Atlantic 10 roundup, Volume 6

Virginia Commonwealth and its "Havoc" defense extended its winning streak to 13 games with two more victories this week. Photo courtesy MCT

Virginia Commonwealth and its “Havoc” defense extended its winning streak to 13 games with two more victories last week. Photo courtesy MCT

The Atlantic 10 followed up its first week of conference play with a memorable second week that included upsets, buzzer-beaters and absolute craziness. Catch up with the latest power rankings, highlights and more.

Volume 1 | Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 | Volume 5

POWER RANKINGS

In 140 characters or less, like on Twitter, I’ll explain my picks.

1. Butler (16-2, 3-0 A-10): Whenever VCU makes a case for me to change this, the Bulldogs do something like they did Saturday – win at the buzzer against Gonzaga.

2. Virginia Commonwealth (16-3, 4-0 A-10): The Rams somehow beat Saint Joseph’s in OT, but believe this: It’s Butler and VCU and then everybody else right now.

3. Temple (12-5, 2-2 A-10): I still like the Owls this high even after losing to St. Bonaventure and barely beating GW. Their potential is through the roof. Stuff like this happens.

4. Saint Louis (12-5, 1-2 A-10): The Billikens stay here because I wasn’t impressed enough with the below teams to move them. But losing to URI at home? Yeesh.

5. UMass (12-5, 2-2 A-10): Their roof undoubtedly lowers with Jesse Morgan’s injury. Minutemen need Chaz to be Chaz and Raphiael Putney to wake up to have a shot.

6. Charlotte (15-3, 3-1 A-10): Yes, they are 15-3, but their only A-10 wins are against La Salle, URI and Fordham, and they were blown out by Richmond. Still not sold.

7. Xavier (11-6, 4-0 A-10): Whoa! The three unbeaten teams in the A-10 are Butler, VCU and … Xavier? Remember when I writing them off? Good times.

8. Saint Joseph’s (10-6, 1-2 A-10): I’m actually giving the Hawks credit for almost beating Butler and VCU. That’s very hard to start conference play with. Could have won both.

9. La Salle (12-5, 2-2 A-10): This isn’t so much an indictment on LSU as it is just a lack of quality wins, but they can change that with games vs. Butler/VCU this week.

10. Dayton (10-7, 0-3 A-10): They’re not getting blown out, but not winning either. I still think the Flyers can make noise this season though.

11. Richmond (12-7, 2-2 A-10): Nice win for the Spiders against Charlotte. Can they keep the good vibes going against VCU and UMass?

12. George Washington (8-9, 2-2 A-10): The Colonials nearly pulled off an upset against Temple, but then won a tough road game at UMass. May be better than some think.

13. St. Bonaventure (8-9, 1-3 A-10): Anyone still think the A-10 isn’t deep after the Bonnies went to Temple and upset the Owls?

14. Rhode Island (6-10, 1-2 A-10): Last week I said the Rams were better than 16th, then they went out and beat SLU on the road. It’s fun when things work out like that.

15. Fordham (5-13, 1-2 A-10): With the veterans they have, I want to like Fordham, but they need to start proving something to me.

16. Duquesne (7-11, 0-4 A-10): I’ll keep this short: It’s going to be a long year for the Dukes.

PLAYER OF THE WEEK

Roosevelt Jones, Butler: There wasn’t really another choice. Jones was named the NCAA’s National Player of the Week, mostly because of his 20-point performance in a thrilling win over Gonzaga, which included this buzzer-beating floater to win it.

 

PLAYER OF THE YEAR WATCH

Ramon Galloway, La Salle: 17.0 points per game, 3.3 assists per game, 2.5 steals per game

Rotnei Clarke, Butler: 16.3 points per game, 3.7 3-pointers per game, 44.4 3-point percentage

Chaz Williams, UMass: 16.3 points per game, 7.4 assists per game, 2.0 steals per game

Khalif Wyatt, Temple: 17.0 points per game, 3.8 assists per game, 85.0 free throw percentage

Treveon Graham, VCU: 16.2 points per game, 5.5 rebounds per game

Semaj Christon, Xavier: 14.7 points per game, 5.1 assists per game, 1.5 steals per game

 


GAMES OF THE WEEK

Xavier at Charlotte, Wednesday, 7:30 p.m.: If you told me a few weeks ago that Xavier would be going for 5-0 in the conference with a win in this game, I would have laughed at you, but that’s what’s happening here. For the 49ers, this is a statement game, and a chance to let all of us know if they’re for real or not.

Temple at Butler, Saturday, 6 p.m.: Oh boy, this should be a fun one. I’m going to go out on a limb and say this will come down to the buzzer. Catch it on ESPN2.

Follow Stephen Hewitt on Twitter @steve_hewitt or send him an email at shewitt@student.umass.edu.

About these ads

One comment on “Atlantic 10 roundup, Volume 6

  1. Pingback: Atlantic 10 roundup, Volume 7 | Daily Collegian Sports

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out / Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out / Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out / Change )

Connecting to %s