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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.

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.

Day one of the Atlantic 10's conference season was a good one. So good, in fact, that they didn't even let the start of league play stop them from knocking off another ACC school. Charlotte went into Clemson and whipped the Tigers 82-72 to even their record against the conference to 2-2 on the season. While that's a good thing for the A-10 and the Niners, it's a bad thing for those of us who wrote that Charlotte's inconsistency has made them a little disappointing this season. At least we saved ourselves by pointing out Leemire Goldwire's skills. He had 21 points and 10 rebounds to lead the upset.

On the league front, there was a dandy of an opener in Dayton where the #22 Flyers played host to #20 Rhode Island in a thriller. The Rams cut a 13-point Dayton lead to four with 90 seconds to play but Marcus Johnson nailed a three on the next trip downcourt and the home team escaped 92-83. Brian Roberts was also huge down the stretch for Dayton. Despite the full attention of the Ram defense that forced him into seven turnovers, Roberts scored nine points in the final two and a half minutes to keep his team in front.

That defense was a key for Rhode Island all night. They forced 18 turnovers overall but it came with a downside.

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: