A10 Basketball battling downward trend of teams in NCAA Tournament
by Stu Durando of The Saint Louis - Dispatch
April 11,2023
There were signs at the start of January that the Atlantic 10 was going to need more than one team to build an impressive conference record to have a chance to get multiple teams into the NCAA Tournament.
By February the chance of continuing a 16-year streak with at least two representatives was heavily damaged.
By March, the A-10’s status as a one-bid league was a foregone conclusion, and only Virginia Commonwealth made the 68-team men’s basketball field.
The A-10 has seen a downward trend since sending six teams in 2014. From 2012 to ’14, 15 teams from the league played in the tourney.
The conference has undergone a rash of coaching changes, lost key players and seen the departure of programs and arrival of others — just like most leagues around the country. Amid the tumult, it is scheduling that many pinpoint as the biggest problem for the A-10.
Commissioner Bernadette McGlade said the conference needs to stay the course — and perform better in nonconference games — as it seeks to reverse direction.
“The league is certainly in good shape,” she said. “This year is sort of an outlier in terms of only having one. I don’t think anyone is in any type of panic mode. I think we’ll stay the course with what we’re doing strategically.”
The A-10 finished this season with only three teams in the top 100 of the NET rankings and one in the top 200 for nonconference strength of schedule. That team was St. Louis University, at No. 53.
By posting a 1-19 record in Quadrant 1 nonconference games and 8-16 mark in Quadrant 2, the A-10 created a difficult path for any team to garner an at-large berth.
“That will be a discussion at our May meetings because clearly it’s a challenge,” SLU athletics director Chris May said. “That’s a big concern. We’ll have to look at everything from scheduling to minimum requirements. We’ve been in the league with a lot of bids, but it’s not there right now.”
A-10 teams have one NCAA Tournament win in the last four years it was played. There also have been unfortunate COVID situations such as Dayton being primed for a No. 1 seed in 2020 before the tourney was canceled and VCU having to forfeit in the first round in 2021 because of COVID.
Not meeting expectations
The league has guidelines for nonconference scheduling but nothing that is mandatory. Last season, league members played 50% of nonconference games against Quadrant 4 opponents. All but four teams suffered at least one Quad 4 loss.
The league’s scheduling policy includes a goal of winning at least 70% of games before the start of A-10 play. This season the cumulative winning percentage in nonconference was .583.
So, there is a scheduling puzzle between incorporating upper echelon opponents — if you can’t get them to play — and building a good record.
“The (NCAA selection) committee looks at what you have control over in scheduling, and you have control in nonconference,” McGlade said. “If you’re going to schedule a team 250 or higher in the NET, you’d better win that game. It not only hurts your team but has a ripple effect for the rest of the league. We look at wanting to schedule teams that are 175 to 200 or better. That’s easier said than done.”
McGlade acknowledged the schedule problem that has been known for years. There typically are teams that will be among the top 50 or 75 in the NET that won’t play at a place such as VCU, SLU or Dayton.
Richmond coach Chris Mooney has the longest tenure in the A-10, having been hired in 2005. He has seen the league improve from one team in the NCAA Tournament to six and then return to one.
“If you look at the high majors, they’re playing each other more and more,” Mooney said. “We’ve seen a rapid slip. If you look at the schedules the top half of the A-10 played eight to 10 years ago, we’ve had a pretty big drop in power conference teams we’re playing. I really do think it’s a major issue.”
The A-10 tried to give a scheduling boost to the teams most likely to vie for the NCAA Tournament in 2022-23 by giving them two games against each other. For instance, SLU played twice against VCU, Dayton, Davidson and Loyola. However, the latter two teams fell well short of expectations.
Challenge coming?
McGlade said it is possible the A-10 will arrange with another conference for a challenge event after an agreement with the Mountain West for the 2020-21 season fell through because of COVID. SLU was supposed to play San Diego State that season.
“I think it is valuable and we have been working on that,” McGlade said, without mentioning a league. “We have been trying to get a conference challenge that is not only interesting for fans but guaranteed games that are important.”
Multi-team events (MTEs) are an avenue for teams to play power conference opponents. As of now, Davidson, Dayton, St. Bonaventure, Rhode Island, Loyola, VCU and Massachusetts are in events that will provide opportunities for quality wins. SLU does not have an MTE solidified.
The A-10 has undergone a bit of a transformation since its best seasons. Xavier, Butler, Temple and Charlotte left and VCU, Davidson, George Mason and Loyola-Chicago have joined.
Coaching wise, Travis Ford has been in the league longer than every one except Mooney and St. Bonaventure’s Mark Schmidt. Since his arrival at SLU in 2016, seven schools have had three coaches.
Ultimately, the bottom line is for A-10 programs to build better teams, win more games and avoid bad losses. That has not been happening on a consistent enough basis.
“Even when we had five or six teams (in the NCAA tourney), we talked about how to increase the number,” McGlade said. “This was an outlier. I don’t think something becomes a consistent concern until there’s a period of time over which it’s occurring. It doesn’t mean we don’t take it seriously.”
In
red are comments from Bernadette McGlade.
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/college ... 73151.html
