The A-10's origin dates back to 1976 when the Eastern-8 was formed by Massachusetts (UMass), George Washington (GW), Duquesne, Villanova, Penn State, Rutgers, West Virginia, and Pittsburgh. St. Bonaventure (SBU) and Rhode Island (URI) joined the league within its first four years after it saw some departures to the Big East which formed in 1979. The Eastern-8 rebranded itself as the Atlantic-10 in 1982 when it expanded to ten teams (one of which was current member St Joe's). The conference has evolved over the years as the college athletics landscape has changed. The league today has the following 14 members:

Duquesne (1976, 1993*)
George Washington (1976)
UMass (1976)
St Bonaventure (1979)
Rhode Island (1980)
St Joseph's (1982)
Dayton (1995)
LaSalle (1995)
Fordham (1995)
Richmond (2001)
St Louis (2005)
VCU (2012)
George Mason (2013)
Davidson (2014)

* Duquesne briefly left the league for the MCC in 1992 before returning back again after a single season

The league is today headquartered in Newport News, Va. Bernadette McGlade has been the commissioner since 2008. The conference sponsors championship competition in nine men's and twelve women's NCAA sanctioned sports. It is primarily best known for its men's basketball.

A-10 men's basketball is comprised of an 18 game regular season league schedule. All teams play one another at least once per season. The schedule comprises five home and home partners and single games against the other eight members (four home and four away). The league periodically sets the home and home partners with an emphasis on pairing the projected best NCAA prospects along with historic rivalries and travel considerations. The annual conference tournament format presently includes all members with every game played at a single neutral tournament site. The tournament has been frequently played in recent years at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Other recent locations have also included the Capital One Arena in Washington-DC and PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh.

The A-10 typically throughout its history has sent multiple teams to the NCAA Tournament via its automatic tournament bid and at large selections. The league has participated in 44 NCAA Tournaments and only had a single representative on nine occasions (five of them in it early days from 1977-1981 when the NCAA field was smaller). The A-10 has had at large bids in all but two seasons (2002 and 2005) since 1991 and averaged three NCAA Tournament teams annually in that same 30 year span.

A-10 Member: Rhode Island




University of Rhode Island (URI)
Founded as the state public land grant research university in 1892
Main Campus - Kingston, RI (1,254 acres)
Full-time Enrollment - Undergraduate: 14,654 Graduate: 3,407


URI is located in the colonial era village of Kingston in the town of South Kingstown. It has a rural campus with the small village centered at its main entrance. The town of South Kingstown is a south facing coastal community with a permanent full time year round resident population of 32,000. It however has far more residents (over 10k+) when part time inhabitants such as fall/winter college students and summer beach home inhabitants are factored in. The URI campus is in the least populated northern part of South Kingstown some ten miles from its more populated and built up coast. It is located on Route 138 some ten miles off an Interstate Route 95 exit. URI is some 15 miles from Newport and 30 miles from Providence.

URI Athletics
Nickname: Rams
Colors; Keaney Blue, Navy Blue, and White
Varsity Sports - Men: 7 (including FCS football) Women: 9

Men's Basketball
First Season: 1904
NCAA Tournament Appearances: 10 Record: 8-10 Highlights: 1988 Sweet-16 & 1998 Elite-8
NIT Appearances: 15 Record: 14-16 Highlights: 1946 Finals & 2010 Final-4
Current Head Coach: David Cox (Record of 52-39 in his 4th season)
Home: Ryan Center on Kingston Campus - opened in 2002 - capacity 7,657


URI started men's basketball play in 1904. Rhode Island has the second most wins of all New England D1 schools behind only four time NCAA Champion UConn. Its most successful era was under the tutelage of Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame Coach Frank Keaney who went 401-124 from 1920 to 1948. Keaney is credited by many as the innovator of the modern fast break as he sped up what had been a slow low scoring game. Several coaches have have led the team to the postseason and recorded wins. The Rams have registered notable postseason victories over programs such as Missouri, Syracuse, Purdue, Kansas, Creighton, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Vanderbilt, Boston College, Seton Hall, Northwestern, Nevada, and Virginia Tech. Several players have made the NBA over the years with recent long term NBA stars that included Lamar Odom and Cuttino Mobley.

Welcome to the A-10. Thought some of you might like to get to know the league that the Ramblers will soon be joining. I have posted some general A-10 information and history above in the first post of this thread. I have added information about league member Rhode Island in the second post. It is my hope that some other A-10 member fans will make additional posts about their schools so you can learn more about your future conference mates. I have seen that some have already started to post in other threads.

Thanks for all the information and warm welcome!

I second that… thank you for the info!

Perhaps some A-10 visitors to this site can add to this thread and post some info on the schools they support.

The Eastern-8/A-10 has greatly evolved over the years. It was originally mostly northeast public universities that were all contained in the Amherst-MA to Washington-DC to Morgantown-WV triangle. The ten departed all sports institutions that were once in the league included:

Villanova
Pittsburgh
Penn State
Rutgers
West Virginia
Virginia Tech
Temple
UNC-Charlotte
Xavier
Butler

Seven of these ten schools went directly to the two iterations of the Big East. An eighth team (Temple) was slated to go the original Big East but it disbanded before it was to occur and the school ended up in the AAC.