FanHouse Leemire Goldwire

Saint Joseph's has been so hot of late that it was going to take a superlative performance to stop their six game winning streak. Enter Shawn James. The Duquesne forward recorded a triple-double and the Dukes knocked off the Hawks 102-88 to create more uncertainty in the Atlantic 10.

James scored 17 points, grabbed 11 rebounds and blocked an amazing 10 shots to record the first triple-double in Duquesne history. As strong as James played, however, he must share credit for the victory with coach Ron Everhart. The Hawks were coming off an emotional game Monday against Villanova and were without Ahmed Nivins, who hurt his ankle in the win. Everhart had his team in attack mode from the tip, pressing and making St. Joe's work harder than they might have liked during their second game in three nights.

The loss knocks St. Joe's out of a tie for first with Xavier in the league in advance of their game on Sunday. It also comes on the latest night to illustrate how tight the league race is going to be in the A-10. Dayton returned to the win column with a 69-64 home win over Charlotte. The Flyers won despite playing poorly once again. They were bailed out by nine late points from Brian Roberts and a miserable shooting night from Leemire Goldwire.

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.

Xavier 68, Fordham 50 - After beating St. Bonaventure this week, Sean Miller wasn't happy with the way his team played defense. Yesterday, though, he had no reason to be upset. The Musketeers shut out the Rams for seven minutes and set a new low in points allowed on the season. Up six at the half, the X-men put the game away with a 16-4 run to start the second half. C.J. Anderson and B.J. Raymond combined for 11 of the points and Raymond led the team with 20 points overall. Bryant Dunston, Fordham's impressive big man, had 19 points and 11 rebounds but couldn't overcome a keyed up Musketeer defense.

Rhode Island 80, Duquesne 78 - The Rams narrowly avoided a second straight loss to start conference play thanks to Jimmy Baron's late heroics. Baron hit a fadeaway jumper with three seconds left to put the Rams up one after Reggie Jackson missed a big free throw. Jackson led the Dukes with 19 points while the Rams got another huge game from Will Daniels. He tied a season-high with 28 points and added 11 rebounds. Kahiem Seawright also had a big game for URI. He scored nine points, grabbed 10 caroms and blocked four shots.

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:

In wins against Ohio State and Detroit, Butler was able to overcome poor games by A.J. Graves and Mike Green. Freshman forward Matt Howard had strong games and Butler prevailed without playing their best. The third time wasn't the charm, however, as Graves played poorly again and the Bulldogs were knocked from the ranks of the unbeaten at Wright State. To be fair, his teammates weren't much better in the 43-42 loss. They shot 32% from the floor as a whole, led by their backcourt's 4-of-23 brickfest. Graves had a chance to win the game at the buzzer but missed a three and Wright State's fans flooded the court in a frenzy after knocking off the nation's 13th ranked team.

Unlike those previous games, though, Howard couldn't pick up the slack. He finished with just five points to complete a defensive effort that should make coach Brad Brownell very proud of his Raiders. Offensively, Wright didn't do much to overwhelm the Bulldogs but they moved the ball, found the open man and made the most of their limited opportunities.

Elsewhere on the mid-major hardcourts: