Week three in the Atlantic 10 Conference saw some significant retirement news, new breakout stars and a pair of major upsets from Dayton and… *checks notes* Rhode Island?
Our resident A10 reporter, Riley
Frain, is bringing you a weekly notebook this season to recap all the latest news from his coverage around the league.
This week, Bernadette McGlade closes out her distinguished 45-year career, St. Joe’s and La Salle fall short in the Big 5 while George Mason and Saint Louis are rounding into form.
A10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade announces retirement
As the conference officially announced on Wednesday, A10 commissioner Bernadette McGlade will be retiring at the conclusion of the 2025-26 season following 18 years in the position. She was initially the head coach of Georgia Tech’s women’s basketball team before moving into an administrative role with the Atlantic Coast Conference in 1997.
McGlade joined the A10 in 2008 where she helped to expand championship sports by adding both men’s lacrosse and women’s golf into the fold in 2022 and 2024, respectively. When programs like Butler, Charlotte, Temple and Xavier left in 2013, she oversaw a period of realignment with Davidson, George Mason, Loyola Chicago and VCU joining the conference’s prestigious ranks.
In the wake of a 45-year career, McGlade was the longest-tenured active commissioner from any of the 32 Division-I conferences. In her outgoing media press conference, she announced that the A10 would be returning to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn for the 2026-27 and 2027-28 men’s basketball championships.
Dayton looking strong as ever in OT win over Marquette
For the second straight season, Dayton has managed an upset over Shaka Smart’s Marquette. Led by 19 points from Javon Bennett and 18 points from De’Shayne Montgomery, the Flyers held the Golden Eagles to just three points in overtime for a 77-71 win on the road Wednesday.
This was another major test after Dayton’s first loss at Cincinnati and a potential resume builder for a team projected to finish top-3 in a league looking to return to multi-bid status. Anthony Grant’s Flyers moved up nine spots to 65th in KenPom’s rankings following the upset win but their non-conference schedule doesn’t get much easier from here.
At the ESPN Events Invitational on Thanksgiving, Dayton will meet a red-hot Georgetown program before a matchup against either No. 9 BYU or a very talented Miami team. In December, the Flyers travel to Charlotte for a neutral court battle with former VCU head coach Ryan Odom and his Virginia Cavaliers and will later host Florida State in Ohio.
There’s a world where Dayton goes 4-2 against high-major competition this season which would easily give the Flyers the A10’s best resume heading into conference play. The bigger question might be if we can trust Dayton to maintain that resume late into the season come February and March.
5-0 George Mason has first real test on the horizon
Despite the early season injury to preseason all-conference First Team selection Brayden O’Connor, George Mason is off to a 5-0 start for just the second time in program history. The Patriots have dominant wins over Wofford, Catawba (DII), New Hampshire, Jacksonville and a tightly contested bout with Winthrop.
Junior guard Kory Mincy has really thrived in O’Connor’s place and is currently the team’s leading scorer averaging a career-high 17.6 PPG over those first five games. Maryland transfer and graduate senior guard Jahari Long is proving a valuable contributor with a mid-major move and senior guard Masai Troutman just dropped 20 points in his return from injury.
However, most will be quick to point out that the Patriots haven’t exactly played a slog of opponents yet like Dayton or VCU. George Mason’s toughest matchup so far was Winthrop, which according to KenPom, is the 119th ranked team but after that the drop off is steep.
Luckily, undefeated George Mason has its first teal tests on the horizon. After a battle with Ohio, the Patriots will matchup with either Florida Atlantic or Loyola Marymount at the Sunshine Slam, both of which are top-120 opponents.
Following James Madison and Cornell, George Mason’s only high-major game awaits as the Patriots visit Virginia Tech in early December with an opportunity for a real resume builder.
Uhm, did Rhode Island just upset Yale on the road?
What was once a consistent A10 contender under the leadership of Dan Hurley slowly topped during David Cox’s tenure before Archie Miller’s reign got off to a slow start. It took time to adjust to recruiting in the transfer portal era but after back-to-back losing seasons for Rhode Island, Miller’s Rams finished a respectable 18-13 in 2024-25.
It only led to a 10th place finish in-conference though and with the program’s three leading scorers departing at season’s end, Rhode Island was selected 12th in the preseason poll. The Rams have surprised us all by starting the 2025-26 season 4-1 with wins over Albany, Stonehill and Stetson as their only loss came against a top-110 team in Tulsa.
That early success culminated in a Tuesday night upset win over Yale in which Rhode Island prevailed 86-77 on the road behind a season-high 24 points from Jonah Hinton. He spent this past season at St. Bonaventure where he worked more as a role player but for the Rams he’s been thrust into the spotlight.
We’ll have a better idea of how good this Rhode Island team is come early December with Towson (135 in KenPom), Providence (72) and McNeese State (97) awaiting the Rams. But for now, Miller has this program trending in the right direction over the first few weeks of the new season.
Neither La Salle nor St. Joe’s will play for the Big 5 title in 2025-26
For the first time since the introduction of the new Big 5 Classic in 2023, neither of the A10’s Philadelphia-based schools will play for the Big 5 title on Dec. 6. St. Joe’s has won the two previous iterations as back-to-back Champions while La Salle finished third in 2023 and second in 2024 after falling to the Hawks.
The early season has been a struggle for St. Joe’s under new head coach Steve Donahue and after losing to Virginia Tech on the road, the Hawks fell to Penn at The Palestra on Monday. It’s the Quakers first win over St. Joe’s in their last last seven meetings and cost the Hawks a chance at a three-peat in the Big 5.
La Salle started off hot under its new head coach in Darris Nichols with two straight wins but that momentum finally wore off and the Explorers were quickly thrashed by both Temple and Villanova. Ultimately, that means La Salle will play in the fifth-place game at Xfinity Mobile Arena for the first time since this new series format’s induction.
Both teams will have opportunities to bounce back soon as St. Joe’s host Division-III Rutgers-Camden and La Salle welcomes in Division-III Lancaster Bible. Even so, it’s already shaping up to be a long season in Philadelphia with both programs experiencing major changes this past offseason.
Amari McCottry surprising with Saint Louis
Saint Louis was selected second in the A10’s 2025-26 preseason poll and received 11 first-place votes from the committee. A major reason for that was the return of 2024-25 A10 Second Team selection Robbie Avila as well as signings like Dion Brown, Ishan Sharma and Quentin Jones.
It’s a group that currently has six different players averaging double-digits with the Billikens sitting 4-0 after recent wins over Lindenwood and Grand Canyon.
Sophomore guard Amari McCottry wasn’t the most talked about player on Josh Schertz’s roster heading into the 2025-25 campaign. He averaged just 4.6 PPG in 31 appearances as a freshman and made the starting lineup just three times, but now, McCottry is Saint Louis’ leading scorer managing 17.3 PPG.
In that recent win over Lindenwood, he dropped a career-high 23 points, adding nine rebounds, four steals and two assists before scoring another 20 points to beat out Grand Canyon. The back-to-back performances earned McCottry a nomination in this week’s Mid-Major Madness Men’s Player of the Week voting.
It’s still early for the Billikens who will have to face Santa Clara followed by either Minnesota or Stanford next week but no doubt Schertz has a new found star at the helm of his rotation in McCottry.
