How I Spent My Summer Vacation: the Atlantic 10

With the fall beginning and college basketball just around the corner, it's time to look back at what our favorite teams did during their summer vacations. Some did some good things; some had a bad time. So let's look back at who did what in our How I Spent My Summer Vacation series.

Today's look is the Atlantic 10.

The A-10 is routinely one of the better non-football conferences. They finished 7th in the conference RPI rankings last year and sent Xavier to the Elite Eight.

Still, there is a lot to be done for a league that struggles to find its niche among viewers in Big East, ACC and Big Ten markets. A lot was done this offseason.

Bernadette McGlade Becomes Commissioner

McGlade was an associate commissioner in the ACC and brings a ton of experience with her to the A-10. Her biggest task will be exposure for the conference. As I said, the A-10 is a wide-ranging conference filled with several small schools but also in some major U.S. cities. Even if you live in one of these cities, it is tough to find an Atlantic-10 game on anywhere.

McGlade comes from the ACC where she helped work on the television contracts for the league and for the NCAA Tournament. The ACC is the most television-friendly league in college hoops and hopefully some of this will carry over to a nice deal for the A-10.

She's already put the schools in the conference on notice by saying that members are responsible to do their part to make the league stronger.

.REBIRTH OF TEMPLE

Xavier may be the best program in the A-10, but Temple is the most well known. In John Chaney's last few years and in Fran Dunphy's first at Temple, the Owls haven't been relevant. A nice A-10 tournament championship got them back into the NCAA Tournament and now Temple seems to be back on track to contend for conference supremacy.

Temple brings back Dionte Christmas, a senior swingman who has led the conference in scoring the past two seasons. Add that to the players adapting Dunphy's man-to-man style and this team won 15 of their last 20 games last season.

DEREK KELLOGG TAKES OVER AT UMASS

Kellogg was a guard for the Minutemen in the 1990s and now will attempt to get UMass into the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1998.

He will try to bring back the glory days of the John Calipari Era back to Amherst. Kellogg played for Calipari at UMass and has been an assistant coach for him at Memphis for the last eight seasons.

His job will be tough as he takes over a team that lost three starters, including Atlantic-10 Player Of The Year Gary Forbes.

DUQUESNE DUPES

Duquesne had a tough offseason as they watched two players leave for the NBA and three lawsuits come in with them as the defendant.

Remember that two years ago, five Duquesne players were injured in a campus shooting. Two of them, Kojo Mensah and Shawn James, left the program for the NBA draft. Both went undrafted and since they signed with an agent they cannot return to school. Both Mensah and James joined Stuart Baldonado in suing the university for security issues that may have prevented the shooting.

Mensah and James are also claiming that head coach Ron Everhart forced them to practice even though their gunshot-inflicted wounds had not yet healed.

RICHMOND'S RECRUITING VIOLATIONS

Assistants for the Richmond men's and women's basketball teams resigned after they broke recruiting rules. The two coaches were involved in texting and emailing recruits and violated NCAA rules. The school immediately reported the violations and placed self-imposed sanctions on both programs.

ST JOSEPH LIVE AT THE PALESTRA

St. Joseph's will play their home games at Philadelphia's famed The Palestra. Their home court is being renovated, expanded and renamed the Michael J. Hagan Arena. It should be ready for the 2009-2010 season.

The Hawks have hosted Big Five games in The Palestra (including the Holy War against Villanova) as well as home games against high profile opponents.

ST LOUIS GETS SOME NEW DIGS, TOO

The St. Louis Billikens will move into their 10,000+ seat Chaifetz Arena this year, leaving behind the Scottrade Center.