With three teams advancing to the NCAA Tournament last year, the Atlantic-10 Conference proved it was a force to be reckoned with on the national college basketball scene.
Stephen Haug, the A-10 director of communications, said the league hopes to continue exceeding expectations in the coming season.
Last year was record-breaking for the A-10: It had the second highest non-conference winning percentage in conference history, and seven teams had records with 20 or more wins.
Eight teams, more than half of the conference, made it past the regular season into postseason tournaments. Temple, St. Joseph’s and Xavier each earned berths into the NCAA, which only a handful of conferences were able to accomplish, and Xavier led the A-10 by finishing in the Elite Eight.
And Haug doesn’t expect the league to slow down this year.
“We have a lot of good coaches and great recruiting classes, including Saint Louis [University],” Haug said. “We’d love to get a team back to the Final Four. Our last to do that was UMass in 1996.”
Not surprisingly, because of its success last season, Xavier is the team to beat this year and is the A-10 website’s preseason pick to take the conference title. Haug also believes Temple and LaSalle may be among the top contenders.
Dayton, who finished seventh in A-10 with an 8-8 record in 2007-2008, is also expected to do well. The Flyers return all five starters and three players with experience off the bench.
Haug mentioned that, due to the increasing competitiveness of the conference, it is harder to predict who may be the second or third ranking teams in the conference.
For SLU head coach Rick Majerus, the A-10 slate is the furthest thing from his mind.
“I’m worried about UMSL, and I’m serious about that,” Majerus said. “We’re just trying to have good practices and get better each day.”
SLU left Conference USA to join the Atlantic 10 in 2003, a year in which many conferences shuffled around their teams. At the end of the trading, SLU was one of only two universities in Conference USA without a football team. SLU chose to join the A-10 because it identified with so many of the other schools in the conference. There were already four Jesuit schools, eight catholic schools and others that also put a heavy focus on academics.
SLU has a challenging schedule this year, which includes six games against teams that were ranked in last season’s Top 25.
“We have the inverse type of schedule this year, with the more difficult teams in the first month and the teams that aren’t quite as good later,” Majerus said.
Despite recent successes, the A-10 wants to continue to improve its programs. Haug said getting multiple teams into the NCAA tournament is crucial. And beyond that, getting to the second weekend is even better, as it “magnifies schools’ programs and the conference,” he said. Additionally, getting as much TV exposure as possible does a lot for the conference as well.
Haug praises school administrations for solidifying programs and making the A-10, what he considers to be “one of the best non-[Bowl Championship Series] conferences in the country.”
