BEVERLY HILLS (MI) — The Dayton Flyers are greased and ready to kick some serious buttock in the 2014 Atlantic 10 conference men’s basketball season. 16 games — 8 homies and 8 roadies — will determine whether the Red and Blue dance or sit on their thumbs come March. Here is what some of the supposed experts have to say about the A-10:

NBC Sports does not like UD’s conference chances:

Who will slide?: Dayton Flyers

The Flyers were awesome out in Maui. They beat Gonzaga, they beat Cal, they almost beat Baylor. That shot them up into the top 25. But since then, the Flyers have lost to Illinois State and dropped an overtime decision to USC at home.

Linky badness:

http://collegebasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2014/01/01/atlantic-10-conference-catchup-can-umass-outlast-vcu-and-saint-louis/

College Chalk Talk looks at the A-10 in terms of tempo:

http://collegechalktalk.com/2014/01/07/atlantic-10-tempo-tuesday-pre-conference-edition/

RushtheCourt.com checks in on the Atlantic 10 at mid-season:

http://rushthecourt.net/2014/01/01/checking-in-on-the-atlantic-10-48/

Crack stat guru Ken Pomeroy has this to say about the Oceanic Bakers Dozen in his recent Conference Race Simulation blog post:

A-10

The pick: UMass. The Minutemen have played a hellacious schedule, with just four true home games and only one gimme game – a home contest against Northern Illinois. They’ve risked a loss 11 times and only have one defeat to show for it.

The contrarian pick: Dayton. Saint Louis and VCU are still on the radar and got plenty of preseason ink, but Dayton’s 11-3 and been one of the unluckiest teams in the land so far.

UMass 3527
SLU 2921
VCU 1678
Dayton 927
Richmond 297
GW 282
Saint Joe’s 218
SBU 69
GMU 44
La Salle 36
Fordham 2

How ‘bout those Rhody Rams and Duquesne Dukes, eh Kenny?

Over the course of history, a lot of things have been said about luck by many different folks, famous and not so much. Here is a Whitman’s Sampler of some of them:

Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I’d rather be lucky than be good

Anonymous

The best luck of all is the luck you make for yourself

Douglas MacArthur

Not the way I play it, no

WC Fields when asked by a sucker “Is this a game of chance?”

I’ve found that luck is quite predictable. If you want more luck, take more chances. Be more active. Show up more often

Brian Tracy

Luck be a lady tonight

Frank Sinatra

Diligence is the mother of good luck

Benjamin Franklin

Luck will get crushed by the Pats on Saturday evening

Hey how’d that get in there I wonder?

I ask you: How exactly does a college basketball team win two of their first 15 games on last-second miracle three pointers and still rank #251 out of 351 total Division 1 programs in Ken Pomeroy’s luck factor? While he’s at it, why doesn’t Kenny Boy just go ahead and add a “Free Throw Defense” metric to his statistical rankings? UD’s opponents are obviously doing pretty dang good in that category so far this year, no?

Thankfully, the outcome of Flyer games is determined by the players on the floor and not some lame predictor algorithm. In case The Flyer Faithful need any further motivation for Saturday’s A-10 opener vs. SLU, there is always this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMR9qLAGU-4&feature=youtu.be

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
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