Martelli the Magnificent

Zachary's post about Saint Joseph's coach Phil Martelli's clever retort to a Howard Eskin question reminded me to mention his slick-ness at the Atlantic 10 Tournament this past weekend. (Need a break before 15-seed Josh takes on 2-seed econ midterm at 11:00)

First, you must know that Martelli is known around Philadelphia as an expert prognosticator. He is often on radio shows, and when asked to pick the Eagles score he gets the games correct at an alarming rate. At one point a few years ago (I believe when the birds went 11-5) he went through almost the entire season not missing an Eagles result.

So it should come as no surprise he knew the result of the A-10 Tournament before it was over. After his Hawks lost to George Washington, he said this:

"We're going to be a multiple bid league, the office deserves a lot of credit for that."

This wouldn't be that out of line before the Tournament, but he made this prediction after (2) Massachusetts lost, but before (1) Xavier fell in the next round. UMass, with an RPI then in the 50s, was the only team other than Xavier which had any shot of an at-large bid. GW's RPI of 80 at the time was the next highest of a team still alive, so by saying this Martelli essentially guaranteed that Xavier was going to lose to either Rhode Island (which it did) or the winner of (3) GW vs. (7) Saint Louis, and then get an at-large bid to go along with the conference winner.

URI beat Xavier, and GW beat them to get into the Tourney as an 11-seed, and Xavier grabbed a 9-seed despite the loss. Well done, Phil, well done.