Atlantic 10 Conference Thread

[Rambler303]

Great A10 tourney and final. Went right down to the wire. Congrats to Richmond, they have been snake bit the past few years, happy for them. Other positive is Davidson should get an at large, so two squads to pull for this year. Looked like a great atmosphere, A10 tourney should be fun in the coming years.

[ahunte1]

Just realized we the team probably won't get to have selection show watch parties in Gentile anymore with the A10 final being on selection Sunday.

[goramblers2011]

That was an electric atmosphere.

[JCT]

This is Richmond's first trip to the tournament since 2011. Davidson is probably in, too.

[Mertz2003]

Awesome game and atmosphere...and the result the conference needed. Definitely looking forward to Brooklyn next year.

[Oceaneer]

Just realized we the team probably won't get to have selection show watch parties in Gentile anymore with the A10 final being on selection Sunday.

That will only be the case if your team is in the finals. Otherwise most teams leave after they lose and are home by Sunday night.

URI was in the finals back in 2017 and 2018. Beat VCU for the automatic bid in 2017 (were a bubble team that the committee later said in the show was in regardless) and ended up watching the selection show in the unplanned setting of a Pittsburgh airport concourse bar. Rhody was securely in the field in 2018 regardless of the tournament final result and reserved a room at a hotel/restaurant in DC to watch inviting the media and supporters.

[Oceaneer]

https://twitter.com/DavidPJablonski/sta ... 2136377347

Seven straight A-10 Tournaments with a different champion.
2015 VCU
2016 St Joe's
2017 URI
2018 Davidson
2019 St Louis
2020 Covid cancelled
2021 St Bonaventure
2022 Richmond

[Mertz2003]

Turns out Dayton was the first team out, which means Richmond essentially knocked them out. That means the A-10 was a 2-bid league either way.

[JPSchmack]

I am curious to see how being in the A-10 is going to change our recruiting....I would love to see us take 5 Chicago kids and dominate!

I think the biggest mistake a school can make is change recruiting approaches when switching conferences. The way you recruit has gotten you 3 NCAA bids and 6 NCAA wins in 4 tournaments. Why would you change a single thing about who you target?

Upgrading conferences should make more of your targets say yes. But if you change tactics, you could get more swings and misses. If you can get guys that can make a Final Four and Sweet 16, those same guys can easily compete in the A-10. Change nothing, but get more commitments from the same targets!



Also, I want to apologize in advance for what you'll face in the A-10. You do get the benefit of not having to win such a high percentage to make the NCAA's.. but now you have to win a slightly lower percentage and it's a lot harder. Ever since the NCAA switched to this NET formula, the A-10 has just been getting (what's a past-tense word that's not censored involving penetration?). The A-10 was a four-bid league this year, but St. Bona's predictive metrics were bad because they had no bench (and injuries led to a blowout loss to VT), so Ken Pom called them a mediocre team that was "lucky" instead of an experienced team that was good; Dayton lost 3 of their first 4 to bad teams in guarantee games; and the top six beat each other up, so we all got left behind the ACC (who we were 7-3 against).

It's a miserable, yet communal experience. Welcome to the club. Hate us all from New Year's to Selection Sunday, but every single A-10 person is a Loyola fan from Selection Sunday through New Year's.

I hope you beat Ohio State by 90.

[JPSchmack]

Bona brought a ton of students, which was cool. Doubt we'll be able to do that unfortunately

I'm a Bonnie. Our fan base has been described as "a cult, but in a good way." We had a lack-luster showing in the A-10 tourney crowd because the expectations for this season were so high and the mid-Dec to mid-Jan injuries and performance just kicked us in the nutz. (I now have this next weekend off from work, because I requested it off in October when I expected to follow the Bonnies around for two weeks, I didn't go to A-10 because I was saving my money).

There are A-10 fan bases who always show (Dayton, VCU) and two fanbases who can match in good times (Bona, Davidson), but it's just really hard for Bona/DC to look impressive when they have such a small alumni base. They are bottom 10 in Division I in enrollment.

I went to the 2018 NCAA Tourney in Dallas (watching you guys beat Miami from an airport bar on my connecting). I got to the arena, and we had 4000 fans in the place going crazy and yelling their faces off. We had a louder and better crowd than Florida; Florida's enrollment (59,000) was far larger than our total living alumni (29,000).

When you see A-10 crowds, remember that St. Bonaventure and Davidson have 2,000 students. We are freaking tiny. But our attendance is double our enrollment. I'm not trying to talk trash at all, I really respect you guys and love that we got you into our league because you help us; I'm just saying, you average 3,200 fans for a campus of 12,000 under, 16,000 total in a market of 9,618,502 people. St. Bonaventure averages just under 4,000 a game, with an enrollment of 1850, and a market of 24,000 people.

But again, I hope you beat Ohio State by 90.