Although St. Louis University coach Travis Ford looks at the first two months of the season and recognizes the Atlantic 10 has struggled as a conference, he still believes in his initial assessment.
One reason is what he sees in his own team compared to a year ago at this time.
“I know what our league has and before the year started I said I thought it would be much better top to bottom because last year we had four really bad teams,” he said, including the Billikens in that group. “The last four were really bad. I don’t think we have that many bad teams like last season.
“There are a bunch of teams that have the ability to be really good. Are we one of those? We hope. We have to play a lot better than we have overall consistently.”
Ford’s early knowledge of the A-10 generally comes down to wins and losses, scores and standings. He’ll deal with the details when necessary, and that starts with La Salle, where the Billikens open conference play Saturday.
The 14 teams struggled to keep the cumulative nonconference record above .500 and recorded few significant wins along the way.
The reasons are debatable but in many cases, the absence of key players was not helpful. Ford certainly can relate, but he is unlikely to get any sympathy.
The promising part is that the A-10 could be a wide open battle after one considers the superiority of Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure.
“To say the least, our conference hasn’t done too well,” Ford said. “I told the team after Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure, who knows after that. I haven’t studied it enough to know why. There could be a lot of reasons for the records. I’m trying to sell them on the possibility that this thing could be wide open.”
The Rams and Bonnies had to endure stretches without their best players. E.C. Mathews of Rhode Island and Jaylen Adams of St. Bonaventure were preseason all-conference selections and have returned to their teams.
St. Joseph’s had high hopes but lost guard Lamarr Kimble for the season with a broken foot and has not had the serivces of forward Charlie Brown after they combined to average 28.3 points last season.
The list goes on and includes SLU’s absence of three players for the first half of the season. At times, the Billikens have shown that they have adjusted to the eight-player rotation, although they have dealt with injuries suffered by Hasahn French and D.J. Foreman.
Stay healthy with those eight and SLU appears to be solid. Add the three missing pieces and the Billikens could be formidable.
The A-10 is rated 10th in conference RPI with an overall record of 90-81. Significant wins have been hard to come by, although Rhode Island did beat Seton Hall and Providence and St. Bonaventure won at Syracuse. The rest of the league is 8-41 against the RPI top 100.
“We did a really good job in the first section of our schedule,” St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt said, “ … (but) that 10-2 record doesn’t mean anything when we play UMass on the 30th. Everybody’s 0-0 and we have to start again.”
SLU opens with road games against two of the A-10’s more talented teams, including Davidson on Wednesday. At first, Ford was upset about the scheduling, especially when he saw that the Billikens also ended the conference schedule on the road — a setup he said he has never seen as a coach.
After some thought, he decided to keep the Billikens on the road for seven days, instead of returning home. The decision was partly because of a long trip the team took last season that the coaching staff thought was a bit of a turning point.
“We almost beat Duquesne and then won at George Mason and we thought that was a difference maker for our team,” Ford said. “It was something we didn’t know if we wanted to do. It was a good feel. We talked about all the things we did and it was a pretty good vibe on that trip.”
This is the first time since the three NCAA Tournament seasons that SLU has appeared capable of finishing in the upper half of the league. Ford knows for that to happen he needs contributions from all eight players.
For instance, he said when the coaching staff broke down the team’s nonconference games, the common thread in all of the wins was that forward Jalen Johnson and guard Aaron Hines had good games. He hopes that Foreman’s back will remain healthy enough for him to contribute and that graduate transfer Rashed Anthony continues to come along.
Without knowing yet whether he will ever have the services of the three missing players, Ford hopes his team has found a groove in playing with eight.
“We’ve had to adjust by necessity,” Ford said. “We’re very confident that Rashed, Aaron and D.J. could all play 25 minutes if they needed to and we wouldn’t be totally concerned about it. I feel like we’ve adapted a little bit.”