Solid leadership puts the Atlantic-10 on the rise

Brian Roberts led Dayton to an important road win over Louisville last Saturday. Andy Lyons/Getty Images

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Two summers ago, the Atlantic-10 formed a committee to come up with a new policy on scheduling. The policy, which went into effect this season, gives commissioner Linda Bruno the same authority many other commissioners have to veto games she deems harmful to her league. "We had several coaches on the committee, so the implementation of this has actually been quite painless," Bruno says. "So far, it's been working very well."

Actually, it's been working better than anyone could have imagined. The A-10, which has sent more than three teams to the NCAA tournament just once in the past nine years, has gotten its groove back. Last Saturday, Dayton and Rhode Island scored their most marquee road wins of the last decade, beating Louisville and Syracuse, respectively. Xavier throttled Indiana by 15 on Nov. 24, and UMass beat Syracuse in the Carrier Dome last month.

The Atlantic-10 has some quality depth, too. Last week, Charlotte beat two mid-major darlings who played in the NCAA tournament last year, Davidson and Southern Illinois. Duquesne started out 6-0 for the first time in 28 years and almost beat Pittsburgh. And Saint Joseph's has to be the best 4-4 team in America. The Hawks lost by three at Syracuse, by five to Holy Cross and in overtime to both Gonzaga and Creighton.

Don't bother trying to figure out why this league is so resurgent all of a sudden. These things come in cycles, and right now the A-10 is on the upswing. The more important question is, will the Atlantic-10, currently rated No. 8 in the conference RPI, reap the benefits of all this early success on Selection Sunday? Or will these marquee wins get burned up once again after conference play starts?

"We need to get to a point as a league where when Xavier beats Rhode Island, that's considered a quality win," Dayton coach Brian Gregory says. "Last year, we won 19 games and didn't even get an NIT bid. I think the league was probably better last year than people thought. Hopefully, people realize that now."

It also helps that Bruno has the authority to set the league's conference schedule to maximize the matchups. The teams are gathered in pods; each school plays the other teams in its pod twice and everyone else once. Since the A-10 has 14 teams -- an awkward number -- it's more important to create compelling matchups for television and enhance the conference's RPI, rather than worry about competitive balance.

Unfortunately, the Atlantic-10 has a few bottom-feeders like Richmond, St. Bonaventure, LaSalle and Saint Louis that are bringing everyone else down. George Washington, which lost at Maryland-Baltimore County and was routed by Virginia Tech by 32 points, is also on a major downswing. In the RPI, a conference is only as strong as its lowest tier, so don't expect the A-10 to climb too high in the conference rankings in January and February.

Still, the Atlantic-10 has been an afterthought for a while now. It is off to a sensational start this season. Four NCAA bids is looking likely, and five is not out of the question. As long as the wins keep rolling in, the RPI numbers will take care of themselves.

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