We all know how bad traffic to the Shore can be can be on summer weekends. But given the current logjam in the Atlantic 10, where five teams have six conference wins, there could be a lot of traffic on the road to a first-round bye in Atlantic City next month.
Three teams stand at 6-4: Duquesne, George Washington and St. Joe's. Right now, GW has fourth place on the better overall record tiebreak (15-7 to the Hawks' 14-10 and the Dukes' 10-11). That makes the Colonials' visit to Hawk Hill on Wednesday even bigger than a matchup between the two recent powers in the conference would already be.
Phil Martelli is well aware that his team is right in the mix for a top-four finish.
"We’re in the fray here," he said. "It’s not like this thing is over and done and we’re only talking about seeding -- We can still talk about getting to the top of the league.
"Now, we’re going to have a lot of circumstances to get there, but certainly, all of these games down the stretch, it changes on a daily basis," he continued. "And I think that’s a good thing, and I don’t think the league gets enough credit for that."
Martelli admitted, though, that his players have been as confused as many of the rest of us about what's going on the A-10 this season.
"Last week, we had a meeting when we were getting ready for our next game, against Dayton. I asked them who’s in first place in the Atlantic 10," he said. "There were 13, 14 guys in the room – eight different answers. They had no idea. So now we talk about, what does this mean. What does this mean to La Salle, to play us today? What does it mean to us? What’s going on in the Atlantic 10? What does Rhode Island losing to UMass mean?"
Martelli wasn't afraid to say how important it would be to his team to get a first-round bye, especially given how young the team is. More than just being an extra day of rest, the bye would give Martelli more time to get the scouting reports on the other teams into his players' heads.
"I’m not sure if we’re smart enough yet to do it [fast]," he said. "In that case, we’re too young – they’re not as in tune as I’d want them to be. With an older team, in the years where we had them, we’d go to the hotel and we had it cold.
"But with this team, I think having the opportunity to play three games in three days would be significant for this group," he continued. "It wouldn’t be a deal-breaker if we don’t, but it would be significant."
