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The A10 2018 OOC Wrap Up


Taj79

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First things first, let's set the stage:

Davidson, Duquesne, Fordham, Saint Louis and VCU all 9 - 4

Dayton 8 - 5

Rhode Island and St. Joseph's  7 - 5

Umass 7 - 6

Mason and Richmond 6 - 7

Geedubya and the Bonnies 4 - 9

La Salle 2 - 10.

 

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A10 Preseason Media rankings (per A10 Talk):

1.  Saint Louis

2.  (tie) Davidson

2.  (tie) St. Joseph's

4. Mason

5. Rhode Island

6.  Umass

7.  Duquesne

8.  Dayton

9.  VCU

10. St. Bonaventure

11. Richmond

12. La Salle

13. George Washington

14. Fordham

 

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Mason seems to be the only disappointment. VCU & SVU seem stronger then predicted. Fordham feasted on very weak OOC schedule. Even with this season weak conference, should make for a interesting 2 and half months of play on who makes it to the top 1/3rd with what seems to be a lot of parity.

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Moving forward, on any given night, any team in this league can take down the other.  No one has shown a real ability to run away and hide at all times.  Every team has flaws and no one is immune.  I think the A10 right now is a two-bid league at best.  One will be the obvious, the other will only happen if it is the regular season champ with at least 15 or so wins.  Maybe 14.  What I have seen so far:

Davidson: remains a two-man team.  If you let Grady and Gudmundsson go off, it will be lights out.  Stop one and you have a chance.  Gudmundsson has really impressed me what with Grady's injury.  Grady has missed four straight.  Brajkovic is a decent third option.  The Austrian has great footwork and knows how to get position inside.  But right now, he's somewhat soft.  Luke Frampton is averaging over 10 but is really just a streaky shooter.  He'll feed off the heat of Grady and Gudmundsson, but he won't carry this team.  Carter Collins shows promise as a sophomore off the bench. The rest do nothing for me except run McKillop's offense, which can be good enough in this league.

Duquesne: remains a real unknown.  They played nobody and when they did, the lost -- to Pitt and Penn State.  Not that those two squads are really good.  Mike Lewis has left; four-star PF Gavin  Bizeau hasn't played in three games and is averaging 6 mpg when he does.  Sounds like another tall,white kid from Indiana we all know.  Eric Williams Jr.is having a decent sophomore season and leads the team.  Michale Hughes, the 6'8" transfer from Arkansas is doing well.  Marcus Weathers, a 6'5" transfer fromMiami-Ohio is also doing well.  Sincere Carry, third on the team inmost categories, is a smallish point and a big volume shooter.  If he's on, lookout.  But he's a freshman. Dambrot hasn'tgotten much from Frankie Hughes and Tavian Dunn-Martin yet.  This is not a team to trifle with at the Palumbo DuctWorks.

Fordham:  a total illusion.  Their 352 SOS should tell you all you need to know.  Plus every game but three were in Rose Hill and one roadie was at faraway Manhattan.  Nick Honor and Jalen Cobb are a decent freshmen back court but that won't last.  GT Antwon Portley has done well coming over from St.Peters.  The clock is about to strike midnight up in the Bronx.

VCU:  HAVOC is back per coach Mike Rhoades.  It's not what we knew back in the old days but it is better than the last few years.  And they seem to do it more in the half court ---- bringing a trailing trapper up behind the guard as they force him to a sideline.  Usually a big man too which makes the surprise all the larger.  Marcus Evans is the real deal.  He makes Isaac Vann and De' Riante Jenkins better.  And 6'6" freshman Vince Williams shows promise.  The rest are role players --- Gilmore, Simms, Crowfield, Santos-Silva, Mobley --- and all are wildly inconsistent but capable of being "the man" on any given night.  VCU doesn't have any stars outside of Evans ---who is still not 100% back from his Achilles injury --- but of the four teams tied with us right now, they are the most credible threat.

Dayton:  Nothing new here.  You have Josh Cunningham down low and Jalen Crutcher out high.  Obi Toppin is a nice surprise --- the redshirt freshman is shooting 73% from the floor but frankly they have all been put backs and thunder dunks.  The Toppin/Gordon matchup over the next four years will be worth the price of admission, I think.  Jordan Davis is miserable from three right now but like allother shooters, streaky.  Dayton plays with a short bench ....neither Matos nor Cohill has developed and Grant had to pull freshman Frankie Pollicelli off a redshirt year and employ him or go with walk-ons. They should be middle-of-the-road but a tough out at home.

Rhode Island: has been who I expected them to be --- namely Dowtin, Langevine and Russell and Russell is a marked man as evidenced by his 30% FG% with a measly 18% from three.  Jermaine Harris, arguably the best A10 recruit this year, has struggled to adjust to the college game. But Dowtin is a heady floor leader; we could blow them out at Chaifetz and then get the same treatment in Kingston.  There are times when Jr. Christion Thompson plays like a star in the making.  Just don't do it to us.

St. Joes:  Martelli is searching which is always a lukewarm kind of thing.  I'd call them a two-man team in Kimble and Brown but then Bynum or Funk goes off. They are extremely soft what with Funk, Longpre and Olivia all better suited as stretch-fours but that then opens the interior for Kimble, Brown and Bynum drives.  This is a tough team to defend but their rebounding sucks.  I still say stop Kimble and Brown and let someone else try to beat you.  Martelli never seems to go more than six deep and that is again the case this year.  But he finished top four with less talent last year so no sleeping on the Joeys.

Umass:  the transfer are coming!  The transfers are coming! Jonathon Laurent and Curtis Cobb are there and #2 and#3 on the roster in terms of scoring.  Carl Pierre is #4, Luwane Pipkins still leads the bunch and Mountain of a Man Holloway is .2 shy of averaging 10.  But they lose at home to Holy Cross and Howard, beat Providence on the road, and trash SIU. Consistently inconsistent and streaky.  I'm glad we see them once, and at home.

Mason:  biggest disappointment so far.  Their three-guard lineup of Livingstone, Grayer andKier carries them.  Javon Greene plays a lot like Christion Thompson of URI and Vince Williams at VCU.  UVa transfer Jared Reuter has been 'okay.'  But Goanar Mar and Greg Calixte, two decent frosh last year, are defining 'sophomore slump' right now.  Given their OOC record, I think they are a real sleeper as A10 play starts up.  We shall see.

Richmond:  Grant Golden is on fire.  Jacob Gilyard is a true point.  But the season-ending injury to Nick Sherrod has hammered this team, not that the were going to do much anyway.  Their super bowl will likely be VCU coming crosstown and I think they can win that with emotion.  But emotion is hard to sustain night-in and night-out.

GeeDubya:  DJ Williams is playing well after transferring in from the Illini.  Terry Nolan Jr and OBJ wannabee Justin Mazulla are an okay backcourt.  Arnaldo Toro is an enigma in the middle.  You don't win much playing four on five.

The Bonnies:  They got hammered early with Courtney Stockard and LaDarien Griffin out injured.  They are back but not conditioned.  Stockard has played 8 games; Griffin 3.  UNLV transfer Jalen Poyser is the backcourt and while Nick Kaputo is doing well, he's at best a third or fourth guard as he was last year.  We don't see them until mid-March in Olean and that will be a trap game at its best. Schmidt is one of the best coaches out there and he'll salvage something before its all over.

La Salle: is just a mess.  But they are the Boardwalk Champions defeating a field of Alabama A&M, Tulane and Towson.  Pookie Powell was injured but made it back for Atlantic City.  Ashley Howard has a long was to go in Olny.  Their two transfer --- Carter and Beatty --- have not meshed at all.  They are mostly guard with string bean bigs who run and gun and play little defense.

Despite the OOC results, I really don't see much changes to the preseason A10 rankings with the exception of VCU.  Us, them and Davidson appear to be the top three.  Despite the disappointment, I am not ready to rule Mason out.  If the Martelli offense works, they will still be there as well.  Rhodey and Dayton remain middle of the road and will win at home.  The Bills offense remain unpredictable and enigmatic.  We can defend the home fires and go 9 and 0 there.  I firmly believe that.  We should win at La Salle, Fordham, Geedubya and Bonaventure.  Bonaventure always scares me.  That will make for 50/50 games at Rhodey, Dayton, St.Joe's, VCU and , yes, Duquesne.  It is nice not to have to go to Davidson, Umass and Mason.

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The Bills .................

I like to evaluate at two real points ---- post OOC and heading into the tournament.

The 9 and 4 record could have easily been 12 and 1.  We had Pitt, we had Houston and we should of had SIU.  We'd all be pumped with that.

Starting with the easy stuff is defense.  Bess is a lock-down defender.  So is Fred.  Gordon has shown great poise on the defensive block end but his  ticky-tack fouls have to stop.  He is so good on natural talent that I think he leans a little too much on that. I expect him to improve with age.  Goodwin needs to pick it up some on dribble-drive defense but he'll be okay.  French will be French and that's a good thing.  Isabell has gotten better, which is a plus.  Hankton showed better last game but Wiley and Jacobs are liabilities most time.  Thor looks lost in limited minutes.

Offense:  I am hoping we figured it out against Appy State.  Isabell is better suited at the two guard; Goodwin is more involved with the ball.  Bess and Goodwin can stop-and-pop.  French is a beast inside and needs to just slow down some.  Gordon is still developing but all signs bode well there.  The moves inside to Gordon and French allow for great board-crashing by Thatch, Bess and Goodwin.  And it opens the exterior for shots by Bess and Isabell.  Wiley remains who he was at UMd --- injured.  A lot.  The frosh show promise but need more PT to make their games more mature.  With the conference season upon us, here's hoping the DJ Foreman of last year arrives.

MIA:  I will always wonder what this team would have been like with Henriquez, Bishop, Graves, Johnson, Santos and Welmer.  With Henriquez and Graves, we don't need Isabell and Wiley.  Santos would have given us a four-man big rotation and Welmer would have added to that and given what we saw with Hankton against Appy State.

Observation:  I'm okay with the way it played out.  We now know where our weaknesses lie and what we need to do to fix them moving into the regular season.  The schedule is favorable and like someone said, a 5 and 0 start going into the Duquesne road game is doable and, frankly, necessary. Do that and win at Duquesne and 8 and 0 is also possible.  A #1 seed in Brooklyn is achievable and a Top Four, double bye is expected right now.  But that's me.

As the regular season opens, its painfully obvious we control our success going forward.  

The OOC was not what I expected but it wasn't that bad.  Lots will happen between now and March.  We are okay.

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