FanHouse DionteChristmas

FanHouse's Matt Steinmetz attended the big NBA draft work-out in Oakland, Calif., on Monday and Tuesday. Temple's Dionte Christmas was one of the prospects. A killer backcourt scorer, Christmas looks to be a second round selection. Christmas talked to the media after Tuesday's run. This is the transcript.

Q: How did today's workout go?

A: I think this is one of my better workouts. I picked the right time to shoot the ball well, in front of a lot of coaches. I came in here and showed these coaches that I can definitely be a shooter for someone's team.

Q: Were you able to show anything else?

A: Yeah, I thought I did a great job on Terrence Williams today. He's a hot guy on the market right now and I just wanted to come in and show that I can defend a guy like him, with his abilities and athleticism. I thought I did a great job with that as well.

The NCAA tournament is just one day away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling, followed by the East. Now, the South. What is intriguing about this region, and who do we like?

Matt Snyder: The one thing I like about the South Bracket is it's the one bracket with a bit of a mid-major flavor. Butler and Gonzaga should both have a shot at taking down Ty Lawson (right) and the mighty Tar Heels, and Western Kentucky has a solid chance at beating Illinois in the first round.

It may be only December 13th, but Christmas has exploded in Philadelphia. Temple's Dionte Christmas took over in their upset of No. 8 Tennessee.

Christmas scored 35 points, including seven three-point shots, to cruise to an 88-72 win. As the Vols closed the game to within four points in the second half, Christmas nailed three three-pointers to give separation and, ultimately, the win.

It wasn't just Christmas. The Owls did a fantastic job breaking Tennessee's press, moving the ball around and taking the wide open shots they received. It was also remarkable that Temple did an outstanding job of withstanding some runs by the Vols and then widen their own lead.

The Owls shot 55 percent for the game and held the Vols to just 36 percent shooting.

Fellow FanHouser Chas Rich said it perfectly: "(Christmas) has been their best player for the last couple years, but this is the sort of big stage game that gets national notice."

I'm hoping this does get Christmas some run as a great basketball player and not just a guy with a cool name. He's been nearly a 20-point scorer over the past two-plus seasons and has led the Atlantic-10 in scoring the past two seasons.

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.

If there's a downside to the return to prominence for the Atlantic 10, it's nights like Wednesday night. It's not a downside for fans of good basketball, mind you, but for coaches and fans of favored teams like Dayton and Xavier. Rather than holding serve until their showdown next week, each found themselves upset on Wednesday night while Charlotte held serve at home and found themselves at the top of the heap after beating St. Joe's 70-66.

They can thank Leemire Goldwire, who may not settle for a spot on the all-conference first team. He may have designs on player of the year and last night's 36 points will help him make his case. While Goldmire was doing the offensive lifting, his teammates took care of slowing down the league's best shooting team. The Hawks were making more than 50% of their shots in A-10 play entering the game but were held to 44% and continued to struggle from long range.

Charlotte remains a flawed team. They turn the ball over too much and shooting 43% last night actually represented a step up in the world. That's going to make it hard for them to hold onto the top spot but three straight wins are three straight wins and, as Wednesday showed, there won't be easy nights in the A-10.

There's been no doubt about which mid major conference has been the biggest surprise to this point of the season. The Atlantic 10 has played the eighth toughest non-conference slate in the country and has a sparkling 113-65 record to show for their efforts. They've beaten teams from just about every one of the power conferences, they've won on the road and at neutral sites and reclaimed the standard that they ceded to the Missouri Valley conference in recent years.

You have to go back to 2004 to find a year when the league landed more than two teams in the big dance and, entering this season, it didn't seem like things would be all that different. Everyone knew Xavier is a consistently strong program but it was hard to find too many bullish projections about a second team that should be making March plans. What a difference two months make.

As of right now, it's almost impossible to see the league landing fewer than four teams in the tournament. Seven teams are in the top 67 of the RPI, three teams in the Top 25 and they've compiled so many quality wins that, barring a complete collapse by two of the front-runners, anything less would be criminal.

Let's break it down: