A10 Schedule Reaction

The Conference Schedule has dropped, and Davidson has an exciting but very challenging slate, so let’s jump in!

The first thing that jumps out is that Davidson has three really tough home games, Dayton, Loyola Chicago, and Richmond, all before the students get back from break. That is obviously not ideal whatsoever and it’ll be up to local residents to pack Belk and create a home court advantage. In spite of this, Davidson does have a nice home and away slate. We get more than a few resume building opportunities on the road as at VCU, at SLU, and at Dayton should be Q1A games for us and at George Mason and at UMass could be borderline Q1 games as well. That’s a tough road schedule as we face the projected top-3 A10 teams and 2 more projected top-half teams on the road. On the flipside though, we get VCU, Dayton, and SLU in addition to Loyola Chicago and Richmond (who should be about commensurate with George Mason and UMass) at home. In other words, it’s a challenging but balanced schedule!

So what am I most intrigued by? I’m most intrigued by the 8 day period that lasts from January 7th to February 4th. In those 8 days we have home games against SLU and VCU and finish with an away game at UMass. That 3-game stretch will likely have a big say in how our season turns out, hopefully the team will be playing its best basketball by that stretch. I’m also looking forward to our final 7 games which are against Fordham, SLU, Saint Joe’s, Bona, Duquesne, George Washington, and Rhode Island. Outside of SLU those are all teams I expect to finish in the lower half of the league and thus be in contention for the pillow fight. If Davidson can keep its head above water against the meat of its A10 schedule, the first 11 games, those final 7 games give Davidson a long runway heading into the A10 Tournament and a chance to boost its place in the conference standings and gain some momentum before postseason play starts.