Basement teams give CAA’s elite reason to realign

Quinn Casteel
Assistant Sports Editor
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ANALYSIS/OPINION
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Last weekend, rumors of VCU and George Mason plotting a move from the CAA to the Atlantic-10 conference spread both on a local and national level, but have since been shot down by CAA commissioner Tom Yeager, as well as the schools themselves.

Both universities issued statements on Monday saying they had not formally discussed a move, but speculation of eventual realignment still remains. With talks of Butler joining the A-10 as well, VCU and George Mason could make for the perfect ingredients for a mid-major super-conference, with teams like Xavier, Dayton, Richmond and St. Louis already in place.

For VCU and George Mason, the pros and cons of bolting from the CAA are numerous in both directions, but we’ll start with the cons.

For one, they would be essentially tearing apart an up-and-coming conference filled with quality programs, good coaches and legitimate rivalries. Both the Rams and the Patriots would be turning their backs on Old Dominion, which between the three schools, has been arguably the most heated rivalry in Virginia in recent years.

In addition, Drexel and Delaware are coming off highly successful seasons, with seemingly bright futures ahead of them. Just a year ago, the CAA received two at-large bids into the NCAA Tournament, proving that the conference does have potential to be more than a one-bid league.

Yet as we saw this year, potential is meaningless when it isn’t reached.

This season, a lack of quality wins in non-conference play raised questions about the legitimacy of the league, which subsequently caused RPI rankings to suffer, and once again the CAA was left with one measly automatic bid. Drexel went 16-2 in conference play and lost by three points to VCU in the conference championship, but still finished outside the bubble in what was widely considered the most surprising NCAA Tournament snub of the season.

The easy answer for why Drexel didn’t get in would be to say they didn’t have enough non-conference wins, but if you look at their schedule, there were enough quality wins to put them over the edge. Yes, they lost to Virginia and St. Joseph’s early in the year, but they went on to earn top 100 RPI wins over Princeton, Fairfield and Cleveland State, as well as VCU and George Mason within the conference.

So, maybe the reason Drexel missed the NCAA’s has less to do with whom didn’t they beat, but whom they did.

Buried at the bottom of the CAA standings is Towson, a team that has gone a combined 1-35 in conference play over the past two seasons. The Tigers ranked 307 in the RPI and received national publicity for an unprecedented 41-game losing streak which finally came to an end when they beat UNC-Wilmington in late January. For a team like Drexel, vying for an at-large bid where RPI and strength of schedule are equally if not more important than overall record, playing against Towson hurts your cause regardless of whether you win or lose the game.

Drexel held Towson to an absurd 27 points in their first meeting and 57 in the second one, but saw its RPI drop 11 and 6 spots respectively, simply for playing the games.

VCU, George Mason and all the other teams throughout the conference faced the same dilemma going up against Towson and 293rd-ranked William & Mary. VCU faced William & Mary and Towson two times apiece this season, and after each game took a significant hit in the rankings despite winning all four match-ups.

For the elite teams around the conference, the penalties for competing against these basement teams continue to multiply as they play each other, which shows the importance of having a league that is solid from top to bottom.

Just three years ago, William & Mary finished ahead of both VCU and George Mason in the CAA, so the program itself is not the problem, nor is relegation a permanent solution.

The problem is that the CAA consistently has teams, regardless of whom they may be in a given year, that are ranked near the very bottom in the country, and it reflects poorly on the rest of the conference.

In the A-10, there is no such problem.

This season, the worst RPI in the conference was Rhode Island, who finished the season ranked  No. 254. Beyond that, the league had nine teams finish within the top 100 in terms of RPI, compared to just three in the CAA – and two of those three were George Mason and VCU themselves.

If VCU and George Mason do decide to make a move, they would be opening doors for much easier paths to the NCAA Tournament in future seasons. The A-10 has had multiple NCAA bids for the past five seasons and had three this year. Rather than having to rack up non-conference wins in November and December, VCU and Mason would be able to prove themselves in conference play, and have it mean something to the selection committee.

The CAA is a competitive conference chocked full of solid programs, but when speaking in terms of at-large bids, there is not much of a comparison to the opportunities in the A-10, especially if Butler joins from the Horizon League as well. The schools will likely continue to deny any talks of a potential move, but it’s hard to believe that reports from CBS Sports indicating otherwise were completely erroneous.

For VCU and Mason, no such move would take place before the 2013-2014 season when Temple departs from the A-10, but as both look to establish themselves as elite mid-majors with at-large potential every year, realignment could be a big step in that direction.

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