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Atlantic Ten in transition

The Atlantic Ten is in the midst of a memorable season. The other day, Sports Illustrated came out with college basketball power rankings - conference by conference - and there was the A-10 ahead of the Southeastern Conference and the Pac-12, on merit.

The Atlantic Ten is in the midst of a memorable season. The other day, Sports Illustrated came out with college basketball power rankings - conference by conference - and there was the A-10 ahead of the Southeastern Conference and the Pac-12, on merit.

This didn't happen by chance. If the realignment wheels hadn't started spinning, it wouldn't have happened at all, since the two A-10 schools currently nationally ranked, Butler and Virginia Commonwealth, accepted invitations from the A-10 after Temple announced it was leaving for the Big East.

The Owls are in the A-10 for one last year, Butler and VCU have already arrived, and the league is stocked with talent at other schools. Too bad the league can't stop the realignment wheel right now. The A-10 isn't as strong as this year's Big East, but it might be as deep. Syracuse and Notre Dame have lost three games between them, and two of those were to A-10 teams, Temple and St. Joseph's, on neutral courts.

Of course, the realignment wheel hasn't stopped spinning, and the A-10 is in the crosshairs right now, maybe more than any other league. The schools that are breaking away from the Big East (and trying to take the name with them) are looking at as many as a half-dozen A-10 schools to join with Villanova, Georgetown, Seton Hall, St. John's, Providence, Marquette, and DePaul.

The best bet is that four or five A-10 schools will end up leaving. Look for Xavier and Butler to go. How many more depends on the size of the new league. If it goes to 12 schools, as its television partners probably would want, expect two or three more A-10 schools to be poached, from a group that includes Richmond, VCU, Dayton, and St. Louis. (Creighton may be the only non-A-10 school under serious consideration.)

So the A-10 is doomed?

The league would take a hit, no doubt, but it's more likely to end up being a two- or three-bid basketball league than sink to one- to two-bid status. Say all those schools go. Temple is gone after this season to join whatever is left of Big East football. (More like the old Conference USA.) Say Butler, Xavier, Richmond, Dayton, and St. Louis all go.

What are the potential targets? Surely the A-10 would make another run at George Mason. You'd also expect the league to go farther south looking for the strongest basketball schools. Davidson and Charleston are obvious targets, pretty good ones.

Then you start looking up the coast. Is Delaware a possibility? Hofstra or Stony Brook? What about Siena, which always draws well?

History shows the A-10 will be prepared to make moves. It hit for a better average than the Big East when it came to adding schools. A-10 losses, however, eventually might include Massachusetts, since the Big East group that includes Temple is a natural fit for the Minutemen now that they have upgraded to FBS and are doing what Temple used to do, play A-10 hoops and Mid-American football. The Owls have to hope UMass joins them.

Rumors also have been floated that Connecticut and Cincinnati, full Big East members, might want to play basketball with Villanova and Georgetown and the others while hoping for an Atlantic Coast Conference invitation. As tempting as it might be to take in such strong hoops schools, that's the kind of thing the breakaway Big East hoops schools are trying to get away from, having their membership beholden to more realignment moves driven by football decisions.

As the Catholic Seven works to extricate itself as quickly as possible from the Big East football schools, talks about the rights to the name of the league are on the front burner. (The sooner the hoops schools get a name, the sooner they'll stop being called the Catholic Seven, which they don't much like.)

For Philadelphia, seeing how the Atlantic Ten makes out in all this is just as important. St. Joseph's and La Salle have just as much at stake as Temple and Villanova.

We've heard the A-10 hasn't given up trying to keep Butler and Xavier and the rest from being poached. We just haven't heard of a plan that would work.