A10 Plus: The Road to Atlantic City (Fordham, Richmond, Charlotte)
January 25th, 2012
By: Dan Bonsall
Fear not Forty-Niner, Spider and (Fordham) Ram fans! It may not be pretty, and each squad certainly has hurdles to overcome, but there are still plenty of games to be played and plenty of reasons your team can get to five wins and a shot at the conference’s glass slipper in March. Let's take a look at each of these three teams and how each squad could arrive in the A10 Conference Tournament come March despite their struggles thus far.
Richmond (2-3)
Best path to five wins: Fordham, George Washington, Charlotte.
The Spiders are in a defensive funk. In their last two outings, UR has allowed 61.8 and 51.7 eFG% to GW and UMass. Without starting point guard Cedrick Lindsay against the Colonials (out with a bruised knee), UR was lost on offense. That effort was followed by an uncharacteristically poor shooting night (4-24 3PM-A) while clearly bothered by UMass’ length. The good news is Lindsay was back in the lineup against UMass and the Spiders have plenty of time to make adjustments before facing the meat of their schedule: St. Louis, Xavier and Dayton all wait in the last two weeks of February. The 102.8 adjusted defensive efficiency is the highest at Richmond since 2007 and is surely a priority for Chris Mooney. A big help would be improved production out of Francis Martel. The senior showed signs of snapping out of his season-long funk with an energetic second half against UMass. Plus, with the increased ability to get to the free throw line-and make 75%, the Spiders should be able to hang tough against strong opponents in close games.
Charlotte (2-3)
Best path to five wins: Fordham, Rhode Island, George Washington.
The Forty-Niners have dropped their last three conference games and face Temple and Xavier this week. The Charlotte offense is still struggling, averaging a mere .94 PPP. A10 Rookie of the Week Pierria Henry is questionable for the Temple game after dislocating a finger against GW. That’s the bad news. The good news is both games this week are in the friendly confines of Halton Arena. The Niners also have a knack for keeping their games close, the average scoring margin is under 2 points per game, one of the slimmest in the league. Charlotte is allowing the third lowest points per possession in the league, .97, thanks in large part to tremendous reboudning: 77th in the country overall and conceding only 30% of offensive rebounds. In those close games, Charlotte has something neither Richmond nor Fordham have: a go-to option. Chris Braswell can simply score points, and do it in crunch time. He’s improved his shooting from all areas of the floor, his passing, and his ability to draw fouls. When the Niners need a basket, they know where to go. That comfort can go a long way in crunch time.
Fordham (1-4)
Best path to five wins: George Washington, Charlotte, St. Bonaventure, URI.
True, Ken Pomeroy’s projections call for the Rams drop the rest of their games. True, Fordham has not finished out of the bottom two in the A10 since 2007-08. True, Tom Pecora’s team had a horrific game last time out, playing without Chris Gaston, getting run over by the Bonnies by 44 points up in Olean. It is also true, however, that after Gaston, nearly all of Fordham’s possessions are used by freshmen and sophmores. They will improve as does their young core. The Rams have shown flashes of ability already with wins over Georgia Tech, Harvard and UMass. Defensive efficiency is much improved over last season, down to 100. The Rams are also doing a good job taking care of the basketball with a solid turnover percentrage under 18% and a middle of the league assist rate. The Tom Pecora project continues at Fordham- the 265 ranking by Ken Pomeroy is their heighest since 2008. He’s already matched last year’s total league wins, and surpassed the overall wins total. Pecora won’t be able to avoid his second straight losing season, matching his total in eight years on Hofstra’s bench, but a bid to the conference tournament would be a big step in the right direction for the program.
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Dan Bonsall is an Atlantic 10 contributor for College Chalktalk.com. Dan also covers the Richmond Spiders for the Spider Bandwagon. His bi-weekly column can be found here on CCT every other Wednesday during the conference season. Check back this Friday for Doug Tifft's A10 Plus coverage and again on Monday for Ian Nolan's Atlantic 10 Notebook.
Photos Courtesy of the following Sports Information Departments: Fordham, Charlotte and Richmond.
