WH

Remember, Majerus has never had a losing season. I feel certain he won't have a losing season with this roster, either. Just give him a month or so and we'll see.

Tim Ream had a fantastic year for the Red Bulls and he would have been my choice for ROY. Not the fastest center back, but great poise and positioning, never mind distribution from the back. USMNT has some good young players to choose from for the 2014 and 2018 WCs. Hard to believe he lasted as long as he did in the MLS draft. Nobody in the league, including the Red Bulls, thought he would be this good. As for the rest of the callup, Bradley didnt want to ask most of the busier guys playing in Europe. The SA game takes place outside the WC qualifying window and it's a long flight for such a meaningless game. Bradley wants to give some young guys a look and offer a reward to older MLS players whose season just ended and who would normally never get a cap.

I read the board every week. Love to see all the excitement here. First time, really, since SLU joined the A-10. Wish I could be as excited about my program, UMass, which used be considered, er, A-10 Royalty! (see how easy that rolls off my tongue, er, keyboard). Looking forward to the X and Temple games. The Bills are either going to shock the league, or fall back a bit as expected because of youth. My guess is that X is too big, too athletic, playing real well right now. Temple is much like SLU. Dunphy runs a lot of screens and picks and is probably the most similar coach in the league to RM. But the Bills match up pretty well. SLU is definitely the team I would least like to play in the A-10 tourney.

I think this is the first time I have ever seen the phrase, A-10 Royalty. Wonder what Burwell is drinking! I suppose X can be considered royalty, and Temple is back on top again, but Richmond, Dayton and Charlotte? Uh-UH. In any case, SLU has not cost any A-10 a bid. Charlotte beat the Bills, of course, and Dayton can look at losses to St. Joe's and Duquesne. URI just isn't beating enough of the league's best teams. A loss by Temple or Xavier to SLU won't hurt their prospects at all. I also doubt anyone in the A-10 is getting nervous about SLU being good. Really, now. The league will be even better if the Bills are good and RM is back in the national spotlight. All I can say is: more please. I think most A-10 fans think the same.

Nothing wrong with vehemently well argued points, Taj! Besides, doing previews for a decade now has made me humble about the whole prediction business. I emphatically reject any claim of any expertise. What makes predictions harder this year is the seeming parity. I don’t see a whole lot separating teams. Not sure that’s a good thing, either. It could cost us some at-large bids. Like you, I believe religiously that college basketball is more of a guard’s game. Great forwards or true centers are hard to find. Because of their scarcity, however, good bigmen can have an outsized impact on their team’s performance. Lasme was a good example. He didn’t play well against the Bills, but he had a great senior year and was dangerous on offense and defense. Dangerous enough to get picked in the NBA second round. I think Chris Wright can have that kind of impact on Dayton. I think he’s that good. I also think Dayton’s guards are talented enough to play a complementary role. (Warren has been wildly inconsistent, but he’s better than Polk.) Put it this way: If I were given a choice of getting Roberts back for one year in exchange for dropping Wright, I would decline. Wright has the ability to take this team farther than Roberts ever could have. The Flyers have a veteran team and the players rebound and defend. Scoring might be an issue early on, but a team can go far with Dayton’s particular strengths, especially when there’s a stud on the roster. Larry Hughes did the same for the Bills once upon a time. Re: A-10 tourney. I haven’t gone since my kids were born. I was hoping to go last year but my wife was traveling. AC is less than three hours from my house and I would like to go next March. I am planning on it.

There will always be surprises - it's part of what makes sports so great. And there will be some more in the A-10 this year, to be sure. One reason is because the league is so deep. I didnt actually say the overall level of talent in the A-10 is much higher this year than last year, Taj. It may not be. I don't see any potentially great teams like last year's X squad, for instance. What I meant is that the caliber of talent has risen leaguewide, especially at the bottom. The result is that the raw level of talent appears to be closer from 1-14 than anytime I can remember. Usually the A-10 has had 2-3 dogs every season. Not this year. The Bonnies have sharply upgraded their talent and Duquesne and Fordham both signed large and talented recruiting classes. The Duquesne class might even rival the Bills class. That's not to say those teams won't lose lots of games in conference play. Someone has to. What I do hope is that the higher talent base leads to a strong noncon record and hence at-large bids. As for Dayton, I would point out that UMass got BETTER after losing two A-10 First Team players, Rashaun Freeman and Stephane Lasme (also the conference POY two years ago). I think it's much easier to replace one guy than two or five. Roberts will be missed, but in some ways the team's over reliance on him held his teammates back. I fully expect other Flyers to step up, just as many STL fans expect their frosh to step up. We'll see.

You make many excellent points, CT, and I even made some of them myself. (-: I do allow for most teams to over or underperform, but in the case of STL, I see 11th as a worst-case scenario. I cannot imagine a healthy team with Lisch, Liddell, Majerus and a new arena finishing below Fordham, Duquesne or Bonaventure. Can the Bills win more A-10 games than last year (7-9)? I am uncertain. Granted, the team is more talented, but younger players do make more mistakes and their defense is usually inconsistent. Despite the mediocre talent on last year's team, the seniors did play like seniors. In other words, they played good D most of the time and didn't make as many mistakes. That goes a long way in explaining the 7 conference wins. Whatever the case, it should be a exciting year for the Bills despite the youth. Recruiting is no longer a dead zone and the freshmen class is worthy of the buzz it's generated. Sure beats thinking about Ikeator, Dixon, Maguire, Knollmeyer, Relphorde, Mitchell, etc.

I've always said my predicted order of finish is the LEAST valuable part of my previews. I simply do it because fans love to argue about it. Whenever I raise the idea of dropping order of finish, everyone on the A-10 board objects. In any case, “worse” is a highly relative and subjective term, Clock Tower. I think the Bills could finish anywhere from 5th place to 12th place, assuming every A-10 team maintains good health. I think six or seven teams are clearly better than STL. I would lump the Bills in the second group of about five teams. I err toward a cautious forecast for a simple reason. I have seen all of the returning players around the league – some quite a bit - but I have seen none of new Bills, save for some web clips. What’s more, the current A-10 might have the most depth, top to bottom, I have ever seen. The talent level has especially improved among the lesser programs. Easy wins will be harder to come by. As a result, one extra win, or loss, could be worth several spots in the standings. My gut told me to rate STL higher, partly because I expect RickMa to outcoach some of his counterparts. Ultimately I went by my “book,” so to speak, valuing experience over youth. My book isn’t always right, but it’s tended to guide me well in the past when writing my previews. On new players: By and large I rely on second-hand info of people who've seen them play, although I do peruse the video clips on the Web and see a few kids first-hand. In Reed's case, the chief analyst of PrepStars handbook saw him play a number of times and came away impressed with his offensive skills in summer camps. The big knock, as that analyst saw it, was Reed's physical immaturity, which contributed to difficulties on defense.

This is the hardest team in the A-10 to assess and I frankly lack conviction in putting the Bills 11th. My placement is based on record in conference play. After I looked at the team’s A-10 sked, I had STL anywhere from 5-11 to 8-8 before ending up at 6-10 (same record as the team I place 10th). Like Davidnark, though, I would not be surprised if the Bills finished higher. If I were a betting man, I would take the over (higher-place finish) for the reasons he cites. In fact, I made the very same points in the thread on the Bills at the A-10 board. I would disagree, however, with the notion that I am underplaying the impact freshmen can have in today’s game. Certainly I remember the boost Lisch and Liddell gave to the Bills as frosh. I just think most A-10 teams have plenty of talent in their upper classes returning. Generally speaking, if older players have raw talent roughly equal to that of younger players, experience wins out. The X-factors, of course, are Majerus and the new arena. Majerus should be energized now that he has his own players to work with. If he still is a great coach – and I think he is – he’ll find a way to get the Bills to 8-8 or even 9-7 in conference play. The Chaif should also help in that regard. Anything better than that would be an astonishing achievement, but after seeing what another great coach, Fran Dunphy, did in his second year at an A-10 program, I am unwilling to bet against RM.

I dunno. When I looked at this impressive 7-player recruiting class compiled by Majerus, I wonder what the problem is. Sure looks like St. Louis is recruiting just fine to me. The Bills might be missing out on some good kids, but they've gotten others. Would these kids have come if St. Louis were in the MVC? Impossible to say, but I find it hard to believe that some recruits turned down Majerus because they wanted to play Creighton and SIU instead of Xavier and UMass.

Far be it from me to convert the unconverted when it comes to Calipari. B-Roy and I have discussed this before. As a Umass fan who witnessed the exalted work of Saint Cal, I am obviously a partisan supporter. Always will be. However, one point I do want to make is this: Calipari did not recruit the "best" players when he was at UMass. We had some really good players, to be sure, but most were not top 100 recruits. The Final 4 team had two kids who were top 100 recruits in high school, the most notable being Marcus Camby of course. The rest were mostly overlooked players who were often undersized for their positions. Nothing like this bounty of supremely athletic, supremely gifted squad that Calipari has now. I don't know what St. Louis and Charlotte fans saw of Cal at Memphis that's led to this view of him that he can't coach all that great. All I know is this: I watched Cal orchestrate the best rebuilding job in college basketball history when he was at UMass during the late 1980s and 1990s. I watched or listened to almost every game for eight years. If you had seen what I had seen, game in and game out, you would not be having a discussion about whether Cal can coach.

http://www.boston.com/sports/colleges/mens...ht_for_majerus/

I'm certainly not trying to fan any flames. The thought that Soderberg would cheat would never occur to me, but I and others found the following sentence in the school statement rather curious: "The new head coach also must be committed to the University's history of following NCAA regulations and graduating its student-athletes." Of course, the school also talks about Soderberg's integrity in its statement, but why mention anything about following NCAA rules? It's to be expected that any new coach hired will follow the rules. I suspect someone got a little excited when writing the statement, but who knows. It would have been better to leave that sentence out.

Although I won't change my predictions, I could see Joe's moving above GW, which has some big problems with depth and experience. Nor would it surprise me if they surpassed Dayton or Fordham. I just couldnt get past the young guards. I dont think they will quite measure up this year to what L&L did last year for the Bills. Next year, though? The Hawks are likely to be one of preseason favorites to win the league.

That largely has to do with his recruiting, 3 star, as I mentioned. If he were a great recruiter, well, he wouldnt be at St. Louis anymore! There are only two coaches in the A-10 that are clearly superior to Soderberg in terms of strategy, X and Os, etc. As for where I place the Bills, it matters not of course. You folks know how good your team can be. That said, I toyed with placing St. Louis from 1 to 4. Like just above every college team, the Bills have some questions that need answering. On Lavender: I hold a higher opinion than B-Roy. He did well in Oklahoma and the Sooners actually missed him last year. Hard for me to blame a player who has a falling out with Sampson. There's been more than a few. Basically, Lavender will be fine if he doesnt try to do it all. Xavier has plenty of players who can score. DL will be a major, major upgrade on Finn.

I would have to find my records, but I think I had St. Louis at 10 or more likely 11. As I always say, though, my predicted finishes and/or records are the least relevant parts of my previews. For the record, I watched about 14-15 Bills games in the two years preceding the move to the A-10, but it's very different when you watch a team play in the same league as opposed to a different one (C-USA). Also for the record, I never tried to persuade Bills fans why their team would finish near the bottom of the standings. I merely explained the reasons behind my prediction. This is an impossible racket and some teams always surprise. If I had more definitive powers, I would be a rich man. (-: Where did I go wrong? Two things. I didnt expect THAT big of an improvement in IV's play. I knew he was talented if not super athletic, but he was terrific last year. Second, I did not expect BOTH Lisch and Liddell to play as well as they did so quickly. I went with the odds in my preview. It's rare for two freshmen on the same team to play like that. It's only happened a few times in all the time I've watched the A-10 (23 years). Nonetheless, I was way off on my predicted record. I am duly humbled! In any case, I am looking forward to watching St. Louis play this year. The Bill are now carrying water for the A-10. MUCH is expected of them.

Hi fellas. Thanks for the nice words. I did pretty good overall on my picks last year. Someone posted a recap on the A-10 board comparing my predictions to reality, but I cant find it. Of course, I got a few teams quite wrong in terms of predicted records, namely St. Louis and LaSalle. Such errors are to be expected. The forecasting business is basically an impossible one. But no, Torch. I am not overcompensating. I don't do that. What happened was, I just watched 60 A-10 games I taped last year on my very large harddrives, and St. Louis really impressed me. After all, the Bills really were one of the best teams in the league last season. So long as the sophs avoid the dreaded second-year jinx, the Bills will again be one of the best teams in the league. But we'll get to that preview in due time. (-:

It would be interesting if the situation you suggest unfolds. Twelve Big East teams leave to form a new league with the football schools, ND, Nova, Gtown and let’s say MU. St. John’s, Seton Hall, PC and Depaul are left to form a new Big East. They retain the brand and the right to play in MSG. That gives them the leverage to draw the best teams from the A-10. The could go the all-parochial route and invite Xavier, Dayton, St. Joe’s, LaSalle and St. Louis. I am skeptical, though. Or they could find do a mix of public and private. I figure Temple (Philly market), Massachusetts (greater Boston market), Charlotte, Xavier and Dayton could round out a 9-team conference. Or three more could be added among St. Louis, St. Joe’s. Richmond and GW. Lot of possibilities. That’s why I don’t worry too much about it. You can drive yourself crazy examining all the scenarios.

As long as ND sticks with the football schools, MU has a reasonable chance. Still, the distance between MU and all the other schools would have to be a factor. If St. Johns revives its hoops program, it wont make it any easier for MU. One question for you, MU. I've been trying to find out the precise details of who would control the Big East brand if there was a split-up. Are you 100% sure that the nonfootball schools would get dibs?

As you know, MU, this is complicated stuff and there are a lot of moving parts. I am less certain that the nonfootball schools will try to stick together in the future, but that's exactly what they did two years ago before Marquette and Co. were added. Ultimately, money talks. So I could see the football schools trying to get rid of a few teams and forming a 12-team league. And I could see some of the nonfootball schools making a decision solely based on their own best interest, and saying to hell with their compatriots. Who gets left out would be very difficult to determine, however. I suspect Seton Hall and PC top the list. After that, it's dicier. The BE football schools would probably want to keep St. John's, Nova and Georgetown because of historical and geographical ties and because of the big markets they represent. Does that mean Depaul and Marquette are jettisoned? Alternatively, the nonfootball schools could form a 9-team league. It's an ideal size, but the urge to get bigger has dominated college hoops for more than a decade now. With the Big 12, Big 10, SEC and ACC near or at 12 members, I could see a new league forming out of the Big East doing the same. That would depend a lot on potential TV money, however, and the one thing I have little clue about is what the networks want. Especially ESPN.

I think two divisions can be created without too much trouble. The SEC seems content with its setup. It's all a matter of doing it prudently. In addition, if we went to a pair of 7-team divisions, we could play every team in our own division twice AND play four teams in the other division once. Those cross-division matchups could be dictated by which teams are expected to be good. Left up to me, I would create the following two divisions: East: St. Joe's, Mass, Rhody, Temple, Fordham, Bonaventure, LaSalle West: Charlotte, St. Louis, Dayton, GW, Richmond, Xavier, Duquesne.

Temple has no desire to join the MAC or CUSA in all sports. Basketball is king at Temple and always has been. The school would love for football to take center stage and its fantasy scenario is to improve the football program so the BE will eventually take it back. I’d call that scenario farfetched, to put it lightly. Philly is an East Coast city, pure and simple. In the early 1990s, Duquesne and LaSalle were in midwestern conferences. The Dukes briefly left the A-10, in fact. It was a huge mistake. Their recruiting and fan bases dropped off. Both programs have spent the last decade trying to recover. As for Hobbs, he has supposedly promised LSU transfer Regis Koundjia that he would stay till he graduated two years from now. Reportedly that was the condition for his transfer to GW. But who knows? Personally, I am not worried. GW will be good for awhile because of the recruits Hobbs has brought in and the school has pretty good leadership. They’ll find another quality coach. GW, however, has never been an A-10 flagship. Our success has never depended on them and it cant depend on them now. I’ve heard several coaches complain publicly about the one-division format, including Phil Martelli and Brian Gregory. They say it will be reviewed this spring. I suspect we might go to divisions as early as next fall, and two years at the latest. The BE is considering the same. On the Big East, the schools that didn’t go to the tourney were still amply compensated and they knew they had no chance of winning. They’ll be unhappy if the miss the tourney every year, but I don’t think that will happen. They will be good from time to time. As such, I have a HARD time believing any of those schools would look to join the A-10. The only BE bottom feeder I would be interested in is St John’s.

I am a business journalist during regular hours, which vary, so yeah, I think brand is vital. Whether the brand is a school or a league, casual viewers and TV networks tune in. And that means lots of money. Brand is not easy to create, either. SBC and Cingualr spent tens of billions of dollars in the past decade to build those brands. Then SBC buys a failing AT&T and changes its name to ... AT&T. Thats the power of brand. Not even all those smarty pants ad guys in NY can create a powerful brand just like that. I seem to recall that the nonfootball schools had control of the Big East brand when the league considered breaking up two years ago, but I am under the impression that Notre Dame could have swung the issue the way of the football schools IF it chose to join as a football member. I may be wrong. As for who would control the brand going forward, I think the situation remains complex and ND could hold the key again. Its reluctance to enter the BE football league would appear to give the power to the nonfootball schools over the brand. Since its beginning, the BE has consisted of a number of disparate schools with different agendas. Nothing has really changed in that regard. Breaking up was considered on several occasions, yet the league has hung tough. Ultimately, I think money talks. The BE will stick together if it’s a financial success. Even the Catholic schools worship the almighty dollar.

There is always an air of unreality on message boards about the status of existing conferences. Most fans engaged in wishful thinking instead of hard-headed analysis – the result of a fear that “our†team will get left behind in any shakeup. I’ve lived in Big East territory my whole life and I’ve followed the conference from the very beginning. If there is a story or an article anywhere that sheds light – via named officials or anonymous sources – on what the thinking is in the Big East, I’ve read it. I’ve also had numerous discussions with journalistic friends, athletic types in some of the schools involved and other sources close to the schools in the East. As someone on the outside looking in, I think I've got as good an idea as any about what might happen to the Big East. Here is my extended take on things. First, the Big East is not guaranteed to break up, as so many assume. The schools really want to see if it works, from a marketing and financial standpoint. If it does, they could maintain their marriage for a long time despite its unwieldiness. This is the land of supersized fast food orders and gigantic corporations such as Exxon, WalMart and AT&T, after all. Why would the sports landscape be any different? Indeed, the reaction I’ve seen around the league after the first full year of the 16-team conference is general satisfaction. I’ve never heard so many coaches speak in such glowing terms about how strong the conference was and how tough the league tournament was – some called it the toughest ever. The biggest complaint concerned the unbalanced sked. Syracuse got Nova and UConn twice and went 0-4. Perhaps the Orangeman would not have been a bubble team before they won the Big East tournament had they played each of those teams only once. I expect changes to the sked very soon, perhaps within months. The Big East will consider a more balanced in-league sked. Some here seem to think the Big East was disappointed it did not get nine teams in the NCAA tournament. Many officials are, but while some think Cincy should have gotten in, others were surprised that Seton Hall did. Perhaps it all evened out. In any case, I don’t know why 8 teams invited to the Big Dance would be considered a disappointment. The Big East got HALF of its teams in. Think about it. Only one conference did better, the Big 10. It got bids for 6 of 11 teams. Most years, it’s a great success to get invites for half of your teams. The ACC only got four. Unless the Big East fails to breach the 8-team mark, this issue won’t become a problem. The selection committee says it judges invidual teams separately, so we’ll see. What about the teams that don’t get invited to the league tournament or who frequently miss out on NCAA bids? Well, it depends on which teams they are. Frankly, schools such as Seton Hall would rather be in the Big East struggling for a bid every few years than in a lesser conference where they have a greater opportunity to dance. The same can be said for Rutgers, Providence, South Florida and probably St. John’s, Georgetown and Villanova. Why? Brand recognition, prestige and money. The Big East moniker gives these schools a great marketing tool. It helps tremendously with recruiting. It raises their prestige or keeps it higher than nearby schools in lesser conferences. And it helps generate more money than otherwise would be the case. The Big East almost fell apart right before it decided to raid C-USA. What kept schools from taking that step, though, was the fear of a separate future. One of the big difficulties was determining which faction would have the legal right to control the Big East name. The idea of trying to create a new brand from scratch – I dare anyone here to come up with a good name – scared everyone involved. Certainly a former member of the CUSA can sympathize with the difficulty in creating a powerful national brand. To be sure, a 16-team Big East is likely to create longer term winners and losers. Some teams will almost always be good. Others will be perennial cellar dwellers. This is true of every major conference, however. Yet teams like Northwestern, Clemson and Vanderbilt stay right where they are. Of course, every school wants to be a powerhouse, but at a minimum, all these celler dwellers really want is the ability to crack into the top half of the league on an occasional basis (probably because they have a veteran team.). If they can become more than that, great. For that reason, I don’t see why Providence or Seton Hall or Rutgers would want to leave the Big East. What about the football schools? I can’t remember the exact current revenue-sharing scheme in the Big East, but the AD of Rutgers says the nonfootball schools do not get ANY of the football-related revenue or profits. As such, this is not really an issue. Basketball money is shared by the basketball schools. With the recent revival of Villanova and Georgetown, moreover, and the success of Marquette, it’s hard to argue that the nonfootball Catholic schools aren’t contributing to the success of basketball. They are. So long as that’s the case, this won’t be an issue, either. At this point, it’s hard to find a good reason why the Big East will break up. All the schools, even the less succesful ones, make more money and have greater prestige and visibility in the Big East than would otherwise be the case. That’s why Rick Pitino deperately wanted Louisville to join. Having said all this, let’s assume for a moment that the Big East does break up in a few years. What next? I’ve long argued that the idea of a Catholic league – in a nation that still possesses elements of anti-Catholic thinking – is a dead end from a marketing standpoint. Our culture has become quite secularized and intense identification to religion often invites a backlash. Furthermore, many Catholic schools have lost much of their own tradition over time. Like any other college or university, Catholic schools have put their focus squarely on the top and bottom lines when it comes to athletics. Notre Dame is the standard bearer in this way of thinking, though Boston College (in the ACC no less!) is a close second. If a bunch of Catholic schools eventually do reunite to form a league, their religious affiliation won’t become a marketing or recruiting focal point. The first big unknown is what a Big East split would like like. Would the league get rid of four nonfootball schools and keep four others? Possible, but I suspect that 7 of the 8 nonfootball schools would stick together as a block for bargaining power. We are all in, or we are all out, in other words. As always, the pivotal school is ND. I could easily see the Irish sticking with the 8 football schools, with loose affilation in football (some more scheduling with BE teams, but little or no revenue sharing). A 9-team league provides for easy home and away scheduling in hoops and other sports. If the other seven nonfootball schools split off – Villanova, Georgetown, St. John’s, Providence, Seton Hall, Marquette, Depaul and Notre Dame – I expect they would ty to stick together for leverage. The A-10, however, probably would try to do the same, or at least the top A-10 schools would. How the A-10 reacts would depend in large part on who controls the Big East brand – the football schools or the nonfootball ones. If the nonfootball schools retain the Big East brand, it would look mighty attractive to the 2-5 A-10 teams that they try to attract to form a new league. If those schools don’t have the Big East moniker, the A-10 might have an advantage. The best A-10 teams could band together to try to form a new league with some of the Big East castoffs, while getting rid of less desired programs. Yet even that scenario raises the question of who would control the A-10 brand. I'll leave that question alone for now. Assuming the nonfootball teams in the Big East retain the brand, they could add two teams to form a 9-member league or 5 teams to make a 12-team conference. I don’t think there is any clarity on which way they would go. My suspicion is 12 would be the optimal target. In terms of current resources, location, fanbase and facilities, the most attractive A-10 candidates would be Charlotte, Dayton, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Richmond, St. Louis, Temple and Xavier. However, I could see Villanova trying to block Temple and Providence trying to block Rhode Island. Depaul and Marquette would probably like to have Xavier, St. Louis, Dayton and probably Charlotte included. The final team would come from either UMass or Richmond. I suspect the Big East schools would want the Minutemen as a traveling partner. This conference would be broken up into two divisions. The East might consist of PC, UMass, Seton Hall, Villanova, St.John’s, Georgetown. The West might consist of Depaul, Marquette, St.Louis, Xavier, Dayton and Charlotte. Alternatively, if the top A-10 teams control the shape of a future conference, I expect a 12-team league would also be created. Such a league might include Dayton, Charlotte, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, St. Joe’s, Temple and Xavier, adding St. John’s, Georgetown, Depau, Marquette and possibly Villanova. Yet the politics of the Philly teams could make things interesting. Do Nova, St. Joe’s and Temple all get in? Do Joe’s and Temple block Nova. Does Temple join the MAC for all sports? Does St. Joe’s get shut out because of its size and poor facilities? And if one of these three Philly teams gets left out, who gets the next invite? Seton Hall? St.Louis, Richmond? The Big East remnants might favor Seton Hall. Or Dayton, Xavier, Depaul and Marquette might lobby for a travel partner in St. Louis. Richmond might have the fewest allies of all those candidates. Still another possibility is that the A-10 forms a mostly East Coast conference of Charlotte, Georgetown, George Washington, Massachusetts, Providence, Richmond, Rhode Island, Seton Hall, St. Joes, St. John’s, Temple, Villanova. The result would probably be the creation of another Midwest conference. Depaul, Marquette, Xavier, Dayton and St. Louis would form the nucleus. New additions could come from the old A-10 (LaSalle or Duquesne if they improve) or or nearby conferences. I suspect Bills fans would have a better idea of who might be included in such a mix. To sum up again, it’s by no means certain that the Big East breaks up, but if it does, money will naturally drive the creation of new conferences. There are so many variables that so many outcomes are possible. I’ve listed some here, but in the end, none of us really know. So many unexpected changes have occurred in recent years, BC joining the ACC the most unlikely, that a scenario none of us envision could also come to pass.

I count 9 A-10 teams that could legitimately contest for postseason play next year, but I am not sure anyone stands head and shoulders above the rest. St. Louis, Charlotte, Temple, Xavier, UMass, GW, Dayton, Fordham and St. Joe's. I'll be doing quick snapshots on each team over the next few weeks on the A-10 board. I'm also filing a list of incoming recruits for each team. GW returns lots of talent even with graduation losses. So long as Pinnock stays, they'll have the best returning wing trio in Pinnock, Carl Elliott and Mo Rice. I am pretty sure Monty Scott gets a year back and returns to Dayton. The kid Sandoval they are bringing in can play. He was at Richmond for a year. Very athletic. Tough defender who showed some ability to score. He'll be a big upgrade on Warren Williams, who is addition by subtraction. UMass brings in a bunch of transfers. On paper, the Minutemen might have the deepest roster. Xavier will be reloading too. St. Joe's brings in a trio of topnotch guards and has a good group of youngsters. Biggest problem is replacing Lee at the point. Temple has some nice recruits, but who knows if Chaney is back. Charlotte has stocked up again, but they do lose lots of experience. Good news is that lots of teams hit paydirt in recruiting. LaSalle has a 6-man class that's easily its best since joining the A-10 in 1996. They take a few steps back but will be competitive. Ditto for URI. Nice batch of recruits and some good youngsters returning. Richmond also has a good class, but they will be awfully young. Bonaventure and even Duquesne, with a good coach, have enough talent to scare some teams and at least not embarrass the A-10 in noncon play, like the Dukes did this season. Big question is, which team is ready to take that next leap.