed.

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

[Da_Process_Survivor]

George Mason beats Dayton infront of the sweater vests.

Mason now 4-0 on the road in conference play winning at St Joe's, URI, UMass and Dayton

[RF1]

UMass loses to the Bonnies 65-51 in front of a Mullins crowd of 2,551. 7th straight loss. UMass now 0-6 in A-10 play.

[rjsuperfly66]

1-2 teams is significantly different from saying only 1

As for what if games, every conference has them every year.

What RJ said was that the A10 got a team in the NCAA Tournament that was "unjustifiably included" and the A10 snuck in a team. As if the A10 had an "in" and other teams from other conferences got screwed.

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

[steviep123]

George Mason beats Dayton infront of the sweater vests.

Mason now 4-0 on the road in conference play winning at St Joe's, URI, UMass and Dayton

Wow! That's amazing!

[rambone 78]

GM is playing the way a lot of folks thought they would....but they have to win the conference tourney to get a bid...their OOC was horrible, no chance for an at large bid.

They might be the bid stealer that gets the A10 to 2 bids.....winning the A10 regular season title won't be enough.

That's if we don't win it ha ha.

[ramster]

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

To be fair based on your logic the NCAA should cancel all Post Season automatic births to Conference winners so the Davidson’s do not get in. Every year there are teams who win their Conference Tournaments who you will argue should not be in the Tournament. Only way to prevent this for sure is eliminate auto bids.

[rjsuperfly66]

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

To be fair based on your logic the NCAA should cancel all Post Season automatic births to Conference winners so the Davidson’s do not get in. Every year there are teams who win their Conference Tournaments who you will argue should not be in the Tournament. Only way to prevent this for sure is eliminate auto bids.

I’m not saying cancel auto-bids, they are fun and exciting. It’s still an accomplishment for those teams. I’m just saying I personally would not celebrate auto-bids as part of a conferences bid success because it’s not sustainable — it’s like hoping for upsets in the tournament to get an extra bid to pad the stats. A conference cannot keep relying on auto-bids to get 2-3 bids. Need that strong OOC from several teams and not just relying on beating enough bad teams in conference to make a run.

[ramster]

Interesting bracketology from Joe Lunardi today. Big East 4, American 3 & A10 with 2.

Big East Seeds
4-Marquette
6-Villanova
10-St Johns
11-Seton Hall

American Athletic Conference seeds
4-Houston
6-Cincinnati
10-Central Florida

Atlantic 10 seeds
10-St Louis
11-VCU

[reef]

I will still guess we are a 1 bid league

I will stick to that unless maybe 1 team goes 14-4 in conf or better then loses in the A10 tournament

[RhowdyRam02]

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

To be fair based on your logic the NCAA should cancel all Post Season automatic births to Conference winners so the Davidson’s do not get in. Every year there are teams who win their Conference Tournaments who you will argue should not be in the Tournament. Only way to prevent this for sure is eliminate auto bids.

No, that's not RJ's logic at all, it's a strawman argument. There's a big difference between saying a conference tournament champion wouldn't be in the tournament without winning their conference and saying they don't deserve to be in the NCAA. They keep arguing the former and you keep getting angry acting like they're arguing the latter. RJ is right and has been far too patient with this side discussion

[Da_Process_Survivor]

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

To be fair based on your logic the NCAA should cancel all Post Season automatic births to Conference winners so the Davidson’s do not get in. Every year there are teams who win their Conference Tournaments who you will argue should not be in the Tournament. Only way to prevent this for sure is eliminate auto bids.

really?

they're called Bubble Busters for a reason. the concept and term are nothing new and it happens every year. Its not a put down by RJ, its just the facts

It just so happens that the A10 put in 3 because they had a spot stealer in Davidson. Its no different than when the bubble shrinks by 1 because some 15-15 team won the AAC or Big East tournament

Really its a good thing and a part of what makes March Madness. Every team has a chance to get that golden ticket if they win their conference tournament

[bigappleram]

Nights like last night are why a 1 bid scenario is a reality. Last night 3 of the 4 teams with the best resume all lost to teams with NET ratings over 100. That will happen more often as the year progresses, road wins even for the top few teams will be hard to come by. I just don't see any teams building an NCAA resume in the league by running off 15 or 16 wins. Not this year.

[RhowdyRam02]

Exactly right. As good as last night's win was for us, it was bad for the conference. The conference needs VCU and St. Louis to resemble us and St. Bonaventure last season plus have a team pull a Davidson to have any hope of Ramster's "we've gotten three in for years so we'll clearly do it again" scenario playing out. As much as I hope they're right, this definitely looks like a one or two bid league this year.

[ramster]

Grady played in 33 games last year, so I’m not sure where you are going with that. Sure, I assume the possibility exists where a team was not healthy and not a tournament team but became healthy and made a run through the conference tournament. Davidson was not that team. If you think the fact (and this is not Davidson) a 13-17 team that wins their conference tournament and gets an auto-bid “earned it,” that’s on you. Has nothing to do with NET, RPI, or KenPom. Just the fact that the only reason a team made it was because of the designation of “automatic bid,” and to me that makes that tournament bid a little lucky. And it’s not a biased, anti A10 opinion. PC in 2014 was very lucky. They benefitted from a semi-final game against the 8 seed instead of the 1 seed. They beat 1 NIT team and 1 NCAA team in that run. It was a nice, fun run, but definitely required some luck. So if I’m analyzing the Big East bids in 2014, I’m saying “Only 2 teams were locks, one was a playin and lost, the other only made it because of an auto-bid.” Anyone who looked at that said that is not good enough for the long-term longevity of the league, and lucky for them, they did improve from there.

To be fair based on your logic the NCAA should cancel all Post Season automatic births to Conference winners so the Davidson’s do not get in. Every year there are teams who win their Conference Tournaments who you will argue should not be in the Tournament. Only way to prevent this for sure is eliminate auto bids.

No, that's not RJ's logic at all, it's a strawman argument. There's a big difference between saying a conference tournament champion wouldn't be in the tournament without winning their conference and saying they don't deserve to be in the NCAA. They keep arguing the former and you keep getting angry acting like they're arguing the latter. RJ is right and has been far too patient with this side discussion

He says Davidson did not deserve to be in the NCAA
I differ with that

End of discussion from me

[rjsuperfly66]

College basketball is the only major sport in America where playing well over 8.8% of the schedule can get you into the NCAA Tournament and completely ignore the other 91.2% except for seeding purposes. It makes it uniquely different from every other major sport, where postseason births are determined by on-field success over 100% of the season. Relying on the automatic bid to make the tournament clearly means that over 100% of the regular season, your team was not good enough to be a tournament team. Again, from a team perspective, it's still exciting, it's still fun, and it should still be celebrated. In multi-bid conferences, it often means beating at least one, if not two or three very good opponents. Experiencing that as a fan or as a team is still exciting. But you need to look at it from a conference perspective -- what does it mean for the long-term health of the conference to keep needing one team to pull multiple upsets and receive a bid they would otherwise have never been given? If you want to choose to put a band-aid over a much bigger issue, so be it. To me, it falls under "the end does not justify the means," and the conference needs to work to change that. That's all.

[Da_Process_Survivor]

College basketball is the only major sport in America where playing well over 8.8% of the schedule can get you into the NCAA Tournament and completely ignore the other 91.2% except for seeding purposes. It makes it uniquely different from every other major sport, where postseason births are determined by on-field success over 100% of the season. Relying on the automatic bid to make the tournament clearly means that over 100% of the regular season, your team was not good enough to be a tournament team. Again, from a team perspective, it's still exciting, it's still fun, and it should still be celebrated. In multi-bid conferences, it often means beating at least one, if not two or three very good opponents. Experiencing that as a fan or as a team is still exciting. But you need to look at it from a conference perspective -- what does it mean for the long-term health of the conference to keep needing one team to pull multiple upsets and receive a bid they would otherwise have never been given? If you want to choose to put a band-aid over a much bigger issue, so be it. To me, it falls under "the end does not justify the means," and the conference needs to work to change that. That's all.

yeah, no.

The only reason it "only exists in basketball" is because basketball is the only NCAA sport with a massive tournament like this.

Also, you're wrong. the NCAA Hockey Tournament has the same set up. 16 teams are selected, with 6 auto bids. All 6 are determined by conference championship tournaments.

As a PC fan you should be thankful for the conference tournaments, PC has gotten itself a couple bids recently because of wins in the BET.

And really, you should hate the NCAA Tournament as well. Is that not letting 8% of the games determine the champion instead of using 100% of the season? Why dont they just award the trophy to the #1 team in the country at the end of the season?

[steviep123]

It seems (to me) that rj and ramster are splitting hairs. Ramster is correct in that Davidson did deserve a bid. They won the conference tournament, which automatically qualifies them to the tournament, so that 100% makes them deserve it. The counter (which I think is RJ's point and is correct) is that Davidson did not do nearly enough to earn an at large bid and if URI scores 2 more points last year, only URI and SBU make it from the A10. So in my opinion you can both deserve to be there as the autobid qualifier and not be good enough to receive an at large bid if you hadn't won. I honestly have not had the time the past couple of seasons to pay enough attention, but the A10 needs to do better. Schedule better, but WIN GAMES OOC.

[rjsuperfly66]

The only reason it "only exists in basketball" is because basketball is the only NCAA sport with a massive tournament like this.

I'm not endorsing this, but you could very easily just have the conference regular season winner make the tournament, or play an abbreviated tournament like the Ivy with limited teams. But alas, not once have I argued about their being automatic bids in existence.

Also, you're wrong. the NCAA Hockey Tournament has the same set up. 16 teams are selected, with 6 auto bids. All 6 are determined by conference championship tournaments.

My exact quote was this

It makes it uniquely different from every other major sport, where postseason births are determined by on-field success over 100% of the season.

How many people in this country consider collegiate hockey a major sport? Most college sports do it, but college football does not eliminate/add teams just because they won a conference championship. Perhaps I could have stated that better.

As a PC fan you should be thankful for the conference tournaments, PC has gotten itself a couple bids recently because of wins in the BET.

I'm not anti-conference tournaments. You are kind of proving my point with this one. After the conference tournaments were played, PC had won enough games to be an at-large team (outside of 2014). Davidson last year beat two tournament teams, but would have been in the NIT if it had not been for the automatic bid. And even then, I'm saying that Davidson should be ecstatic about what happened last year. I just don't think the conference should.

And really, you should hate the NCAA Tournament as well. Is that not letting 8% of the games determine the champion instead of using 100% of the season? Why dont they just award the trophy to the #1 team in the country at the end of the season?

If you keep relying on automatic bids to be a 3 bid conference, eventually you aren't going to always get that lucky and you are going to hit a stretch where the favorite(s) win and you are a 1 or 2 bid conference. But I love the tournament, I love the conference tournaments, I even love auto-bids. But conferences that want to consistently be 3 bid conferences are trending in the wrong direction if they keep needing dramatic tournament runs to get there.

[Shaolin Swat]

1-2 teams is significantly different from saying only 1

As for what if games, every conference has them every year.

What RJ said was that the A10 got a team in the NCAA Tournament that was "unjustifiably included" and the A10 snuck in a team. As if the A10 had an "in" and other teams from other conferences got screwed.

Davidson winning the A10 is an earned bid. Nobody is screwed. That is an example of a team playing well at the end of the season, playing clutch basketball. Any team that wins their Conference Tournament deserves to get in the NCAA Tournament - period. No what ifs. Win the Conference you go - and no looking back and no apologizing.

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

At no point did I make the argument that teams win the conference tournament by luck or other teams choking. My point (and RJ's larger point I think) was that there are teams that earn bids through their season-long resume and teams that earn bids through winning the conference tournament. The fact of the matter is that the conference was fortunate that Davidson won the A10 tourney for the auto bid, because only URI and St. Bonaventure had resumes strong enough to make the tournament without winning the auto bid. You can't count on a team winning the conference tournament and "stealing" a bid every year. The A10 needs to have 3-4 teams consistently with resumes that can get an at-large bid (easier said than done).

Why are you comparing the 2017 URI team to the 2018 Davidson team? That 2017 URI team makes the tournament even if they lose the A10 final, so they had a resume strong enough to get them in the tournament. If Davidson loses to URI in last year's A10 final, they don't get an NCAA bid - because they didn't have a good enough resume. It doesn't matter how good they were playing at the end of the season if they had lost the A10 championship game.

[rjsuperfly66]

At no point did I make the argument that teams win the conference tournament by luck or other teams choking.

To be fair, that's being stated because I did say it, but I also still believe it. For an underdog team to run through the conference to get an automatic bid in a multi-bid conference, I find both to usually be true to different extents. Luck can occur in many ways, upsets that work in your favor so you play lesser opponents, injuries that work in your favor (so you player lesser talent), and I also find the idea of "getting hot" a form of luck, as it is not your norm. A team that normally shoots 30% from 3 who goes to a conference tournament and shoots 50% from 3, that's fluky as you performed one way for 92% of your season and another the other 8%, just like a team who typically does not play good defense and all of a sudden they get to the tournament and the defense looks improved, the opponents start missing open shots, some combination of both, etc. So maybe not all games are chokes because that underdog just became a buzzsaw for that one weekend, but then I would ask where that was for the other 92% of the season? Player development? All teams should have it. Cohesion? All teams should experience it. Injuries? Possibly, but how many guys miss 75% of the season and return in mid-February or for the conference tournament? Definitely happens, but not frequently.

[ramster]

RJ pretty clearly defined how he was characterizing the bids, as an "earned bid" being teams that are in regardless of the conference tournament results. You can argue semantics as to whether a conference tournament bid is earned, but that's not his larger point. The larger point is that last year the A10 had 2 teams who were able to make the NCAA tournament based on the strength of their resume - and that Davidson would not have secured an NCAA bid based on the strength of their resume.

So every team that wins their Conference Tournament does it by luck or by other teams choking or both. It can never be that Kellogg Grady was injured dutpring parts of the season resulting in a less than stellar NET or RPI, or that freshmen on Davidson become sophomores or better and Davidson becomes an NCAA Tournament team at the point of winning the A10 Tournament?
How about when URI won the A10 Tournament? For the first time since Lamar Odom? So URI was not a NCAA Tournament team because they got lucky and/or other teams chocked? It couldn’t be that URI just got on a role and played great and peaked at the right time?

I get looking solely at NET, RPI and Jim Baron’s entire “body or work” but there were years that Baron had the RPI but flailed late in the season - he did not get in with good Stats but did not finish strong.

Last year A10 got 3 teams in because 3 teams earned it - Davidson being one of them. It’s not all about the NET.

At no point did I make the argument that teams win the conference tournament by luck or other teams choking. My point (and RJ's larger point I think) was that there are teams that earn bids through their season-long resume and teams that earn bids through winning the conference tournament. The fact of the matter is that the conference was fortunate that Davidson won the A10 tourney for the auto bid, because only URI and St. Bonaventure had resumes strong enough to make the tournament without winning the auto bid. You can't count on a team winning the conference tournament and "stealing" a bid every year. The A10 needs to have 3-4 teams consistently with resumes that can get an at-large bid (easier said than done).

Why are you comparing the 2017 URI team to the 2018 Davidson team? That 2017 URI team makes the tournament even if they lose the A10 final, so they had a resume strong enough to get them in the tournament. If Davidson loses to URI in last year's A10 final, they don't get an NCAA bid - because they didn't have a good enough resume. It doesn't matter how good they were playing at the end of the season if they had lost the A10 championship game.

Never did I say you did. RJ did. Read through all the threads, not just some if your going to criticize me.

[Obadiah]

No Thursday games in the A-10.

In games involving URI OOC opponents:

Central Connecticut at Bryant, 7PM.

Elon at Charleston, 7 PM.

Middle Tennessee at Rice, 8 PM.

Charlotte at UTSA, 8 PM. On ESPN+.