One month before Selection Sunday last season, the Atlantic 10 had six or seven teams in great position to earn an at-large NCAA tournament bid and appeared to be on the verge of emerging as the nation's seventh power conference.
How quickly the league's reputation has slipped since that point.
Only three Atlantic 10 teams made last season's NCAA tournament and once again only Xavier advanced past the first round, but the league appeared capable of producing another handful of at-large contenders in 2011. Instead the Atlantic 10 has endured a disappointing start to the new season highlighted by a nightmarish 2-8 record in games on Wednesday night.
There's plenty of time for the Atlantic 10 to reverse its fortunes, but it's safe to say league favorites Temple, Xavier, Dayton and Richmond collectively have not performed up to preseason expectations thus far.
Temple dropped a pair of games to Cal and Texas A&M last week in Orlando. Xavier stubbed its toe against Miami (Ohio) on Wednesday night and struggled to put away the likes of IPFW or Western Michigan. Dayton lost at home to East Tennessee State and by 34 at Cincinnati last week and Richmond has a bad loss at Iona on its resume.
Although Richmond appears to have righted itself with a neutral-court victory over Purdue and a narrow loss at CAA favorite Old Dominion, the problems plaguing their A-10 peers are harder to ignore.
• Xavier lacks depth and is too reliant offensively on guard Terrell Holloway as a result of a season-ending knee injury to Brad Redford and the departure of stars Jordan Crawford and Jason Love.
• Temple ranks 299th in the nation in scoring, a problem exacerbated by the fact that no Owl averages more than 10.7 points per game and leading scorers Lavoy Allen, Ramone Moore and Juan Fernandez are shooting a combined 35.7 percent.
• And Dayton may boast the same athletic frontcourt that sparked an NIT title run last season, but the Flyers still have major questions at guard, especially after shooting 4 of 21 from behind the arc on Wednesday.
Another A-10 team could take advantage of the traditional contenders' struggles and vault itself into at-large contention, but only a couple of other squads have shown signs of life. UMass is undefeated but untested thus far, while LaSalle has five wins and played competitively in respectable losses to Baylor and Missouri.
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