Atlantic 10 College Basketball
DAYTON
Dayton better right its ship quickly or a once-promising season could finish in very disappointing fashion. With six games remaining, the Flyers, once a cinch to reach 20 wins, now must win four of those games to accomplish the feat. Dayton's remaining schedule includes three home games and three road games, and all three away games are against teams who rank lower than 100 in the RPI.
However, the Flyers have won only one of their five Atlantic 10 Conference road games thus far, and the one win was a come-from-behind overtime effort at St. Louis in early January. Making things more difficult is the fact that the three home games are against three of the A-10's top teams Saturday vs. Temple (a 92-89 victor over Rhode Island on Feb. 13), nationally ranked Xavier on Feb. 24 and St. Joseph in the regular-season finale on March 8.
With losses in six of their last eight games, including a killer loss to a George Washington team that had lost seven in a row prior to its 57-54 last-second win over Dayton on Feb, 9, Dayton is running out of time to get back on track. The absence of freshman forward Chris Wright, still sidelined as he recovers from ankle surgery, continues to be a huge problem for the Flyers, who miss his presence as a scoring and rebounding threat and as the team's top all-around athlete. Without Wright in the lineup, opponents continue to focus their attention on guard Brian Roberts and make life difficult for the senior leader. In addition, the supporting cast continues to play erratically, with turnovers, a lack of consistent outside shooting and poor foul shooting all playing a factor in recent losses.
DUQUESNE
Ron Everhart's "1040" style with five-man substitutions every few minutes has been both exciting and excruciating to watch at times this season. The Dukes' 40-minute full-court pressure has helped create a conference-high 214 steals, but their erratic play on offense has also led to 355 turnovers. The Dukes are 6 - 4 in league play and 16 – 7 overall. They are tied with Rhode Island for 4th place but moving up to 3rd in not out of the question for this team.
FORDHAM
Kevin Anderson's role offensively whether by choice or not has become almost strictly as a ball distributor. Rhode Island gave the senior point guard several open looks on Feb. 10, but Anderson was hesitant to let it fly. When he did, the results were dismal as Anderson made only one of six shots in a two-point effort. He is averaging only 2.4 points a game this season. His assist numbers are also down from last season while playing nearly the same amount of minutes. Quality gurad play has to come from somewhere in every league in NCAA Basketball and Fordham is just not getting done in the back court.
GEORGE WASHINGTON
One of the few highlights for George Washington this season came the first time the Colonials faced St. Louis. In that contest, the Billikens were held to the fewest points ever in the shot-clock era, and GW cruised to a 49-20 win. That happened more than a month ago, in early January, and right now it seems closer to a million years ago.
In the rematch on Wednesday, St. Louis won 63-38, continuing GWU's sad slide from the NCAA Tournament to the lower echelon of the Atlantic 10 in less than 12 months. Karl Hobbs' crew has now lost eight of its last nine games, and is 0-10 on the road. At 6-14, 2-8 in the Atlantic 10, it's a team counting the days until the season mercifully ends. And in a role reversal, this time it was the Colonials who nearly hit the school record books with a low point total. But at least GW managed to finish with 38 points, two more than its season low of 36 against Virginia Tech.
LA SALLE
The goal for La Salle (9-13 overall, 4-5 Atlantic 10) over the next month is to win enough games to be one of the 12 Atlantic 10 teams to earn a trip to Atlantic City, site of the 2008 Atlantic 10 tourney.
In order to earn an invite, John Giannini's young squad needs to start protecting its homecourt. Following its 101-84 loss to Duquesne on Feb. 9, La Salle is now 1-4 at home in the A-10, with the other failures being a triple-overtime loss to Richmond, a six-point loss to Charlotte and a seven-point loss to Saint Louis. In a tough league like the A-10, where road wins are near-impossible to come by, home losses are true killers. But with a rotation chock-full of sophomores and freshmen, Giannini knew that this was a rebuilding year, but it's still painful to lose games while underclassmen learn.
While senior two-guard Darnell Harris (15.8 ppg) has been sensational, the Explorers don't have a true Atlantic 10-level point guard in their program and the bulk of their players are under the age of 20. Good and bad things come with youth, of course. On the plus side, five of the team's top six scorers are sophomores or freshmen and nearly 70 percent of the team's scoring comes from underclassmen. On the downside, young teams need to learn how to win first at home, then on the road and the Explorers are still trying to master the first part of that equation.
MASSACHUSETTS
With their NCAA Tournament chances dealt a serious blow, Massachusetts will host Saint Louis on Sunday hoping to get back on the right track. The Minutemen have lost three of their last four games to fall to 15-9 overall, 4-6 in the Atlantic 10.
The Minutemen rank last in the A-10 at the free-throw line a mind-boggling stat considering the team ranks second in the league in scoring at just under 83 points a game. UMass is connecting on 65.6 percent of its free throws. Gary Forbes (70.7 percent) and Ricky Harris (72.7) are the only players converting above the 70-percent mark.
RHODE ISLAND
After losing two of three on a three-game road swing through the Atlantic 10, Rhode Island has to be thrilled to be home for the next three games. After all, the Rams are 11-0 at the Ryan Center this season. Here's the problem, though. The three teams coming to Kingston are No. 12 Xavier, rival UMass and always-tough Saint Joseph's.
RICHMOND
A year removed from an 8-22 campaign, Richmond (12-10 overall, 5-4 Atlantic 10) is one of the A-10's biggest surprises this season. The scary part is with one of the Atlantic 10's youngest rosters ? with 10 sophomores and freshmen among its 13 scholarship players ? even better days are likely ahead for the Spiders. Prior to its 64-55 loss to Saint Louis on Feb. 10, the Spiders were receiving 81 percent of their scoring from freshmen and sophomores.
Richmond's top four scorers are sophomores Dan Geriot (14 ppg) and David Gonzalvez (11.4 ppg), freshman Kevin Anderson (8.9 ppg) and sophomore Ryan Butler (6.8 ppg). Five of the top six scorers are in their freshman or sophomore year. Having a true point guard in Kevin Anderson has done wonders for this program ? at both ends of the floor. His presence allows guys like Gonzalvez, Butler and Oumar Sylla to play on the wing, their natural position. Adding Anderson at the top of Richmond's matchup zone has really confounded opponents. Entering its Feb. 10 game against Saint Louis, the Spiders were allowing just 65 ppg and were averaging 9.1 steals, making them the No. 17 team nationally in that category.
SAINT BONAVENTURE
It appears Mark Schmidt may have found a starting lineup to go with the rest of the season. The group of Tyler Benson-Tyler Relph-Zarryon Fereti-D'Lancy Carter-Michael Lee beat Duquesne on Feb. 2 and played tightly with a very solid Charlotte team on Feb. 9. Still at 1 – 8 in league play this team can only to play the spoiler.
SAINT JOSEPH'S
Saint Joseph's, which will have a rare February weekend off before hosting La Salle at the Palestra on Monday night, likely needs to at least split games against Rhode Island and No. 12 Xavier and make a deep run in the A-10 tourney to have a shot at an at-large bid. Of course, winning the conference tournament would assure them of an automatic berth into the NCAA field. However, the Hawks, who are in sole possession of second place in the conference, a half-game ahead of city rival Temple (13-10 overall, 6-3 Atlantic 10), must keep winning to finish among the A-10's top four teams in the final regular-season standings.
Why is a top-four finish so critical? Well, the top four finishers in the final A-10 regular-season standings get an all-important first-round bye in next month's conference tourney in Atlantic City. The Hawks with the league's second-most balanced scoring attack behind only Xavier are sitting pretty right now in second place, but they can't afford to take their foot off the accelerator because there are currently four A-10 teams (Duquesne, Rhode Island, Charlotte and Richmond) sitting just one game behind the Hawks in the loss column.
SAINT LOUIS
The Billikens have got their defense down pat and it keeps leading them to victories. SLU (14-10, 5-5 in the Atlantic 10) has turned into a dependable shut-down team, which is routinely forcing its opponents into ugly shooting nights. As long as SLU can come up with a marginal offensive effort, the Billikens have a chance to win. There is tremendous upside and good reason for St. Louis fans to optimistic about there future as coach Rick M is working his magic once again.
TEMPLE
Thanks to back-to-back overtime home wins over quality foes in UMass (Feb. 10) and Rhode Island (Feb. 13), the Owls (13-10 overall, 6-3 Atlantic 10) are quietly staying near the top of the A-10 charts. Not bad for a team that was picked to finish ninth in the conference's preseason poll. Temple prepares to visit Dayton this weekend, the Owls, the only Atlantic 10 team to beat Xavier this season, are serious contenders to finish among the top four in the A-10 standings and thus earn an all-important first-round bye in next month's A-10 tourney. At 6 – 3 in league play Temple is just ½ game out of second place.
XAVIER
Xavier is developing a knack for winning close games as the Musketeers eked out their third straight victory Wednesday night by slipping past host Charlotte 62-60. No. 12 Xavier notched a two-point win after beating Saint Louis by two and Saint Joseph's by four in the previous two games. The Musketeers have won six straight games overall in raising their record to 21-4 overall and 9-1 in the Atlantic 10.
CHARLOTTE
Charlotte is getting little balance in its offense. Leemire Goldwire is the only 49ers player who averages double figures and that's how the scoring went against Xavier. Charlie Coley was Charlotte's next leading scorer with eight points. Charlotte has a slew of fine athletes, but doesn't have that one dominant rebounder that most quality teams possess. In fact, entering its Feb. 9 game against Saint Bonaventure, the Niners didn't have a player ranked among the top 15 in the Atlantic 10 in rebounding.