To give us all a sense of what we're up against, ESPN's Bubble Watch has Dayton the A10's only "Lock" for the NCAAs. And KenPom ranks their defense in the top 20.
http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/bubblewatch
Atlantic 10 ConferenceTeams that should be in:
Dayton
Work left to do:
vcu,
Saint Joseph's,
St Bonaventure,
George Washington
A massive win for St. Bonaventure gets them on the page, but for how long? Dayton's off week keeps the Flyers in the same (extremely impressive) position as Tuesday. And remember how we said not to bury Davidson? On Wednesday night, as alumni Stephen Curry was (in President Obama's amazing words) clowning the Washington Wizards with 51 points, Bob McKillop's team was losing 79-69 at George Washington, falling to 12-8 on the season. Perhaps our warning against premature burial was itself premature.
Dayton [18-3 (8-1), RPI: 11, SOS: 38] Perhaps, if you are not a regular devotee of Atlantic 10 basketball generally, or the Flyers specifically, you see this unranked team's 18 wins and three losses and find yourself mildly blown away. Fair enough. Yet Dayton's resume contains much more impressive numbers. Its top-15 RPI. Its top-50 overall strength of schedule, despite its Atlantic 10 affiliation. Its No. 4-ranked nonconference strength of schedule. Its 10-2 record against the RPI top-100. Better yet? When the Flyers beat Iowa back on Nov. 26, no one really batted an eye, and it wasn't just the turkey coma: Dayton was pretty good, Iowa was pretty good, neither team was ranked. Ho-hum. Now the Hawkeyes are a top-five beast with road sweeps of Michigan State and Purdue, and the Flyers measure their resume's improvement in Jarrod Uthoff buckets. Flyers head coach Archie Miller has this thing rolling.
vcu [17-5 (9-0), RPI: 29, SOS: 82] La Salle is the A-10's worst team. In a league that Saint Louis, George Mason, and Massachusetts (this season) call home, that's saying something. There isn't much to say, then, about vcu's 88-70 win at La Salle on Wednesday, except these two things: (1) For a resume without a single noteworthy nonconference win (maybe Middle Tennessee? Buffalo), avoiding losses to the dregs of the A-10 is practically vcu's top February priority. (2) You could make an argument that though Dayton has (by far) the A-10's best resume, on the court, vcu's per-possession performance is a substantive argument that the Rams might be the A-10's best team.
Saint Joseph's [18-4 (7-2), RPI: 37, SOS: 110] The good news for Saint Joe's? St. Bonaventure is pretty good. Their RPI is in the top 50. Their offense is the A-10's second-most efficient to date. It's totally possible they'll get in the tournament. All of which is to say: The Hawks' home loss on Wednesday night wasn't a total disaster. It wasn't great, either. Losing on your home floor is never great. That's especially if you, like Saint Joe's, are a clear bubble team with no top-25 or top-50 wins and just a 3-4 record against the top 100.
St Bonaventure [14-6 (6-3), RPI: 45, SOS: 71] The Bonnies are a long-shot addition after Wednesday's win at Saint Joe's. How long they stay is up to them. The pros? Decent RPI, decent schedule, no sub-100 losses. The cons? St. Bonaventure is just 3-6 against the top 100. Saint Joe's was its first win better than a road victory at Buffalo. Marcus Posley is leading one of the A-10's best offensive teams in conference play, but it may take something drastic -- like a win at Dayton on Feb. 20 -- to get off the fringe.
George Washington [17-5 (6-3), RPI: 49, SOS: 124] That long-ago Nov. 16 home win over Virginia is basically George Washington's personal Giving Tree, and the Colonials' resume seems likely to wring every last bit of value from its branches. The win over Davidson doesn't change much, and the bad losses (at DePaul, at Saint Louis, Richmond) are even more of a profile setback than a 200-ish nonconference strength of schedule. But when you beat Virginia (and have a 2-1 mark against the top-50 teams you've played thus far) and Seton Hall, you've got a chance.