A-10 commissioner optimistic about future after improved performance in 2024
Apr. 7—Commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade has settled into her office at the new Atlantic 10 Conference headquarters in Washington, D.C. The conference announced in September it would move 178 miles north from Newport News, Va., to the nation's capital, which is more centrally located in the league's geographic footprint.
The A-10′s new location on Dupont Circle in Washington is less than a mile from the White House and 1.7 miles from Capital One Arena, where the A-10 tournament will be held in 2025.
McGlade, who was named A-10 commissioner in 2008, is now the longest-serving commissioner in A-10 history. She has led the conference through a turbulent era for college sports. The rights of athletes to profit off the use of their name, image and likeness and to transfer without penalty has reshaped the games.
The A-10 ranked eighth among men's basketball conferences in 2008 when McGlade took over, according to the Ken Pomeroy ratings, and it was eighth again in 2024. That was a notable improvement after the worst season for the conference's men's basketball teams in 18 years. The A-10 ranked 13th in 2023 and produced no teams with a resume worthy of a NCAA tournament at-large berth.
The fact that getting two teams into the tournament was an accomplishment shows how much has changed for the A-10. In 2014, it sent six teams to March Madness for the first time. Three teams made it in each of the following three seasons. In the 2019, 2021 and 2022 tournaments, only two A-10 teams played in the NCAA tournament each season.
Only Dayton did enough in conference play this past season to earn an at-large berth, and only Duquesne's unexpected run to the A-10 tournament championship kept the A-10 from being a one-bid league for the second season in a row.
The hope entering the 2023-24 season was that the previous season was a blip — the first time only the conference tournament champion had played in the NCAA tournament since 2005 — and the hope moving forward is that this past season proves that. The league hit its highest note in recent years in March when the Dayton Flyers and Duquesne won first-round NCAA tournament games on the same day.
McGlade talked about the experience of watching those two games and much more in an interview with the Dayton Daily News on Wednesday. Here a transcript of the conversation:
Q: What was your experience like watching Dayton beat Nevada and Duquesne upset Brigham Young on March 21?
A: It was a great day. I go with our conference champion, so I was with Duquesne in Omaha. We were the early game. I was able then to watch the full Dayton game afterward. It was great. If you look at percentages, we were 100% on day one. Anytime that you can advance into the field of 32, that's a good day for the league.
Q: Dayton and its fans have been through a lot since 2020. How much were you rooting for Dayton success based on that recent history?
A: The 2020 tournament when they were in a position to be a No. 1 seed and to have the A-10 championship be canceled because of COVID and the NCAA go away, that's an opportunity of a lifetime. It was just heartbreaking. You can't do anything about it. It's life. It's not easy. I think it was a really great moment to see the success that they've had this year coming off of a very hard year last year.
Q: I think everyone in the A-10 was rooting for coach Keith Dambrot and Duquesne in the NCAA tournament. Was it emotional seeing that program have success after such a long absence from March Madness?
A: It really was. Keith is not only one of the great coaches in this business but just a great person. Having gone through so many ups and downs and trials and tribulations, not only with just his professional career, but even most recently, with health scares within their family and within the team from an injury standpoint in the recent years, the fact that he had already made the decision that it was time to retire and start a new chapter, to see the team and all of his staff and those alums really rallying around the success of the men's basketball team, it was just a rewarding experience. It was heartwarming.
When you look at the strength of the league this past year, there were a lot of people that really didn't give the A-10 the respect that it should have. Six of our teams had 20 or more wins. Only seven of the 32 conferences could say that. We had nine teams in the top 100 of the NET. Our teams have been just battling every single night. We were due to be rewarded in the postseason. We had high hopes even for other teams beyond Dayton and Duquesne, but we're happy we got the two wins.
Q: The A-10′s conference rating improved, but there is a gap between it and the next highest-ranked conference, the Mountain West. Is No. 8 a good spot for the A-10, or are you always looking to improve?
A: We're shooting to improve. In men's basketball and women's basketball, one of our strategic planning goals is we always want to be seventh or eighth in the conference national rankings. We feel like that's a realistic goal. That's an achievable goal. Obviously, we were short of that a year ago, and we were able to rebound. The only way you get better is if the lower echelon of the league gets better, and they definitely did. You're only as strong as your weakest link. The bottom of the league really stepped up with the number of overall wins. Sometimes the statistics start to work against you when you're a 15-team league. The Mountain West (11 teams), they're a smaller league. I think there were some quirks within the NET, but at the same time, you still have to win ballgames.
Q: Speaking of the bottom half of the league getting better, Duquesne invested in its program by improving its arena. Is that a good sign that if you do that you're going to be rewarded?
A: I think so. Anytime you have significant investments, you want a high return on your investment. Duquesne proved it. They've been supporting the program. They renovated the entire arena. It's beautiful, and it fits the size of the university. They have strong presidential and board support for their basketball programs, and you see them benefit with the wins. Dambrot mentioned in one of his interviews how happy he was for the board of trustees and all of the leadership that committed resources to the program and that there was a return on the investment.
Q: What did you think of Duquesne staying in house and hiring Dru Joyce III to replace Dambrot, who retired?
A: I think it was a great hire. There was a game plan in place. I think many institutions maybe don't pay as much attention to succession when they know that succession is important and will be inevitable at some point. That's a perfect example. Duquesne felt like they needed a game plan. They got a game plan. It ended up really working out in the end. My hat's off to them. You have Dru taking over a program that's on very solid footing.
Q: What does the departure of Massachusetts, which is leaving the league after the 2024-25 season, for the Mid-American Conference mean for the A-10?
A: We're certainly disappointed to see them go. But we've had very good open, transparent conversations and discussions with UMass for the last three or four years. I'm not going to say we felt this was inevitable, but knowing this profession as well as I know it, after being involved for the last 40 years, you know the the priority and the needing to get a home for Division I FBS football. It's a monster, and sooner or later that decision is in the best interest of their overall institution with how football kind of tilts the scales to some degree. We wish them well. We didn't want to see them go at the same time. I think the A-10 is in good shape. When they leave, we're at 14. We're still a big league. We have a huge footprint. We have great media partners that we just renewed for another good period of years. The championship's in a good place. Everyone's feeling pretty positive.
Q: Do you need to replace UMass? Can you stay at 14?
A: Fourteen is a solid number. I'm not saying we'll always stay at 14. But there's not a panic or any sense of urgency that we have to just run out (and add a school). We would only add new members if they bring value, if they fit the profile of the league, if they fit the culture, if they're basketball centric. We will be very strategic in those decisions, and we will make them with good data and good input.
Q: Loyola Chicago got back to its winning ways in its second season in the A-10. Is that a good sign for the conference?
A: How about their season this year? I think Drew Valentine is one of the phenomenal coaches in the league. When you look at our coaches from top to bottom, we have really fabulous coaches. He's got that program going. Being in Chicago and balancing with Saint Louis and Dayton, it's really been a great fit. It's an institution that's basketball centric, and they're committed financially and in their leadership to administratively supporting the program.
Q: What did you think of the performance by Dayton's DaRon Holmes II this season?
A: DaRon is just a phenomenal athlete, and he always amazed me. As a big man, his quickness is so impressive, and it's deceiving. Every time I watch him, you sort of forget. You see the game start, and you're always impressed by his physical size, but baseline to baseline in very contained short spaces, he is so quick. He's really a fun player to watch. He's got to be one of the most versatile big guys. Being named second team All-American is a defining moment of just how higher caliber of player he is. I don't know him. Of course, we're from the league office and always at arm's length, but everyone at Dayton and other people that know him say he's really a genuinely enjoyable person to be around, and that's exciting to us.
Q: How does the conference help the schools in the league in the NIL and transfer portal era?
A: We try to do as much background work as we can. We try to help with the lobbying here in Washington, D.C.. We really need to get some consistent legislation in place surrounding NIL because there's a lot of nefarious things going on in the NIL space. I think everybody believes that it's the right thing for the student athletes, but it has to be with some sort of regulations and control and accountability. So we try to provide as much support to our member institutions as we can. We can support them by revenue distribution. We help our institutions financially because they have so many financial demands upon them at this point in time. That depends on our success with our basketball championships, with our media rights contracts and on our success in the NCAA. We're not on the first line as a member institution, but we're tracking the transfer portal. We're trying to put policies in place that make it attractive. The schools want to be attractive for their athletes to stay, and to get new athletes in, we want the league to be as attractive by the venues we play our championship in and those sorts of things.
Q: Does the league have a position on the expansion of the NCAA tournament?
A: I am an advocate for it. I think that the tournament bracket should be expanded. The expansion is not just that institutions quote unquote receive unit revenue distribution. The lift and the exposure that impact schools when they become part of the bracket of March Madness has a trickle-down rippling effect for that institution on the overall undergraduate enrollment, the alumni donor base, the overall affinity for the institution and the league. The NCAA men's basketball tournament has been at 68 for an extended period of time now. You see so many of the other sporting entities, whether it's the CFP (College Football Playoff) or whether it's the NBA or Major League Baseball, expanding. Division I, we're up to like 365 schools. I think eight or 12 (more NCAA tournament teams) is a good next step. I don't know that I'm in the camp that thinks that bracket should go to 96, but I think an eight or 12-team expansion can be accommodated by just replicating what Dayton has done with the First Four. If you have two other First Fours — one in the Pacific Time Zone, maybe one down in the Central Time Zone — it would serve those teams well because when you advance out of Dayton, sometimes that winning team gets shipped a time zone or two and that's tough for the next game.
Q: Are you close to finding a home for the A-10 tournament past 2025, when it will be held in Washington?
A: We are in final stages of that. Typically we get approvals through our board when we do our May meeting, which is the second week of May.
