Atlantic 10 Update

As of Monday February 7th....

Weird week last week in the A14.  Richmond, Dayton, and Temple were the only teams with a 2-0 week.  UMASS was finally exposed as a fraud, thought it would come quicker actually.  Losing to St. Louis and St. Joes?  Ouch.  Richmond continues to feast on the bottom of the league with wins over St. Joes and Fordham.  They have GW and St. Louis this week, could keep rolling.  Dayton will be either in the race or out of the race with a challenging week.  At Rhodey and home versus Temple for them.  Thoughts on a few games later.

Today in the bracket projections both had Richmond, Xavier, and Temple in the dance.  Temple at a 6 and 7 seed, Xavier at a 7 and 9 seed, and Richmond at a 11 and 12 seed.  Richmond is good enough to get some wins over the bottom of the league so they'll be in it all year until the end.  Temple should become a lock soon.  Xavier will make the dance but you can't be losing to Charlotte and then be down to St. Louis late in the second half.  Like I said, they'll make it but I could see them stumbling to a 10 seed or something. 

Oh, and Temple is ranked again, nice. Ranked 24/RV.

Standings with everyone done with 9 of the 16 league games...

Duquesne and Xavier  8-1
Temple and Richmond  7-2
UMASS, Dayton, Rhode Island, George Washington  5-4
St. Bonaventure  4-5
LaSalle and St. Louis  3-6
Charlotte  2-7
St. Joseph's  1-8
Fordham  0-9

Starting to seperate and the better teams are climbing to the top.  The top four right now really should be the top four at the end of the year getting the byes.  If not, I'd be surprised.  Temple is rolling.  They have ripped off four in a row and Randall and Wyatt are on fire.  Lavoy Allen has awakened and had double doubles in three of his last four games.  This team might be peaking at the right time, but some tough games are yet to come.

This week's big matchups.....

Richmond at George Washington (Wednesday)
This could be a loss by Richmond.  GW plays well at home and Richmond hasn't played a lot of competition lately.  Richmond loses this one and they are in trouble and would be out of all the bracket projections.

Dayton at Rhode Island (Wednesday)
Big game for both teams.  Both are close to the bubble, but need some big wins to put on their resume.  Dayton getting one of the road would be huge for them.  Rhode Island needs to keep racking up wins.  The way Dayton plays on the road makes me think they probably won't be able to win this game.

Temple at Dayton (Saturday)
Temple doesn't win at UD for some reason.  They always play it close but are always too far behind at the start.  They have been stroking it well lately and hopefully that keeps going.  I see Temple taking this and putting Dayton out of it for the year and leaving them in the dust.

George Washington at UMASS (Sunday)
A chance for both teams to really set themselves for the top half of the league.  Like I said, UMASS is a fraud, they suck.  I think GW wins this game gets two wins this week and moves to 7-4 in the league.

Xavier at Duquesne (Sunday)
Marquee matchup of the year so far.  Dukes don't lose at home, they make everything.  I see them taking this game and having a one game lead in the league.  The dominos then could move the Dukes into the bubble discussion.

See ya all next week.

Curt