ESPN's A-10 Men's Basketball Power Index 2025-26

psyclone

Hall of Famer
Nice blurb on the A10 in a larger piece on College basketball in The Athletic:

What’s your outlook on the A-10 race? Can the league get multiple at-large bids? — Jeremy K.

You’d hope so, although the league has only gotten one team in in two of the last three seasons, after previously being a multi-bid mainstay.


As of today, the Atlantic 10’s clear-cut best at-large case is Saint Louis. The 9-1 Billikens, led by Josh Schertz and Robbie Avila, already have three top-100 wins this season — over Santa Clara, Grand Canyon and San Francisco — and rank favorably with the computers: top-30 in the NET and top-45 in KenPom, while tying Saint Mary’s and Texas Tech in Wins Above Bubble (WAB). Saint Louis’ lone loss so far is a Quad-3 defeat to Stanford, but only by a point on a neutral court. That’s a workable NCAA Tournament resume, especially with seven remaining league games against top-100 KenPom foes.

Beyond that, Dayton and vcu both have paths, although neither has a Quad 1 win yet. Of the two, computers favor the Rams, while the Flyers already have two Big East wins over Marquette and Georgetown, the latter of which should age well.

The A-10’s best bet for multiple bids, then, is probably for Saint Louis to maintain its current trajectory but ultimately to fall in the conference championship game to someone like vcu, Dayton or George Mason. (A quick aside on the Patriots, who are sneaky good, fueled by a top-50 defense and a surprisingly stout 3-point attack, where both Presbyterian transfer Kory Mincy and Maryland transfer Jahari Long rank in the top-100 nationally in 3-point percentage.) Twenty years after the Patriots’ legendary Final Four run, Tony Skinn has a team that nobody will want to play come March — and I’d love to see Mason get in as the A-10’s second team. — Marks
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Portlandian

Hall of Famer
I'd love to see GMU get in as the 2nd team too! Maybe even a run to the sweet-16! The only 'bad' thing about the final 4 run is where do you go from there? What's the next big post season goal that's realistic? If they had lost in the Sweet 16 back in the day or the Elite 8, we as fans could be like ''let's aim for the final 4''!
 

GMUgemini

Hall of Famer
⭐️ Donor ⭐️
I'd love to see GMU get in as the 2nd team too! Maybe even a run to the sweet-16! The only 'bad' thing about the final 4 run is where do you go from there? What's the next big post season goal that's realistic? If they had lost in the Sweet 16 back in the day or the Elite 8, we as fans could be like ''let's aim for the final 4''!

Sustained success via multiple consecutive NCAA appearances is the next goal. You look at San Diego State, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Butler, vcu — these teams all have had a lot more appearances post their Final Four than we did.

We came so close to getting three in a row. Not sure if we win the championship if Jordan Carter doesn’t get hurt, but that would have gone a long way toward establishing Mason’s basketball brand (2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 NCAA; 2009 NIT) — 5 post-seasons in 6 years. Keeping Larranaga after 2011 would have been another (but I don’t want to relitigate that!)

Unfortunately, the NIT has lost a lot of luster so it’s really NCAA or bust at this point.
 
Sustained success via multiple consecutive NCAA appearances is the next goal. You look at San Diego State, Gonzaga, Wichita State, Butler, vcu — these teams all have had a lot more appearances post their Final Four than we did.

We came so close to getting three in a row. Not sure if we win the championship if Jordan Carter doesn’t get hurt, but that would have gone a long way toward establishing Mason’s basketball brand (2006, 2007, 2008, 2011 NCAA; 2009 NIT) — 5 post-seasons in 6 years. Keeping Larranaga after 2011 would have been another (but I don’t want to relitigate that!)

Unfortunately, the NIT has lost a lot of luster so it’s really NCAA or bust at this point.
I remember Dre Smith’s 3 point record more fondly than notre dame eating us up,
 
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