Atlantic 10 a 1 bid league?

[TheBall]

VCU the only safe team right now.

The thing I notice about their bubble teams is that they all hive ridiculously bad strength of schedules. 150'ish seems to be the norm.

[stever20]

VCU the only safe team right now.

The thing I notice about their bubble teams is that they all hive ridiculously bad strength of schedules. 150'ish seems to be the norm.

um, no. Dayton is a lock now just about after their win over VCU. Davidson is getting really close as well- their RPI is 43- if they beat VCU they are in.

It's weird, if anything the VCU injury to Weber has helped the A10 more than it hurt them.

[ta111]

What have you been watching? Dayton is in easy, probably a 7-8 seed after yesterday's win ( their RPI is 29) at VCU and Davidson is in many brackets. Probably get 3 in.

[Omaha1]

I think you could make a pretty strong argument that they should be a one bid league, but they'll get 2 probably. You can count the number of quality wins OOC among the 100 or however many teams are in the league on one hand.

[TheBall]

Big win for Dayton keeping them in the conversation. Still, a complete lack of quality wins in that conference.

Conference of Americans sucks this year too, but Methodist is looking safe and I think uconn will win the conference tourney in their backyard. Not sure what to think of the other bubble teams. Tulsa? Wtf? Temple is a lot of smoke and mirrors, but they have the big win over Kansas. Cincy looks like they are done.

Who lands more bids? A10 or the Conference of Americans?

[ta111]

I think you could make a pretty strong argument that they should be a one bid league, but they'll get 2 probably. You can count the number of quality wins OOC among the 100 or however many teams are in the league on one hand.

You could make the argument, but it wouldn't be strong.

[GibsoniaPA]

VCU the only safe team right now.

The thing I notice about their bubble teams is that they all hive ridiculously bad strength of schedules. 150'ish seems to be the norm.

um, no. Dayton is a lock now just about after their win over VCU. Davidson is getting really close as well- their RPI is 43- if they beat VCU they are in.

It's weird, if anything the VCU injury to Weber has helped the A10 more than it hurt them.

I agree that injury in a way did bring down VCU to beatable status. On the A-10 I have 2 observations:

1) They often have difficulty scheduling ranked teams OOC as their risk to benefit quotient is not appealing. Many top programs refuse to play them home and home. Means less quality win chances. Agreed- that's their hill to climb.
2) The A-10 lost X, Temple, (Butler only one year), and not only has avoided falling apart but has maintained a very decent league profile. Gotta give them props. This will remain a multi-invite league for the tournament every year. Not too shabby.

[Fieldhouse Flyer]

VCU the only safe team right now.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/ncaab-the ... 44831.html

Dayton (22-6, 12-4 A-10): It's a disservice to Dayton to list the Flyers as a bubble team any longer.

They're likely playing for seeding from this point forward after a 59-55 win at Atlantic 10 co-leader VCU. Despite only having six scholarship players and nobody taller than 6-foot-6, Dayton could take the outright lead in the Atlantic 10 if it beats Rhode Island at home Tuesday and Davidson loses one of its next two. The Flyers have quality wins against Texas A&M, Ole Miss and now VCU and no bad losses besides a head-scratcher against Duquesne earlier this month. That's a strong enough profile to get Dayton off the bubble and trending toward a No. 8 seed or so.

http://www.udpride.com/images/rpi.htm

[stever20]

Big win for Dayton keeping them in the conversation. Still, a complete lack of quality wins in that conference.

Conference of Americans sucks this year too, but Methodist is looking safe and I think uconn will win the conference tourney in their backyard. Not sure what to think of the other bubble teams. Tulsa? Wtf? Temple is a lot of smoke and mirrors, but they have the big win over Kansas. Cincy looks like they are done.

Who lands more bids? A10 or the Conference of Americans?

You are really funny....

AAC has 4 teams in the RPI top 50 now.
SMU 20
Tulsa 30
Temple 39
Cincy 50(hardly done)

And don't look now, but UConn is down to 69. The conference has only 3 games left where one of those 5 teams could take a bad loss- Temple to ECU and SMU/Tulsa in the QF of the conference tourney. That's it. Cincy and UConn have no chance of facing one of the lower teams. Their worst case would be a loss at home to Memphis, or to Memphis in the QF of the AAC tourney.

Also really helping the AAC out is the rest of the bubble is having a bad weekend...
look at Lunardi's bracket from Friday
2 of the last 4 teams in the bracket lost this weekend(Purdue, Stanford)
2 of the 1st 4 teams out in the bracket lost this weekend(Texas, Illinois)
2 of the 2nd 4 teams out in the bracket lost this weekend(Pitt, Miami)

Meanwhile, all of the AAC bubble teams won. That's a big fact.

[TheBall]

So looking like a two bid league? I'm not buying Davidson or URI as tourney teams.

I think long term the Atlantic 10 can beat out the Conference of Americans and hang with the Mountain West to be the best of the non-power conferences. I don't root against the Atlantic 10.

I also like seeing Dayton play well. If Dayton can continue to make the dance and start to establish a national brand and reputation then they can become a viable expansion candidate. I don't want to expend, as I,love the round robin, but if we have to expand I would rather have viable candidates than have to go dumpster diving.