Compton

There's no need to mandate a ban on D-II games. Teams like SLU that are and aspire to be competitive at the highest level will naturally abandon them because they are worthless from a NET perspective. Programs like Incarnate Word, Mississippi Valley State, Nicholls St. and Alabama A&M need D-II games to get a couple home wins for the fanbase and give their kids an experience other than taking a 14 hour bus ride to Lawrence, South Bend, Raleigh, Ann Arbor or any other town with a prosperous and competitive school in it to get their asses handed to them.

George Mason's last 4 seasons: 9-9, 9-9, 11-7, 5-13 LaSalle's last 4 seasons: 9-9, 7-11, 8-10, 6-12 These teams have been competitive (or at least average) in the A10 recently. UMass has been a bit worse (4-14, 5-13, 4-14, 8-10) but the conference should not be shooing away one of its two flagship state schools, especially one with such a rich basketball history. Plus we should give them a pass, because if they'd been really good Has may have gone there. These just aren't programs deserving of getting the boot (and certainly not of being replaced by f'n Bradley). You only have to go back a couple years to us having an equally awful four year stretch: 3-15, 5-13, 6-12, 9-9. Fordham is truly an outlier in the A10 when it comes to winning (or losing really) and when it comes to commitment to competitive facilities (the Rose Hill Gym speaks for itself) and coaching: Coach Paulson's 2 years at LaSalle: 8-10, 6-12 (seat might be warming up, but it's still early) Coach McCall's 3 years at UMass: 5-13, 4-14, 8-10 (not great, but improving) Coach Paulsen's 5 years at George Mason: 5-13, 9-9, 9-9, 11-7, 5-13 (on the rise until a regression this year) Coach Neubauer's 5 years at Fordham: 8-10, 7-9, 4-14, 3-15, 2-16 (sinking the program like a stone) On a separate note, I would hope that our days of scheduling DII teams during the regular season are over. As fun as it is to have random local match-ups, it's just not worth it from a NET ranking perspective. Even playing a Bethune-Cookman is literally infinitely more valuable than playing a DII school.

On February 24th the stock market was looking very good (to sell anything/everything).

^Sounds like we can agree that there's no need to get huffy Old guy.

You just wrote this in another thread - give it a read: SLURadioBoy, making predictions about sports, particularly early predictions, is like learning how to dance in public. As long as you do not mind looking like a total ass, it is a lot of fun to do. Why not? What is not fun to do is to get huffy about being right afterwards.

Too bad. SIUC seemed to be putting some pieces together this season under a new coach. They had a nice little seven win stretch mid-season, including wins over UNI and Loyola. Hopefully things work out for SIUC and Davis.

Makes sense that a UNC, Kentucky or Texas would be allocated more revenue than a McNeese State, University of Maryland Eastern Shore or Alcorn State considering the amount of revenue they generate.

Both are listed as Forwards. Coach Ford's first SLU team - Crawford, Roby, Agbeko, Johnson, Moore, Gillman, Welmer - was so earthbound it was laughable. I went to Senior night that season (March 1, 2017) and Crawford dunked at one point late in the game on a fast break. People lost it.

This is more well rounded than I anticipated. Great to see.

Also, there is a sliding scale of what is meant by "international players" in terms of recruitment. Glaze played 3 of his 4 high school seasons in the US, all at different schools. So, even though he's from Canada, it's not like recruiters were taking a flier on him. Same for Agbeko who had played 2 years of high school ball followed by one at a prep school. Diarra and Neufeld both had one year at a US prep school to hone their skills and prove their ability and become more of a known quantity to recruiters domestically. Ingvi and Andre are obviously completely international. Can't speak to the others, but it seems like bundling all "international" students together just doesn't really make any sense - some are much more known quantities than others.

Maybe Coach Ford wins a national championship at SLU and a P5 school in the same year after we join the Big East. Not a full program turn around, but Frank Haith just had a sort of comeback year, finishing in a 3-way tie for first in the AAC with his second best record there (13-5), after obviously getting run out of MO. I don't think he's necessarily beloved, but probably bought himself some goodwill in Tulsa.

But I agree re: the deck chairs. Not sure who else would want the job or that Fordham has the resources to attract anyone worthwhile.

Not sure how “strength of league” is a factor. If the A10 is up and your conference record is terrible or if the A10 is down and your conference record is terrible, in neither instance do you belong. Also a 5 year track record over the course of 90 games is a large enough sample size to take “luck” off the table.

I wonder if Fordham will fire Jeff Neubauer. Despite getting his first A10 tournament win the other night, each of his season’s there has achieved new lows: 8-10 7-11 4-14 3-15 2-16

I guess George Mason and Fordham are co-Champions.

I wouldn't mind a 32 team tournament - just the automatic bids - held over 5 days. Makes things easy on the selection committee.

Not really. Maybe a little with the West Coast Conference Final. Saint Mary's punched their ticket by beating BYU yesterday. But if they're blown out by Gonzaga and we beat the Bonnies and Dayton, we could be jockeying with them for seeding. All other conference finals tonight - Horizon, Summit, CAA, Northeast - are one bids.

We must have been watching different Javon Besses. The one I remember looked like a shorter Kevin Durant when shooting.

Jalen Johnson putting in some work (and 21 points so far) with the Ragin' Cajuns up 73-64 in the Second Round of the Sun Belt tourney.

Agreed. I think we punched our ticket to the NIT tonight. Nice to have that in our back pocket going into the A10 tourney.

It’s pretty unlikely the NIT would take 5 A10 teams. That’s only happened once this century (2002). Also, best case for Davidson is finishing the season 15-15. That’s probably not going to cut it for the NIT. Only two A10 teams made the NIT in the last decade (out of 19 total appearances) with less than 20 wins (St. Joe’s 18 in 2013 and Richmond’s 19 in 2015). Similarly, VCU’s best possible finish is 19-12 and tied for 7th in the A10. Probably not good enough. And then with Duquesnse wallowing down at an 89 NET, they might get overlooked as well. I hope they all make it. But Dayton, Richmond, URI and SLU are emerging as the most likely post-season (NCAA & NIT) candidates at this point.

It's shaping up to be NCAA Tournament: Dayton and Richmond NIT: Rhode Island and Saint Louis

Teams ahead of us in NET with fewer Quad 1 wins: VCU Alabama ETSU UNI Houston, with a NET of 19, also has two Q1 wins: 45 (Wichita St) away and 65 (Southern Carolina) away. SLU's are 48 (Richmond) away and 51 (URI) away. It makes no sense. Clear that UMass loss has kicked us out of that bubble tax bracket though.

Beating George Mason should lock in an at large invite to the NIT.

Related to what some of you are saying, I think we’ll soon see the death of the DII game. At least for teams at the A10 level. Every little bit counts, even including racking up a bunch of wins against Quad 3 and Quad 4 teams (see UNI, ETSU, Richmond, VCU as examples). Each of those games doesn’t “move the needle” much, but why play a Maryville, UMSL, Fontbonne or Kentucky Wesleyan, which is ignored entirely by the NET, when you can play a Southland or SWAC team and get that incremental improvement. The only reason I can think of is that a DII buy game might be cheaper, but that’s not a legitimate reason to avoid marginally helping your metrics at the A10 level.