“With anything, there are high watermarks and low watermarks,” McGlade said. “You really look at what has the historical average been.”
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
The A-10 delivered an improved performance in 2024 as the Dayton Flyers earned an at-large bid and Duquesne advanced as the A-10 tournament champion. Both also won first-round games, giving the A-10 two first-round winners for the first time since 2014.
The optimism surrounding the A-10 after the 2024 tournament didn’t last long. This week, only one A-10 team will play in the NCAA tournament. A-10 tournament champion VCU earned a No. 11 seed and will play No. 6 BYU at 4:05 p.m. Thursday in Denver.
Meanwhile, six A-10 teams, including Dayton, settled for NIT bids, and one team, George Washington, will play in the College Basketball Crown.
The first two A-10 teams playing in the NIT lost by wide margins on Tuesday. St. Bonaventure (22-12) fell 75-56 at home to Kent State. Saint Louis (19-15) lost 103-78 at Arkansas State.
The A-10, which will celebrate its 50th anniversary in the 2025-26 season, ranked eighth in the Ken Pomeroy conference ratings for the second straight season. It was the highest-ranked conference not to receive multiple bids. The Mountain West Conference, the seventh-best conference this season, has received 14 bids over the past three seasons with the A-10 receiving four during the same stretch.
Dayton had the strongest case for an at-large bid after a 10-3 finish in non-conference play but fell out of contention with six A-10 losses and then a quarterfinal exit in the A-10 tournament.
VCU built a strong resume in A-10 play but finished 15-3 after losing at home to Dayton on the final day of the regular season. It found out after the Selection Show on Sunday it would not have made the field as an at-large team if it had lost to George Mason in the A-10 title game.
Credit: David Jablonski
Credit: David Jablonski
“We considered them,” said North Carolina Athletic Director Bubba Cunningham, the chairman of the NCAA tournament selection committee. “They were under consideration the entire five days we were here, and ultimately they did not get into the field. That was a game that they needed to win to get into the field.”
VCU’s Quad 4 loss to Seton Hall early in the season would have cost it on Selection Sunday.
“I just think when compared to some of the other teams that may have played a more competitive schedule throughout the entire year, the Quad 4 loss was something that was kind of a challenge for them,” Cunningham said. “Four Quad 2 losses were a challenge, as well. They had some very good predictive metrics. They were 7-3 on the road. But the non-conference schedule probably hurt them more than anything else.”
A lack of Quadrant 1 victories hurt the A-10. Dayton had three, and one of those was against VCU. George Mason and VCU had three between them, and two were against Dayton. The other top teams in the A-10 standings — Saint Joseph’s, Loyola Chicago and Saint Louis — combined to go 1-9 in Quad 1 games.
The formula behind the NCAA Evaluation Tool did the A-10 no favors. VCU was No. 31. No one else was in the top 60.
A-10 coaches did their best to argue the league deserves more respect.
“I think (George Mason) deserves to be in the NCAA tournament, regardless of what happens (in the A-10 championship),” Saint Joseph’s coach Billy Lange said Saturday. “I think we’re good enough to be in it. It won’t happen because of the metrics and the NET and all the things that were created so people don’t have to make hard decisions.”
After losing to VCU, second-year George Mason coach Tony Skinn said, “I think that showed you how strong this league is and how deserving George Mason is for an NCAA tournament bid. You get to the final game. You’ve won 26 out of your last 29 games. It’s tough; it’s tough. Especially for my seniors. This is their last opportunity. You almost have to be flawless in this league to make it to the NCAA tournament. I remember the A-10 when we were getting two, three, four teams in there. And I can’t remember the last time a team won 26 games, essentially won 17 conference games, and is not in the conversation. It’s unfortunate.”
Skinn is right about it being rare for a 26-win A-10 team to be left out of the tournament, though his team is the third in the past two years to finish 15-3 in A-10 regular-season play and not make the tournament. Richmond and Loyola Chicago tied for first with 15-3 marks in 2024 and settled for NIT bids.
“I think they should be playing in the NCAA tournament so they can write their own story because I think they can beat anybody in any place and anywhere,” Skinn said. “We did it at Dayton. We did it at St. Bonaventure. We did it at Saint Louis — the toughest places to play in our league. And yet we’re having the same conversation.”
For the A-10 to improve its chances of earning multiple bids in the future, its programs will have to improve its non-conference schedules, which is easier said than done. Dayton has long had trouble getting teams from the higher-ranked conferences to play, it but put together its best schedule in years this season.
Dayton’s 2024-25 non-conference schedule ranked 50th, according to ESPN’s Basketball Power Index. The second-best non-conference schedule, No. 89, belonged to Saint Joseph’s. No one else ranked in the top 130.
“When you look at the overall strength of schedule for the entire year, we talk about a full body of work,” Cunningham said. “Quite frankly, teams that don’t schedule hard in the non-conference have to rely on an incredible conference season with great teams within their league.”
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