As the college basketball seasons hits its first full month it’s a good time to check in and see how leagues have been in the early part of their non-conference schedule. Tournament berths can’t be won in November, but they certainly can be lost in the 11th month of the year. The Atlantic-10 is always a fun basketball league so let’s break down what’s been learned so far in the nascent A-10 hoops season.
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DAYTON IS MORE THAN DYSHAWN
Anyone with any knowledge of Dayton basketball would tell you that the Flyers would go as Dyshawn Pierre went. Pierre, the team’s leading returning scorer and rebounder, was brought up on allegations of sexual assault and was suspended from the team. More than that he’s in the midst of a seven-week suspension from stepping on the Dayton campus.
The new-look Flyers have thrived in Pierre’s absence. Dayton is off to a 5-1 start and is led by the duo of Charles Cooke and the charmingly named Scoochie Smith. Cooke is leading the team with 14.7 points a game and six rebounds a game. Smith, the starting point guard, is remarkably strong in all facets of his position. He’s averaging 12.3 points, 4.7 rebounds, 4.3 assists, and two steals a game. Behind them the Flyers have six players scoring at least 4.5 points a game.
Dayton already has a pair of nice wins in Alabama and Iowa, and they get two more cracks at the SEC when it travels to Vanderbilt next week before hosting Arkansas to finish its non-conference slate.
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RHODE ISLAND IN FLUX
Ask anyone around the University of Rhode Island program and they’d tell you that this season brought with it expectations not seen since Lamar Odom wore Keaney Blue in the late 90s. All the preseason dreams went up in a flash when EC Matthews, a preseason all A-10 player, went down less than 10 minutes into the season with a knee injury that ended his year.
The Rams have regrouped and sit 5-2, but neither loss was a truly bad one. Rhode Island lost to Maryland on a neutral court in Cancun and by three points to Valparaiso as a part of ESPN’s college hoops marathon. Now though they must find an identity.
The Rams have a talented forward duo of Hassan Martin and Kuran Iverson. Martin, a junior, has been one of the most forceful defensive players anywhere in the country. A mainstay for three years in the URI lineup, Martin will have to shoulder the load as the Rams figure out who they are, and a big part of that figuring out involves Iverson. Allen’s younger cousin, Iverson transferred to URI from Memphis. A top-50 recruit out of high school, Iverson has slowly worked his way into a featured role in the offense. After single-digit scoring performances in his first two games, Iverson has scored 15 or points in four of the last five and put up a double-double with 19 points and 10 rebounds against Holy Cross on Wednesday. If Martin and Iverson, along with a bevy of talented guards led by former top-80 recruit Jared Terrell, can gain a bit more flow as a unit the A-10 will still have to take notice when the Rams come to town.
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FORDHAM IS….GOOD?
Fordham has been the laughingstock of the A-10 for years. The Rams haven’t put a winning team on the court since going 18-12 in 2006-2007, and in the years since have only won more than 10 games in a season once. They won three or less twice in that same timespan.
Fast forward to now and Fordham sits 4-1 on the season with the smallest margin of victory being 16 points over St. John’s on Wednesday. The record is a credit to Tom Pecora who has done yeoman’s work building the program up into anything more than a doormat. The Rams have benefited from a quirky schedule that will only send them on one true road game during non-conference play, and they lost that game at UT-Arlington 77-72 to open the year.
Regardless of the schedule, the fact that Fordham is winning can only benefit the A-10 as a whole. A league is only as good as its worst team, and if Fordham is finding success that means good things for the Atlantic-10.
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DON’T MESS WITH GW
The Colonials have been tearing it up since the season started. Aside from a neutral-court loss to Cincinnati in Brooklyn, the Colonials have been a monster. They beat Tennessee in Brooklyn, and, most prominently, beat Virginia in the Smith Center in DC. A huge win by any measure that can be hung on the mantel and admired come March. George Washington beat Seton Hall this week and have back-to-back games coming up against Big 10 opponents Penn State and Rutgers. Both of those games take place in DC.
There hasn’t been this much hype around a Colonial team since the 2005-2006 team went 26-1 and won all 16 A-10 games and making the NCAA Tournament before being eliminated in the second round by Duke.
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VCU AIN’T DEAD YET
VCU is down this year, but that means that the Rams were picked to finish fourth in the league’s preseason poll. Even a down Ram team is a menace. The only two games the Rams have lost this year were at Madison Square Garden in the 2K Classic against Duke and Wisconsin by a combined nine points. If a down team can give both of last year’s national title game participants a tough game think of what will happen come conference time.
The Rams generate most of their offense through guards Melvin Johnson and Korey Billbury. Johnson leads the team with 17.6 points a game, and Billbury goes for 11 points and 5.6 rebounds a game.
Virginia Commonwealth will have to learn how to maintain possession though if it wants to succeed. So far the Rams have a .55 assist-to-turnover ratio which would need to improve if the teams wants to improve as a whole. The next three games for VCU are on a neutral floor against Florida State, at Georgia Tech, and home to Cincinnati. They’ll learn a lot about themselves over that stretch.
