A-10 First-Round Prospects…

Part of my job for the last three years has been to write tournament previews for the A-10 teams, so I’ve gone into the last three tournaments knowing more about A-10 teams and their opponents than the average human. So one would assume that I’ve picked all those games correct in my brackets. One would assume wrong. Two years ago, I figured Temple was a mortal lock to beat Arizona State, and I was wrong. Last year, despite the fact that my gut told me that Temple could potentially lose to Cornell (which I had randomly seen in person during the regular season), I picked Temple. Once again, I was wrong. I also picked Richmond to beat St. Mary’s and felt pretty slick about it, then watched in horror as St. Mary’s destroyed the Spiders on the boards.

I tell you this to temper your expectations of me and what I’m about to do, which is predict how the A-10 teams are going to fare in the second round. Any sportswriter who tells you they’re better at picking brackets than anyone else is grandstanding. It’s a crap shoot. To use a non-A-10 example, what do you do with Belmont this year? Do you pick them because they’re the vogue upset pick? And if you do, is it even an upset pick, since I bet the pick odds are running in their favor? Or, do you pick Wisconsin, and run the risk of being laughed at by your friends for not picking Belmont, even though everyone told you to? I have no idea. Anyway, here goes nothing.

If I’ve learned anything the past two years, it’s that Temple doesn’t win in the tournament and Xavier does. So I’m going to go ahead and pick Xavier over Marquette. Do I think that Marquette could beat Xavier? Absolutely. I watched a lot of Marquette in the Big East Tournament, and they’re relentless. But I like Tu “You’ll Always Be Terrell To Me” Holloway, and, like I said, Xavier wins in the tournament.

I know I just said that Temple always loses in the tournament, but that also means that eventually the Owls will have to win. I’m going to say this is their year. Penn State sort of reminds me of Cornell in that they seem like the hotter team, having basically played their way into the tournament with a run to the Big 10 Championship. But Temple is the better team, so I’m counting on the Owls to avoid the upset.

The Richmond pick confounds me. Do I pick Richmond based on my belief that the Spiders can slow down a high-scoring team, and Justin Harper is highly underrated, and potentially achieve super genius status? Or do I go chalk? I’m going chalk. Although I’d appreciate feeling like a super genius, I think my strong feelings about Richmond are influenced by my intimate knowledge of the Spiders, and that I’m not viewing the match-up objectively.

So there are my picks. We’ll see how it goes. As for Belmont, I’m still not sure.

- Nate Crossman

 

How bad can one loss be?

If you’re a UMass fan, there are two ways to view Saturday’s events. One way is with euphoria, because despite losing to Fordham 77-73, a loss that snapped the hapless Rams’ 41-game Atlantic-10 losing streak, the Minutemen backed their way into earning the No. 8 seed in the A-10 Tournament, which earned them a first-round home game against No. 9 Dayton on Tuesday.

The other way is with a sense of foreboding, because the loss was UMass’ seventh in nine games and third in a row, which isn’t exactly the way a team wants to enter its conference tournament.

The media chose to view it as the latter. Matt Vautour of the Daily Hampshire Gazette, who knows the Minutemen as well as anyone, rightfully labeled it the worst loss of the season, while The Republican of Springfield’s Ron Chimelis, who’s as respected as Vautour, took it one step further, pondering whether or not it was the worst loss in 22 years, since the bad old days before former head coach John Calipari revitalized the program. Head coach Derek Kellogg wasn’t happy either, saying after the game that he was “mad” and “upset.” His comments, however, came before he knew the Minutemen would host the Flyers, and his mood undoubtedly changed once he received that piece of information.

I tend to view it as the former. Yes, the Minutemen haven’t looked good as of late, losing to the likes of Saint Louis, Saint Joseph’s and La Salle. And some would argue that teams that don’t finish the regular season well usually don’t do well in their conference tournaments. But it’s not a hard, fast rule. Although teams don’t want to carry losing streaks into the postseason, I’ve seen plenty of teams do it and still pull off an upset or two. Also working in UMass’ favor is the fact that Dayton isn’t exactly on fire entering the tournament, having lost five of its last seven, including three in a row. Tuesday’s game might test the Minutemen’s mental toughness more than anything. Fordham is a tough loss to absorb, but one that will instantly be forgotten with a first-round win.

- Nate Crossman

 

Sometimes it’s good to be wrong…

I’d like to let you in on a little secret about preseason predictions…they’re not an exact science.

For example, this summer I wrote the Atlantic 10 previews for a national publication, and as part of those previews, I ranked the A-10 teams in order of where I thought they’d finish.

When I do preseason rankings, my system is that I break the teams into three categories: teams I think can win it all; teams I don’t think can win it all; and teams I’m not sure about. Then I rank the teams in their sub-categories, and before long I have an overall ranking.

Despite the fact that I’d spoken favorably about Duquesne in their preview, when it came time to rank them, I put them in my “don’t think they can win it all,” pile, and eventually slotted them 13th out of 14 teams. I thought nothing of it until a few weeks later when someone closely associated with the team e-mailed me to tell me that they’d thoroughly enjoyed the preview, but hoped that my 13th-place prediction didn’t come true, and that the preview was already up on the proverbial bulletin board, providing some preseason motivation to the team. I e-mailed the person back to explain my system, apologize for any hurt feelings, and express hope that I’d be proven wrong.

(On a side note, it’s good to know that players and coaches actually read the previews and take them to heart.)

I think it’s safe to say that I’ve been proven wrong, and I’m glad, because I enjoy my professional relationship with Coach Everhart and respect what he’s done with the Dukes program.

I’d also like to think that I had a little something to do with Duquesne’s success…OK, maybe that’s pushing it.

- Nate Crossman