By Chuckie Maggio @chuckiemaggio
The Atlantic 10 conference had a fairly good week, going 15-7 including an upset over a ranked team. Here are the best and worst performers from the past seven days.
Team records this week: Davidson 2-0, Duquesne 2-0, Fordham 2-0, George Washington 2-0, St. Joe’s 2-0, Richmond 1-0, Saint Louis 1-0, St. Bonaventure 1-0, Dayton 1-1, Rhode Island 1-1, La Salle 0-1, George Mason 0-2, UMass 0-2.
Three stars of the week:
Jack Gibbs, Davidson. The third-leading scorer in the country dropped 37 points, including six threes, on Eastern Washington on Wednesday, his third game with 30 or more points this season. Gibbs showed off his all-around game too, with six rebounds and six assists. He followed that performance up with 17 points, 12 boards and six dimes against Western Carolina. Not the toughest competition, but a guard shooting 64 percent from the field is impressive against anybody. When Tyler Kalinoski graduated, Gibbs was there to take the torch, and he’s torching opponents this year.
Micah Mason, Duquesne. The Dukes had a 2-0 week, and Mason had a lot to do with that. The 6-foot-2 senior guard played in 70 of the possible 80 minutes, averaging 16.5 points, 5.5 assists and 4.5 rebounds while hitting the game-winning jumper with two seconds left to beat St. Francis (PA). He has scored in double figures in nine of Duquesne’s 10 games this season, shooting 48.8 percent from the field.
Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure. Bonnies fans were delighted to watch Adams’s shooting display in Tuesday night’s win over Vermont. The 6-foot-1 sophomore scored 28 points on 9-of-14 shooting, including a 7-of-10 mark from three, and registered seven assists to lead Bonaventure to an 80-68 victory. Bona only played one game this week, but without Adams they probably would not have survived the Catamount run at the start of the second half. The Baltimore native continues to power SBU.
Best win: Dayton over no. 21 Vanderbilt, 72-67. The Flyers rolled into Nashville on Wednesday night and upset the Commodores thanks in large part to 21 points from Kendall Pollard and a 10-point, nine-rebound performance from Steve McElvene. Dayton outrebounded Vandy by ten and swiped seven steals in the victory.
Worst loss: Dayton loses to Chattanooga, 61-59. The win over the Commodores may have landed Dayton a spot in the top 25, but losing to a team that had just lost to Louisiana-Monroe by 10 tabled that talk for a while. A very un-Dayton-like 3-of-13 mark from three-point was one of the main contributors to the loss, and getting outrebounded by three didn’t help, either. Pollard had 20 to lead all scorers, but his eight missed free throws came up large. The good news for the Flyers? Only nine days until they get star forward Dyshawn Pierre back from suspension.
Best games in the week ahead: Georgia Tech-VCU on Tuesday, VCU-Cincinnati on Saturday and Pitt-Davidson on Sunday are three games you won’t want to miss on the A-10 slate.
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