Mulder wrote:

Meanwhile Rozier surprises as a leader (thought that wasn’t possible)! 

https://bustingbrackets.com/2023/02/18/atlantic-10-basketball-voices-behind-duquesnes-surprise-2022-23-season/
 

They state the Dukes have not finished in the top 4 since 1993?  The RE Dukes did finish 4th in 2011 ? Lost to St. Joe's after their bye?  Who writes this stuff?

NapaDuke wrote:

They state the Dukes have not finished in the top 4 since 1993?  The RE Dukes did finish 4th in 2011 ? Lost to St. Joe's after their bye?  Who writes this stuff?

Decent article, goes a bit more in depth as to why this year's rebuilt roster is working out a lot better than last year's. But yeah, we were 4th in 2011, when a top-4 finish didn't mean nearly as much as it does today. Back then the bottom two teams didn't qualify for the conference tournament and the four first-round games were played on campus sites. Then the quarterfinals started in Atlantic City three days later. So the Dukes got just a single bye and had to play St. Joe's--fresh off knocking off GW in the 5-12 game three days earlier--after a six-day layoff. A10 wouldn't go to its current format, where all the teams in the league make the conference tourney and bottom-tier teams have to win three games in three days to make the semifinals, until 2014.

We were actually the 5th seed in a 9-team league in 1994. tied with GW and WVU for third but lost out on tiebreakers to both. There was only a single play-in game back then so a top-4 finish was no better than a top-7 finish. 

Random observation: not only are the Dukes closing in on 20 wins, but they've beaten five 20-win teams (Colgate, UCSB, Ball State, Indiana State, VCU) this year. If they can knock off Fordham in the season finale--pretty big if, I know--they'll have as many wins against 20-win teams as they had wins last year. 
 

Ironduke81 wrote:

Very informative post👍

Agree--especially about the changes in the A-10 Tournament over the years. The aging brain forgets these things. 

The A-10 is at 15 teams now. If it took one more, it could eliminate byes altogether.

scduke wrote:

The A-10 is at 15 teams now. If it took one more, it could eliminate byes altogether.

They could, but probably won't. If the conference had an eight-game first round, they would either have to play that first round at multiple sites, on multiple days, or revert to playing the first round at campus sites again. The A10 did have 16 teams for one season, 2012-13, better known around these parts as Jim Ferry's disastrous first season. They kept the 12-team conference tourney format that was used for most of the previous decade, with the bottom four teams not qualifying. Butler, Charlotte, Temple and Xavier jumped ship after that season, replaced by George Mason the following year and Davidson the year after that. The conference tourney used an everyone-in format from 2014 on. 
 

Tejas_Duke wrote:

DennisC91 wrote:

[ If they can knock off Fordham in the season finale--pretty big if, I know-
 

Who would have ever in a million years thought that sentence would ever be uttered towards the end of an A 10 season? 
 

 
That IS an improbable sentence... kinda like the old comedy song of very improbable things to utter “Please hand me that piano”.  See link-

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p-C1li2FgpQ