About a week ago, someone who I won't embarass here casually mentioned to me that UMass had a nice easy start to its Atlantic 10 schedule in Fordham and La Salle.

The Explorers were picked 13th in the A-10 preseason poll and the Rams 14th. Two wins for a good team right?

Since then Fordham has beaten Georgia Tech and Harvard, the same Crimson team that beat Florida State who pounded UMass in the Bahamas.

La Salle, who seems to annually have UMass' number especially in Philly, beat Xavier Wednesday, and the Explorers will have an extra day off before the Minutemen arrive Sunday.

So this has become a big week for the Minutemen.

WIth one day of games in the books, few things went as expected in the A-10.

Start with Temple, who is missing Scootie Randall and Michael Eric, beating Duke. This is the same Temple team that barely beat Delaware.

Dayton loses its No. 2 scorer, Josh Benson, which hurt the Flyers so much that they reacted by beating Saint Louis.

Saint Joseph's beat Duquesne in overtime. Are the Dukes better than they've looked? Are the Hawks worse?

It was hard to know quite what to expect from Charlotte or Richmond before so what does the 49ers beating the Spiders mean?

Stay tuned...