The new-look Atlantic-10 will swell to 16 schools next season, with Butler and VCU entering the fray and departing members Temple (Big East) and Charlotte (Conference USA) hanging on for one lame duck season. The uptick in teams will not, however, lead to a proportionate increase in conference games.
The A-10 released its conference schedule on Tuesday, when the league revealed it is holding firm to its traditional 16-game schedule. Comprising the 16-game slate, each team will draw seven home games, seven road games and one home-and-home against a designated rival.
Teams that will meet twice during the regular season are as follows:
Butler-Saint Louis
Charlotte-Temple
Dayton-Xavier
Duquesne-St. Bonaventure
Fordham-Saint Joseph’s
George Washington-La Salle
UMass-Rhode Island
Richmond-VCU
*Butler-Xavier
*Although the A-10 has scheduled Butler and Xavier to play only once during the conference season (at Hinkle Fieldhouse), the two teams will also meet in the non-conference portion of the schedule as part of the College Hoops Tip-Off Marathon. When Butler was still affiliated with the Horizon League, ESPN finalized a deal to have both teams square off in the Tip-Off Marathon in 2012 and 2013. That means Butler and Xavier will hook up over the next two seasons as both conference foes and non-conference foes.
This will be the first intra-league / interleague home-and-home between two A-10 schools in the 36-year history of the conference. What better way to make history than by featuring the two most successful mid-majors in the NCAA tournament over the last half-decade? Butler’s 11 NCAA tournament wins since the 2007-2008 season and Xavier’s 9 are the two most by a mid-major school over that span.
Chalk another one up to realignment for this incidental windfall.