Strictly for discussion.

How do we on this board define an A10-caliber player?

The gold standard for me has always been to measure a guy against the best in the conference, because:
1. The goal is to win the conference.
2. Regardless of where you finish, the guy still has to compete.

I'll go back to when Duquesne joined the EAA, or Eastern Eight as it was known. The bellwether teams in the conference were Rutgers, coming off a Final 4 with James Bailey, Phil Sellers, Abdel Anderson, Eddie Jordan, Hollis Copeland, and a couple other future NBA players, and Villanova, with Rory Sparrow, the Herron brothers, and a couple of serviceable big men. Duquesne entered the league with a freshman class that had BB Flenory, John Moore, John Thomas (AAU player of the year), Jeff Baldwin and Pat Felix. All except Felix started at one point or another, and although JT never lived up to his billing, he was a decent player. BB and John Moore were good players and Baldwin was a favorite of mine. IMHO, this was a good class on paper and on the court. The problem I saw is that then Coach John Cinicola never brought in complementary pieces after that. He needed a legit big man between Moore and Thomas, but Maurice Drinks, who made Playboy's all-American team, never showed up on campus.

Our other recruits that year were a kid named Bill Harper, a 6-8 kid who prepped at a well known basketball factory in Virginia, and Ronnie Dixon. Harper seemed like a nice guy, but I doubt he could have played for the Playboys or Sheiks, much less the Dukes. At this point Nixon had graduated, Rich Cotten and Jesse Hubbard, OK not great players, were ending their careers. Mickey Davila, who could have been good, had damaged wheels. Dixon became a nice backcourt rotation player with BB and Baldwin. Oh, Torrell Harris was part of that class. He was frustrated by a lack of playing time and left.

After Cinicola was replaced by Rice, we landed Pennsylvania 's two prized recruits, Bruce Atkins and Doug Arnold. They were tall and talented. Atkins was an all-conference player and Arnold our top scorer on the court and low scorer in the classroom until he flunked out and transferred to SMU.

Going back to my main point, if the bogey was to compete with Rutgers and Nova at the time, Cinicola should have been looking for tall, rangy bigs and fast guards.

Drinks might have made a difference but we'll never know. Harper? In retrospect, maybe not the best he could have done, coming off an NCAA appearance.

Today, I see a couple levels of A10 players:
1. Stars (eg Atkins)
2. Guys who could start on any team (eg BB, Arnold)
3. Guys who would at least get major minutes if not start on any team (eg Moore, Dixon, Baldwin)
4. Guys who can compete against any team (eg Thomas)
5. Guys who fill out your bench (eg Felix)
6. Guys who don't fit (eg Harper)

This is not meant to be a commentary on current or recruited players. It's a discussion about how we define an A-10 player. I purposely used a 30-plus year old example.

Thoughts?