Last season, the Dayton Flyers built a NCAA tournament resume with victories against LSU, St. John’s, Southern Methodist and Cincinnati while avoiding damaging losses. No one else in the A-10 had that success in non-conference play. A season earlier, none of the 15 teams built a resume worthy of an at-large bid, and that’s why only the conference tournament champion, Virginia Commonwealth, heard its name called on Selection Sunday in 2023.
Once again, this season, A-10 teams will feel the pressure early in the season to prove themselves worthy of a bid in March, though at least one media member in Washington, ESPN’s Seth Greenberg, has high hopes it will do just that.
“I think the league’s going to be a five-bid league this year,” Greenberg said. “One thing about building a roster today is you’ve got to retain the right guys and then find the right guys in the portal that fit your identity, fit your culture, fit your system, and I think the league has done a terrific job, and the coaches in legal book, terrific job of finding the right pieces to complement the guys that they have in their program.”
The A-10 hasn’t received five bids since 2014 when six teams reached the tournament. It received three bids each season from 2015-18 and hasn’t seen more than two teams make the 68-team field in the last five tournaments.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi predicts the A-10 will be a two-bid league again in 2025 with Dayton and VCU earning bids. Greenberg is likely alone in thinking Dayton, VCU, Saint Joseph’s, Saint Louis and either Loyola Chicago, George Mason, Richmond or Rhode Island will play in the tournament.
“I really believe that the future of this league is in the quality of the coaches,” Greenberg said. “It’s in the traditions that these schools possess. It’s in creating an energy and ownership within your campus. I’m excited about the Atlantic 10, and not just this year, but moving forward.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
In a panel discussion moderated by Greenberg on Monday, Massachusetts coach Frank Martin, Dayton coach Anthony Grant and St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt agreed the bottom half of the league has to improve if the A-10 is going to get more teams into the tournament. That happened last season, and it’s why the A-10 moved from No. 13 in the Ken Pomeroy conference ratings in the 2022-23 season to No. 8 in the 2023-24 season.
Martin said UMass was part of the problem in his first season two years ago. It finished 15-16 and ranked 212th in the Pomeroy ratings. Last season, it improved to 20-11 and ranked 92nd.
“If you look at every league in the country, when your bottom teams are good, then your league’s get multiple (bids),” Martin said.
The A-10, unlike many conferences, has not undergone a dramatic change since 2013 when Butler, Xavier, Temple and UNC Charlotte left. It answered by adding three schools in three years: George Mason (2012); VCU (2013); and Davidson (2014). Loyola was the most recent addition in 2022.
In 2025, Massachusetts, a charter member of the A-10, will depart for the Mid-American Conference. It will be the first time in 12 years the A-10 has lost a program.
“Their decision to go to the MAC is based on FBS football and it is something that we have been well aware of,” A-10 Commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade said Monday. “We’ve been in conversation with them for the last several years, even five or six years, trying to be helpful to them. I think that’s the way a realignment should happen. There are not hard feelings, although we’re disappointed that they’re leaving,and I do believe them when they say they’re disappointed that they’re having to move on.
“Unfortunately, they couldn’t be here one more year and make it to 50 years. But at the same time, the machinery of FBS football just really is so overpowering on a campus. You almost have to understand and accept the fact that sometimes that sport dictates some decisions that maybe your heart otherwise would not want to make. So we wish them well. We’re going to have a great year with them in the league. We’re not a league that penalizes a school that’s departing. All of their student athletes will compete in all of our championships, and we’ll celebrate them all the way to the very end.”
As for potentially replacing UMass, McGlade said, “It is still a big league. We have a great footprint. We have a good geographic layout, and we have basketball-centric schools.”
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