MARCH MADNESS!

Both Richmond and Temple men won their first games in the NCAA tournament and advance to the third round games. Temple downed Penn State thanks to last-second heroics by Juan Fernandez.



Kevin Anderson led the charge on the Spiders upset of #5 Vanderbilt.  Watch the highlights below:

Game Highlights- Feb. 2, 2011

Miss some of last night's action? We've got a smattering of highlights for you here on the blog!

Charlotte 66, Xavier 62



Temple 71, La Salle 67



Dayton 63, St. Bonaventure 61



Saint Louis 69, Massachusetts 53



Richmond 62, Saint Joseph's 52

Faces of the A-10: Richmond's Brittani Shells

Senior explores her two passions - basketball and film - at UR

This article was originally posted by University of Richmond Sports Information

and can be found here

 
Brittani Shells, ’11, can barely remember a time when she didn’t have a basketball in her hand. The guard for the University of Richmond’s varsity women’s basketball team spent much of her childhood shooting hoops on a neighborhood court, establishing a lifetime passion for the sport and ultimately spawning aspirations to play professionally.

“My dad introduced me to the sport and since then I’ve loved it,” she says. “He passed away in 2005, but I know that he still, in a way, lives on through me because I’m still playing.”

By the time she reached high school, Shells knew she wanted to play basketball in college and was looking for a small school with a coach that meshed with her style. After Michael Shafer, head coach for the women’s basketball team, reached out and compared her to her favorite basketball player — Allen Iverson — Shells decided to give the University of Richmond a look.

“[Coach Shafer] definitely drew me in,” she says. “He knew I liked to score and that’s what the team needed at the time. I took a look and loved it; I didn’t even look into any other schools. I felt at peace.”
Being on the women’s basketball team has been one of the highlights of Shells’ Richmond experience. In particular, Shells remembers playing James Madison University in the NCAA’s National Invitation Tournament her sophomore year.

“JMU is a pretty good school and it was a tie game,” she says. “Coach put me in a position where I had to create a shot and I actually made it! I was going crazy.”

Shells also found her teammates made the University a home away from home.

“My teammates are amazing,” she says. “We rarely see our families, so they’re like another family. Some people have fraternities or sororities, but I have the basketball team and that’s all I need.”

When Shells isn’t scoring baskets on the Robins Center court, she can often be found capturing her world behind the lens of her Flip camera. Film was an outlet for her growing up and a career path she’s considering entering down the road, if she doesn’t immediately enter the realm of professional basketball.

“My dream team has been the Washington Mystics,” she says. “But then I thought about the L.A. Sparks — and that’s in L.A., in Hollywood. That’s exactly where I really want to be for film.”

Though the University's film major wasn't created until Shells' junior year, the rhetoric and communication studies major still found time to prepare for film school by taking courses in the field.

This year she combined her two passions by turning the camera on her teammates during pre-season practices and workout sessions. She's now editing the footage to create her own film.

“The classes showed me a different side of film,” she says. “I never noticed how much went into creating frames. And editing my own video is a lot of work, but it’s fun to see how it all forms together.”

A-10 Student-Athletes Take to the Streets

In today's post we'll feature some of the great work A-10 student-athletes have been doing in the community, finding ways to give back:

First up, Charlotte Men's Basketball visits the Children's Hospital:



Next, Fordham Track & Field:

 Photo Gallery

Bronx, N.Y. - While getting back to work on the track over the past two weeks, the Fordham track & field teams have also put in plenty of work off the track during the holiday season, putting together two community service projects.

The first project was a holiday toy drive, where the teams collected and donated toys to the Butler Child Advocacy Center at Montefiore Hospital.

The team collected 77 board games to give to the Center's annual Holiday Party. The Center works with 200 children from the Bronx community that come from abusive households. The party was attended by the children and their families. The games collected by the Fordham track & field team allowed every child who attended to leave the party with a gift.

The Rams are also participating in the Nike Reuse-A-Shoe Program, collecting various pairs of shoes and sneakers for a new age recycling effort.

Richmond Men's Basketball visit the homeless:



Saint Louis Women's Basketball give back to Haiti: Watch the Video

Rivals' Eisenberg Covers Coach Major And The 49ers

Read all rivals.yahoo.com NCAA coverage HERE

 

Revitalized Charlotte has surged since dismissing Shamari Spears

By Jeff Eisenberg

Remove the most talented player from a floundering team already decimated by injuries, and what do you get?

In Charlotte's case, a sudden revival almost nobody saw coming.

Since first-year coach Alan Major dismissed top scorer Shamari Spears three weeks ago for violating team rules, Charlotte has rallied from a 4-6 start to reel off four wins in a row entering Wednesday night's conference opener at Richmond. Bookending that streak is a one-point win over then-No. 7 Tennessee and a double-overtime come-from-behind victory at Georgia Tech.

"We struggled a little bit early, but I always felt good about what we had," Major said by phone this week. "I'm happy the guys have rallied around each other and supported each other. That's what being a team is all about."

Few teams have endured more adversity in the first two months of the season than Charlotte, which last made the NCAA tournament in 2005 and was projected to finish in the middle of the Atlantic 10 again this season. K.J. Sherrill and Charles Dewhurst suffered meniscus tears during the first week of practice and Spears and two other returners were suspended to start the season, contributing to a disappointing start that included losses to Gardner-Webb, East Carolina and Davidson.

The nadir appeared to come Dec. 14 when Major announced he was dismissing Spears from the team. The senior had previously indicated on his Twitter that he was having trouble adjusting to Major, saying once during the preseason that he missed Lutz and another time he was close to quitting the team.


Major still won't shed much light on exactly what led to Major's dismissal except to say that the decision was "difficult" and that he wants players who "represent the university in the right way." What he will talk about is how he has managed to keep the rest of the team positive and upbeat under unenviable circumstances.

"One thing we do a lot is we try to teach life lessons," Major said. "We just try to relate a lot of what happened to life and to developing toughness and bringing the right effort and those kinds of things. It's a little bit corny but it has worked for us."

Cheesy or not, the life lessons have helped the 49ers step up in Spears' absence the past few weeks.
Center Phil Jones had the game-winning layup with 7.4 seconds against Vols. Guard Javarris Barnett sank a game-clinching three in a one-point win over Mercer. And guard Derrio Green hit the game-tying and game-winning buckets against Wright State and scored 21 points in the win at Georgia Tech.

"Everyone in their own way has chipped in," Major said. "Different guys have had big scoring nights or made key plays to help us, and that's why we've turned it around."

Post Game Interviews From Some of Last Night's Winners

College Chalktalk's Temple-Fordham Game Preview

By Ray Floriani

The Fordham Rams open their Atlantic Ten schedule hosting Temple at the Izod Center tonight. Fordham will play four conference games at the East Rutherford, N.J. based facility and the matchup with the Owls is the opener.
  
A year ago the Rams were being mentioned for several reasons. Such as a star player exiting and a coaching change in December. Currently, Fordham is in the conversation thanks to an impressive win over St. John’s last month. It was the Red Storm’s most recent loss to date. Moving along, a few numbers to consider:

                          Pace                Offensive Efficiency     Defensive Efficiency
Temple                  67                              102                                   89
Fordham               67                              100                                  102

Both teams are respectable on offense. The defensive side shows a marked contrast. Tom Pecora’s Rams are doing at best, a marginal  job on that end.  A further look shows opposition eFG percentage at 47% and an opposing TO rate of 15%.  Simply, the Rams are a bit too generous to teams shooting from the field while not exerting ball pressure to create turnovers. Forcing mistakes is not solely predicated on full court pressing, turnovers can also be a product of sound half court D.
  
The Owls’ outstanding defensive efficiency is produced by limiting teams to a 43% eFG mark. The ball pressure is respectable as Fran Dunphy’s club forces a 20% TO rate. Offensively, Temple’s 18% TO rate stands out.  They value the ball and rarely beat themselves, even on a possession to possession basis.
  
The two teams do a good job of limiting opposition to one shot. Temple’s opposition has a 27% offensive rebound percentage while Fordham checks in at a healthy 28%.

Final Note. Neither team appears to be forcing the pace as the average pace (possessions per game) is identical. Temple just has to come in and execute.  Play their game, the one that made them the class of the conference. Fordham shouldn’t be considered lightly. There is a new mindset on Rose Hill and this is a Ram team that came from twenty points down in the second half to pull out that win over St. John’s.

The Atlantic Ten Conference season is upon us.

-Ray Floriani-