ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 8, 1996 TAG: 9601080019
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: Jack Bogaczyk
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
This basketball league Virginia Tech calls home now? Yeah, the A-10. Is that short for Avalanche 10?
Not really. However, the arrival of Atlantic 10 basketball in these parts was dripping with irony - from the sky.
Perhaps Virginia Tech was just trying to prove it could really be part of the A-10, so it did all it could to welcome the league.
Since Tech helped bring the conference to 12 members last spring, the Hokies have pondered what kind of weather would greet them on their first A-10 voyage.
They wondered if they'd have trouble getting to a game. Little did they think it would be one within walking distance.
The first A-10 game in Tech's history was snowed out Sunday afternoon, and it was nowhere close to Olean, N.Y., home of St.Bonaventure.
St.Joseph's got to Blacksburg from Philadelphia by way of Charlotte, as did the Richmond women's team for the doubleheader - but no one else did.
The scheduled A-10 officials couldn't make it, and replacements hadn't left home yet when the game was called off early Sunday morning. The St.Joe's radio crew wasn't able to arrive, nor was any member of the A-10 TV crew for the game scheduled to be televised by Home Team Sports.
If the road conditions were frightful enough, perhaps just as scary a sight was the two feet of snow atop the aged and reinforced roof of Cassell Coliseum.
Because it didn't want to bring new meaning to ``crashing the boards,'' Tech called the game, which will be made up later this season. And the Hokies were thinking the only A-10 sport in which there might be a snowout was baseball.
Now, it's St.Joe's with the problem. It has to somehow get home to play top-ranked Massachusetts on Tuesday night.
The Hawks thought they were in deep Sunday.
So, Tech's first A-10 game comes Wednesday night at Duquesne. The first A-10 visitor to Cassell will be another Philly school, LaSalle, on Saturday afternoon.
A week from tonight, Tech gets an anticipated late visit by George Washington - not Bill Clinton's predecessor, but a team with a 7-foot Belarussian. Yes, it's Alexander Koul and the gang.
At least now, St.Joe's coach Phil Martelli can spread the word through the league that it isn't necessary to pack bermudas for that A-10 southern swing through balmy Blacksburg.
But what do the Hokies really know about the A-10? Not much. Not yet.
Let's see, maybe the notes are under this snowbank ...
The A-10 has 12 members in six states and the District of Columbia. The league is in its 20th basketball season and on its fourth logo and fourth commissioner. The men's conference tournament is played in Philadelphia, home of three A-10 members.
The league got its roots in a March 2, 1975 meeting in Harrisburg, Pa. There's no record if snow was on the ground that day. Of the original eight members in the Eastern Collegiate Basketball League, only Duquesne, George Washington and UMass remain.
It became the Eastern Eight. Monmouth is not in the A-10, but Fordham is and Villanova was. The A-10 hasn't yet had a Final Four team, but five have reached the final eight.
The A-10 usually gets about five teams into postseason play, its NIT profile helped by Eastern hoops connections. The league isn't as strong as the Metro in which Tech once played, but it's probably comparable to the expiring Metro of recent winters.
In the first Ratings Percentage Index of the season last week, the Atlantic 10 ranked seventh, behind the ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Pacific 10, Conference USA and Big Eight. It was ahead of the SEC.
It had three teams in the RPI top 20 in UMass (1), Temple (16) and the Hokies (20). Then, it dropped off to St.Bonaventure (60) and St.Joseph's (68). Among Tech's West Division foes, Dayton (98) ranked second to the Hokies.
What will be the biggest adjustment for the Hokies in the A-10 won't be the weather, but what's indoors.
There are no Freedom Halls here. Two arena names end in ``Gym.'' Half of the A-10's dozen teams have playpens with fewer than 6,000 seats.
So, while the A-10 isn't as good top to bottom as what Tech has been playing - and part of that is life in a 12-team league - the road-floor disadvantage can be greater, too.
On their first tour through the A-10 this winter, no matter what atmospheric conditions they find on the road to Philadelphia, the Hokies had better just play through it.
After all, the first snow job was theirs.
LENGTH: Medium: 86 linesby CNB