It’s a good thing it was easy to warm to the cadre of head coaches that descended on our state capital Monday for the Atlantic 10’s women’s basketball media day.
Because that air conditioning is no joke at the Richmond Marriott.
How cold was it? Well, suppose you head out tonight and pick up a couple of porterhouse steaks, but you don’t want to prepare them until the weekend. You can toss ‘em in your freezer or leave them in one of the conference rooms at the Richmond Marriott. Your meat will be fine either way.
Otherwise, the A-10 delivered expert execution of media day, which as usual turned into a veritable “Happy Hour” of optimism and best-case scenarios.
Which is fine by us, because at this time of year, why waste time trying to sift through the haze of positivity in search of potential negatives? If the coach of a team that stunk at rebounding last year wants to say things are OK now because the players have “bought in” and have “paid the price” during the offseason, we’re like, cool.
Because the real answers won’t come until the games begin. Right now, it’s October. In the words of the great Kevin Garnett, anything’s possible.
We heard from Fordham’s Stephanie Gaitley, who has been in the head-coaching game for 31 years but has the youthful spirit of someone eager to do it another 31 (how ‘bout them Eagles, Coach!).
Speaking of youthful, at the other end of the spectrum was rising star (and former Longwood assistant) Gayle Coats Fulks, the only new coach in the conference and the woman tasked with elevating Davidson (10-38 in conference games since joining the league in 2014) to A-10 relevance.
It certainly appears as though Coats Fulks handles stress well, as despite being 32 years old, the new coach looks young enough to still have eligibility with the Wildcats. When current Boston Celtics coach/wizard Brad Stevens was at Butler several years ago, he was often mistaken for one of his players. We’re not saying that’s definitely going to happen to Coats Fulks, but we’d recommend she keep her ID handy when traveling with her squad, just in case.
And of course, we enjoyed our give-and-take with Dan Burt, the disarmingly quick-witted leader of the Duquesne “We Are The World” Dukes. With nine of his 15 players hailing from outside the United States, Burt is the one coach we interview with a roster in one hand and a pronunciation guide in the other.
Naturally, a big focus for us was on “our” Virginia schools – George Mason, Richmond and VCU. Each of the local teams endured a sub-.500 seasons a year ago and, judging from the preseason poll, the league is projecting more of the same in 2017-18.
Not surprisingly, the three coaches have a different take. And at the very least all three teams should be interesting. At Richmond, Michael Shafer is projecting a return to the ball-sharing, turn-good-looks-into-great shots style that has made his best teams both hard to guard and fun to watch.
Meanwhile, VCU’s Beth O’Boyle is touting “the recruiting class we’re building our program around,” a five-player haul that includes Richmond-area prep stars Taya Robinson (Huguenot) and Sydnei Archie (St. Catherine’s). O’Boyle’s “Baby Rams” – 10 freshmen and sophomores, no seniors – figure to be among the youngest squads in Division I. But after listening to O’Boyle, it sounds as though the kids can really play.
And at George Mason, the hope is that center and former UConn stalwart Natalie Butler can help an otherwise youthful squad finally get off the 11-14-win treadmill the Patriots have seemingly been stuck on for years.
Butler seems determined to do her part. Patriots coach Nyla Milleson said her graduate transfer post set the do-whatever-it-takes tone over the weekend when she flung herself out of bounds to save a loose ball – with two minutes left in a mere scrimmage.
“That passion, that want-to, that’s what she brings to this team,” Milleson said. “Hopefully, she can help take Mason to a place it’s never been before.”
In addition to the teams, the league could use a boost, too. The Atlantic 10 likes to bill itself as the premier basketball-centered conference in the country – and in most years, the league can make a compelling case. But 2016-17 was a dud by A-10 standards. One one team (tournament champion and automatic qualifier Dayton) made the 64-team NCAA tournament field. Only three A-10 teams finished with RPIs inside the top 100. Two landed outside the top 300.
It turns out that conference teams struggled to overcome generally mediocre performances against the rest of Division I in November and December. Here’s are the A-10’s non-conference records (D-I opponents only) over the last four years:
2013-14 – 102-77
2014-15 – 113-73
2015-16 – 107-78
2016-17 – 87-96
Media days typically feature a lot of flag-waving about conference strength, and we certainly got some of that from the A-10 folks Monday. But there was also sober acknowledgment by the coaches that if the Atlantic 10 wants to be considered as elite a conference as it prides itself on being, its top teams simply must bag some quality wins over the next two months to present viable at-large resumes.
Many of these coaches, along with their teams, will return to these parts for the Atlantic 10 tournament March 2-4 at the Richmond Coliseum, It will be the fifth straight season the Coliseum has hosted the event. It’s also the final year of a two-year extension reached in 2016 with Richmond and the Coliseum for the tournament rights.
As was the case last year, the tournament format grants byes for the top two seeds into the March 2 quarterfinals. Seeds 3 through 14 will participate in one of six first-round games at campus sites on Feb. 27.
*Photo courtesy of the Atlantic 10