Atlantic-10: Good, Bad, Ugly Of Opening Night
Atlantic-10 Conference teams went 7-2 on college basketball’s opening night.
Of the nine games, the A-10 team was the home team in eight of those contests. No. 15 VCU was the only team not to play on their home court as they played in the Quicken Loans Veterans Classic at Annapolis (Md.), where they defeated Tennessee (85-69).
UMass, George Washington, Dayton, Rhode Island, Richmond and Fordham were also victorious — Rhode Island‘s and Fordham’s wins were against non-Division I members. George Mason and St. Joseph’s lost their matchups to Cornell and Fairleigh Dickinson respectively.
Best victory: VCU over Tennessee. VCU defeated SEC foe Tennessee (85-69) for the conference’s only victory over another major conference team. Junior Melvin Johnson scored 20 of his game-high 23 points in the first half as the Rams built a 48-30 halftime lead.
Senior Treveon Graham contributed 15 points and 14 rebounds for the 11th double-double of his career.
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VCU trailed for a total of 19 seconds in the first half though there were a few ties in the early going. Every time Tennessee started to get momentum, Johnson had the answer. With the scored tied at 14, Johnson scored eight straight points, including two 3-pointers to spark a 12-1 run that gave VCU a 26-15 lead 10:25 to play in the first.
The Vols would get within five later in the half but again Johnson sparked a run, scoring seven of the game’s next eight points en route to a 13-point lead for the Rams, 36-23.
VCU extended its lead to as many as 20 with less than 17 minutes remaining in the second half following four straight points by freshman Terry Larrier. Tennessee chipped at the Rams lead but could get no closer than eight.
VCU shot just 40.3 percent from the field but hit the glass hard and hauled in 23 offensive rebounds or46.9 percent of their misses. With the victory, the Rams have won nine straight season opening games and are now 13-10 against power conference teams under head coach Shaka Smart.
Best performance: Trey Davis (UMass). Davis scored a career-high 28 points as UMass defeated Siena 95-87 for the Minutemen’s 11th opening night victory in the last 12 years. Davis, who was 12-of-17 from the free throw line, converted 7-of-8 free throws in the last 1:08 of the second half to hold off Siena.
He shot 6-of-10 from the field, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc, and dished out four assists.
The ugly: George Mason losing to Cornell at home: George Mason is expected to finish near the bottom of the A-10 standings but their 68-60 loss to Cornell is a surprise. Cornell won only two games last season.
George Mason made just 6-of-their first 25 shot attempts and shot 31 percent (21-of-68) from the field. The Patriots were also only 7-of-27 from the 3-point line (25.9 percent) and 11-of-21 from the charity stripe (52.4 percent). In addition, the Patriots were outrebounded 46-38 though they only committed five turnovers.
Despite shooting so poorly, George Mason was able to keep things close in the first half and trailed just 34-31 at halftime. Cornell scored the first four points of the second half and kept a double-digit lead for the major part of the stanza.
Patrick Halloway scored eight points in the final 35 seconds and led the Patriots with 22 points on 7-of-18 shooting.