A-10 not included in Athlon's mid-major coaching rankings, part of 'Power 7' conferences

http://www.athlonsports.com/college...time-basketball-coaches-mid-major-conferences

C-USA, Mountain West, MVC, WCC etc. are all considered mid-majors and are included in this ranking while the A-10 got its own full conference ranking along with the BCS conferences.

Blaine Taylor was at 7 and Ron Hunter was at 18 from the CAA.

VCU is in good company!

For the old-timers, do you think the new A-10 is better than the Metro Conference that VCU played in?

On paper, it looks that way to me. Louisville, Virginia Tech, and South Florida have that hindsight 'they ended up being BCS teams' buzz, but I think the A-10 looks much deeper overall. Louisville was the only quality basketball program of the bunch at that time. Tech and USF were just okay.

It may take a couple years...but I think eventually media outlets will begin referring to this group as the Power 7

The Power 6 has always been a reference to football. The A-10 will never be considered part of that group.

You called me out "oldtimer" --- I think that for sure top to bottom the new A-10 is better than the old Metro. Even after Charlotte and Temple leave it will be a very strong conference. Louisville was the flagship of that conference and then there were several solid programs such as Tech, VCU, S Florida . I don't see how that can even be compared to Butler, VCU, Xavier,... great recent success and history. Add very strong programs such as St Louis, St. Josephs , UR -just recently a Sweet 16-, and several others with good history. No question this is VCU's strongest conference to date.

Without a doubt the A10 is better than the Metro was when VCU was in the Metro. The Metro only had 8 teams at that point. Regarding Louisville being the only quality basketball program, actually Tulane coached by Perry Clark, was pretty dominant in the Metro at that time. Other than that, you had Southern Miss and Clarence Witherspoon and that was a drop off from Tulane and Louisville. VA Tech was pretty much a non-factor in basketball when we were both in the Metro together. Hence our 10-10 overall head to head record against them. We owned them in the Metro.

The A10 is much stronger and deeper right now than the Metro was back then with Xavier, St. Louis, Butler, UMass, St. Joe's, UR and VCU - plus several other quality programs currently in the A10. (Temple for one year)

I'll take this A10 over the Metro that VCU was in any day of the week.

All A-10 Final Four anyone?

Although close I don't think the A10 has yet reached the stature of the old Metro. At that time UL was coming off a national championship, Denny Crum was a surefire hall of fame coach and quite frankly the Cards brand had the cachet of a Kentucky or a North Carolina. Va Tech had a NIT championship that was still fresh in everyone's mind; so too the final 4 appearance of UNCC. Add to that the buzz about up and comer UAB as well as Tulane with Perry Clark at the helm and the old Metro was considered one of the top basketball conferences in the country.

So while the A10 is becoming one of the premier conferences I don't think it's quite there yet. Certainly the Metro was.

I agree. We and the A10 will never be considered a "power" conference because we/conference do not have three letters after the conference name.....BCS.

We and the conference will also likely never get all the credit we deserve because we don't have BCS after our name.

But regardless, we and the conference can go out there and prove all of them wrong!

I always thought the Power 6 was a basketball thing. When it comes to football all D1-A conferences are BCS conferences so BCS conferences wouldn't work for basketball since NCAAB doesn't use the BCS.

No all 1-A conferences are considered FBS (Football Bowl Subdivision). All the 1-AA conferences are FCS (Football Championship Subdivision). BCS (Bowl Championship Series) refers to the Power 6 conferences that have auto bids to the 5 BCS bowls that involve 10 of the top-ranked FBS teams.

All FBS conferences are BCS conferences. I've always heard the Big10, Big East, SEC, ACC, PAC 12 & Big 12 referred as the BCS AQ conferences and Power 6 conferences used for basketball.

That makes sense, that's pretty redundant though. Why have both names?

All this labeling is ridiculous. Let's just separate college basketball into the ass-kickers and the ass-kick-ees.

We all know which group VCU falls under.

During the period VCU was in the Metro (1991-95), the Metro had lost a lot of it's previous luster. The Metro had to pick up USF, UAB, UNCC and VCU just to stay alive due to the defections of Florida State, South Carolina, Cincinnati & Memphis in 1991 to other conferences. Regarding Louisville, the program was down during the time VCU was in the Metro and had to struggle just to make the top 25 after winning the national championship in 1986. UNCC went to the Final Four in 1977, 14 years prior to joining the Metro in 1991 with VCU. Virginia Tech won the NIT in 1973, 18 years prior to VCU joining the Metro.

The A10 today is clearly stronger than the Metro was when VCU was a member from 1991-95.