Atlantic 10 Fifty Year Celebration

[Old Cage]

How ironic:

https://atlantic10.com/news/2025/6/30/5 ... ccess.aspx

[MikeUMA]

^ It's good to see they didn't erase some of the history. Camby and Temple's John Chaney are seen in the main video on their site (https://atlantic10.com/feature/50), even though UM and Temple both left the league.

Still, both Temple and UMass, who were must-see viewing for college hoops fans in the mid 90s, didn't get any love as one of the 30-second featured videos.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

That's a fantastic website. A few small errors (it says UMass was led by Camby and Roe in the Final Four run in the decades section) but overall pretty awesome. Lots of UMass mentions and photos throughout the site.

[MikeUMA]

Another little fact that pops out: I didn't realize one of the league's early commissioners was Charlie Theokas. His son Andrew was an assistant coach for us, under Steve Lappas, from 2001-05.

[PreecherJenkins]

Another little fact that pops out: I didn't realize one of the league's early commissioners was Charlie Theokas. His son Andrew was an assistant coach for us, under Steve Lappas, from 2001-05.

Mike do you know now how Steve Lappas ended up at UMass?

[Berkman]

This is what I have heard. The president of UMass called while they were having the selection meeting and told them to pick Lappas. It came from someone close to the meeting.

[MikeUMA]

Has anyone else noticed how some of this season's broadcasters talk about UM's first season in the MAC after "43 seasons" in the Atlantic 10? That bothers me a bit, because of the way the A10 rebranded.

The A10 name started in the 1982-83 season / academic year. However, the league just did a name change. It's not like we changed conferences in '82-83. The league started as the ECBL (Eastern Collegiate Basketball League) in 1976-77, then simplified to Eastern 8 for the next five seasons.

In my book, I'm calling it a 49-year run in the league, even if the league did a little rebranding early on.
https://umasshoops.com/wiki/doku.php?id=atlantic_10

And yes, this is the minutia I think about

[wmmmfan]

Don’t know if it has been brought up but US Senators Schmitt (Missouri) and Husted (Ohio) wrote BE Commissioner in support of SLU and Dayton to be admitted to the Big East.

[inthescoop]

Don’t know if it has been brought up but US Senators Schmitt (Missouri) and Husted (Ohio) wrote BE Commissioner in support of SLU and Dayton to be admitted to the Big East.

That actually makes a lot of sense for these private Catholic schools. They already have Creigton in the Big East.. and Ohio has Xavier.

[harbo]

I've seen the video many times and I'm still not sure if Chaney said "kiss" instead of "kick".

[harbo]

From the 'what might have been' category. UMass was the first ESPN game on Monday, the day after Jimmy Valvano's spectacular "Don't give up" speech. I was thinking how cool it would have been to be the first to "pass the hat" during a timeout while chanting "Jimmy V.....Don't give up". Or even just a few collection barrells. Unfortunately, I was stuck in an off-site training class that day and only had a few minutes of break time, and called UMass and probably got an intern, who liked the concept, but probably had limited access to the right people to get the concept approved on such a short timeframe. As Alex Eldredge used to say, "such is life".

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Putting this here:


The end of the SLU/Dayton game was unreal... back and forth game winning 3 pointer shots in the last 20 seconds by each team, ending in with a last second putback by Dayton. That was awesome to watch!

[Floyd]

^ I just saw that! Crazy