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The Atlantic 10’s New Commissioner (a Philly Guy) Wants a Permanent Site for Conference Tournament
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The Atlantic 10 recently named Philly guy Dan Leibovitz its new commissioner, and he wants to find a permanent home for the conference basketball tournament:
Bit of background here, Leibovitz is a Penn alumnus who later became an assistant coach under John Chaney at Temple. He had a stint as Hartford’s head coach before returning to Penn to work with Jerome Allen, who was a teammate at Episcopal Academy.
The A10 tournament changes locations each year now. It was in Yinzerville a few weeks ago, and bounced back and forth between Washington, New York, and Dayton for a few seasons prior. It used to be held at Boardwalk Hall in Atlantic City, between 2007 to 2012, and it was played in Philadelphia from 1996 to 2001 in addition to one-off hosting in the 70s and 80s.
Bottom line, Philly would be a good permanent spot. St. Joe’s and La Salle are here. It’s a central point for the East Coast schools and easily accessible for fans of the DMV schools + Richmond/VCU. The main outliers are Saint Louis, Loyola-Chicago, and Dayton, which is what made a Pittsburgh return worthwhile.
For a stupid exercise, I asked AI to take every A10 basketball school and calculate the exact middle point and it came up with Garrett County, MD, which is in the panhandle:
If you drive about 20 minutes north from here there’s a small school called Frostburg State University. There’s absolutely nothing there. It could be the ideal spot for a fair and balanced A10 tournament, but the downside is that there’s nothing for anybody to do unless you like the great outdoors or eating fast food.
Kevin has been writing about Philadelphia sports since 2009. He spent seven years in the CBS 3 sports department and started with the Union during the team's 2010 inaugural season. He went to the academic powerhouses of Boyertown High School and West Virginia University. email - k.kinkead@sportradar.com