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A10 Games 2/13 & 2/14 (35 - 10)


Taj79

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No Bills this week until Saturday. Seven games total on the dates listed. The log jam at the top remains .. us, Butler and VCU all tied at 7 and 2. The jams continue as we progress down with three teams tied at 6 and 3 (Umass, La Salle, Xavier); three more at 5 and 4 (Charlotte, Temple and GeeDub) and again three more at 4 and 5 (St. Joe's Richmond and the Bonnies). Amazing but completely typical as I've found in this league over the years.

I suspect Charlotte will continue to fall in the league standings as it progresses through its schedule. They are at Butler this Wednesday. Charlotte has dropped four of its last six, winning only at home against Xavier and Umass. Good wins, yes, but they now invade the HinkieDome and play Butler before they see us. Leading scorer Demario Mayfield remains suspended. They just lost this past weekend at home to VCU. Butler.

La Salle is at St. Bonaventure. Hmmmm. Not sold completely on La Salle still. Having seen both I do believe La Salle has the better, more talented team but Galloway and Garland can get very undisciplined. The Bonnies did sweep Philly IN Philly now here comes the Explorers up to Olean. The Bonnies have lost at home to upper echelon A10 teams in us, VCU and Xavier (yeah, I said that). I would not be surprised to see this go either way. La Salle did win on the road at VCU and at GeeDub. Reluctantly, La Salle.

Dayton is at Rhode Island. Really? Wasn't it bad enough with the Bonnies at Rhode Island? Man I hate it where the bottom feeders meet at the lower bottomfeeders. If this was at Dayton, easy. Now, I'm not so sure. I'm picking Rhode Island, again reluctantly.

Richmond at St. Joe's. Joe's is the typical win at home team. Richmond seems to be a typical lose on the road team. St. Joe's.

Fordham is at Xavier. Blech. Xavier.

On Thursday, Duquesne should get squashed at Temple.

The interesting one will be this last one, Umass at VCU. VCU should be favored but the style of play will be just what favors the current Umass team ala La Salle playing at VCU. Chaz Williams will like to run. Freddie Riley and Raphiel Putney can jack without conscience and Esho and Carter and Vinson should be able to at least match up with Reddic. Still, I can see VCU getting a few good turnovers and getting far enough ahead to win this one outright. VCU in a closer than expected game.

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Here is what I have this week.....

X by 15 over Ford......Ford gets rammed

St. Joe by 5 over Rich....Hawks swoop down on Rich

LaS by 2 1/2 over Bonnies....Bonnies come apart at the seams

Day by 4 over RI....Day flying again

Butler by 11 over Char.....But bulls their way to victory.

Temp by 16 over Duq.......Duq whoooo?

VCU by 10 over UMass....it will take more than a minute man to stop VCU

So those are my pick this week T79

Looks like we differ on the Day/RI game.

I think the big game this week will be LaS/Bonnies....not only because it will be the closest but if LaS wins (especially if they win big) they may move up to A- which then gives the a Big Dance probability of 67%.

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Wiz,

Who should we be rooting against in the A-10 the rest of the way? I know the NCAA says they don't have a certain number of automatic bids designated for particular conferences, but I think it can be a factor when there are a bunch of bubble teams.

It seems to me we should be rooting against LaSalle and Temple. Of course, if we take care of our business it won't matter what other A-10 teams do.

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@ACE --- I don't think you root for or against anybody else except FOR Saint Louis to win. Just winning baby takes care of everything. You win the league title, you're in. You win the conference title, you're in. Just take care of yourself, that's all. If we're in the rest doesn't matter. I don't care if La Salle and Xavier win out ... as long as we take care of business and beat them when given our opportunity. I think every game left on our schedule is winnable --- and I also think it is all losable if we decide someone is more like Santa Clara than they are Butler.

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@ACE --- I don't think you root for or against anybody else except FOR Saint Louis to win. Just winning baby takes care of everything. You win the league title, you're in. You win the conference title, you're in. Just take care of yourself, that's all. If we're in the rest doesn't matter. I don't care if La Salle and Xavier win out ... as long as we take care of business and beat them when given our opportunity. I think every game left on our schedule is winnable --- and I also think it is all losable if we decide someone is more like Santa Clara than they are Butler.

I don't see the A-10 getting five at-large bids... and considering Temple and LaSalle have a better RPI than us, I want both of them to lose.

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I don't see the A-10 getting five at-large bids... and considering Temple and LaSalle have a better RPI than us, I want both of them to lose.

I think it is totally plausible that the A-10 can get 5 bids. Last season, the conference got 4 bids. This year, Butler and VCU joined, and coming in it was known that they were both essentially at-large bid locks. Just utilizing RPIForecast, it looks like the A-10 should solidly have 4 top 50 RPI teams (Butler, VCU, LaSalle, SLU) and two other teams (Temple and UMass) hovering around there. As long as LaSalle and SLU win the games they should, the A-10 will have 4 at-large bids locked up, with the potential of a 5th team to win the conference tourney to take the auto-bid. And that isn't accounting for a team like UMass or Temple to make it to the conf tourney finals and potentially get an at-large bid.

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I think it is totally plausible that the A-10 can get 5 bids. Last season, the conference got 4 bids. This year, Butler and VCU joined, and coming in it was known that they were both essentially at-large bid locks. Just utilizing RPIForecast, it looks like the A-10 should solidly have 4 top 50 RPI teams (Butler, VCU, LaSalle, SLU) and two other teams (Temple and UMass) hovering around there. As long as LaSalle and SLU win the games they should, the A-10 will have 4 at-large bids locked up, with the potential of a 5th team to win the conference tourney to take the auto-bid. And that isn't accounting for a team like UMass or Temple to make it to the conf tourney finals and potentially get an at-large bid.

The only way I see the A-10 getting five bids is four automatic bids plus one additional tournament champ invite (like Bonawelding last year). I think there is no way the A-10 would get five automatic bids. The selection committee would make sure some of those lost at-large bids go to more BCS programs. I don't want to leave anything to chance and I want to make sure we have a better RPI than Temple and LaSalle.

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The only way I see the A-10 getting five bids is four automatic bids plus one additional tournament champ invite (like Bonawelding last year). I think there is no way the A-10 would get five automatic bids. The selection committee would make sure some of those lost at-large bids go to more BCS programs. I don't want to leave anything to chance and I want to make sure we have a better RPI than Temple and LaSalle.

This is just so wrong. Individual teams get bids not conferences. The only reason I am even posting is the doubly wrongheaded notion that lower RPIs are good for our selection. You actually want more top 50 teams to make your profile look better.

Go UMass, Go Temple, and Go LaSalle!

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This is just so wrong. Individual teams get bids not conferences. The only reason I am even posting is the doubly wrongheaded notion that lower RPIs are good for our selection. You actually want more top 50 teams to make your profile look better.

Go UMass, Go Temple, and Go LaSalle!

I know that is what the selection committee says... not sure it is always what they do. If you want to believe the A-10 will get up to six bids, go for it. I hope you are right!

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This is just so wrong. Individual teams get bids not conferences. The only reason I am even posting is the doubly wrongheaded notion that lower RPIs are good for our selection. You actually want more top 50 teams to make your profile look better. Go UMass, Go Temple, and Go LaSalle!

The best thing that could happen for the A10 and the Bills is that a seperration of the top 5 teams from the rest of the conference happens. Root for LaSalle, Butler, VCU, and Temple to pound GW, Charlotte, X, Dayton, the Bonnies, etc when they play them.

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Since we are in the driver's seat and control our own destiny put me in the camp that says I want all our opponents to do well. Take LaS for instance....I would love to see them win the rest of their games and then come to the Fetz and we beat them. If they went on a run they would be ranked when they came here. You want to play good teams......and no matter how flawed the poll system is it is what determines what the "big" games are.

As for bids I only have 3 in right now. ...Bills, VCU and Butler. If LaS wins Wed nite against the Bonnies, they will have a good shot(67%) at making the Dance ...so possible 4th. I don't see anyone else at this time that's close.

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Since we are in the driver's seat and control our own destiny put me in the camp that says I want all our opponents to do well. Take LaS for instance....I would love to see them win the rest of their games and then come to the Fetz and we beat them. If they went on a run they would be ranked when they came here. You want to play good teams......and no matter how flawed the poll system is it is what determines what the "big" games are.

As for bids I only have 3 in right now. ...Bills, VCU and Butler. If LaS wins Wed nite against the Bonnies, they will have a good shot(67%) at making the Dance ...so possible 4th. I don't see anyone else at this time that's close.

So we agree that five or six automatic bids out of the A-10 is wishful thinking. I think a best case would be four, plus a tournament bid (a la Bonawelding last year). I am into rooting for SLU more so than the number of teams the A-10 gets in. If you only have three A-10 teams in now... IF LaSalle and Temple finish strong and have better RPIs and we don't go very deep in the conference tournament, we could be in trouble. I see rooting for the A-10 in the nonconference, but that's over. I'm rooting against Temple now. If it comes down to taking one more A-10 team or another BCS team, I don't have faith in the selection committee.

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So we agree that five or six automatic bids out of the A-10 is wishful thinking. I think a best case would be four, plus a tournament bid (a la Bonawelding last year). I am into rooting for SLU more so than the number of teams the A-10 gets in.

I think you mean "at-large" bids. Automatic bids go to the winners of conference tournaments, and at-large bids go to the best of the rest.

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I used to get very into rooting for the A-10 to get as many bids as possible, but this year it feels less important to me. For example, Temple is gone no matter what so rooting for them to do well doesn't seem to matter. With our status obviously up in the air, its hard to know if any revenues associated with other A-10 teams in the dance will make their way to SLU.

Of course, if we found out tomorrow that we were a part of the C7 we'd immediately have rooting interests in teams like Marquette, G-Town, Butler, Creighton (maybe), and others. If we find out we are left behind, our rooting interests are with LaSalle, VCU (maybe), UMass, etc.

The waiting is the hardest part...

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I used to get very into rooting for the A-10 to get as many bids as possible, but this year it feels less important to me. For example, Temple is gone no matter what so rooting for them to do well doesn't seem to matter. With our status obviously up in the air, its hard to know if any revenues associated with other A-10 teams in the dance will make their way to SLU.Of course, if we found out tomorrow that we were a part of the C7 we'd immediately have rooting interests in teams like Marquette, G-Town, Butler, Creighton (maybe), and others. If we find out we are left behind, our rooting interests are with LaSalle, VCU (maybe), UMass, etc.The waiting is the hardest part...

I just want to get as many top 50, top 25 wins as possible. The better teams like LaSalle, VCU, Butler and UMass do against the rest of the conference the more chances we get for those wins. It helps us at seeding time.

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