George Mason, famous and now overexposed for one fluke Final Four run, will not be joining the Atlantic 10 conference. The Colonial Athletic Association was loathe to lose on of its founding members and that, along with an "exciting future" and stability were the reasons GMU AD Tom O'Connor cited for not leaving the Association. This means that, for now, Xavier remains one of 13 members of the Atlantic 10. A10 officials will be working to balance the conference, but hopefully not by adding a perpetual also-ran along the lines of the Patriots.

That still leaves the Rams of VCU as a possible addition to the A10. We've already detailed how much better it would be for the conference if VCU landed here, and now that remains a possibility. While it may be portrayed as such, the loss of the George Mason University Patriots is no loss at all.

While Joel has been breaking down the numbers comparing VCU to George Mason and Butler to Temple, I've been tirelessly scouring the internet for the very most compelling stories in college basketball. Half of that statement is true (click the links for analysis you won't get anywhere else), but there have been a few decent stories that have come out in this, the doldrums of the college basketball year. At least Reds fans can bask in the four homeruns Josh Hamilton hit this week. Oh, wait...

- Dominating most of the news this week is Jay Bilas' idiotic argument for shrinking the NCAA D1. Yes, you read that correctly, Jay Bilas is arguing that fewer teams, and thus fewer upsets, fewer conference tournaments, and fewer Bryce Drews and Kyle O'Quinns is a good thing. If listening to Bilas call a game didn't convince you he was clueless, reading that piece of ESPN Insider drivel should. Thankfully, Myron Medcalf makes a lot more sense.

- The next article isn't the most newsworthy, but it does focus on VCU in a manner. Shaka Smart is the coach of the Rams and spent a decade as an assistant coach before he landed with the Rams. Also mentioned in the article is the meteoric ascent of Pat Kelsey, the former Xavier assistant who is now the head coach at Winthrop. Being an assistant of any type is not a glamorous job. The young guys who are breaking in at low and mid majors have put in hundreds of hours watching film, driving their personal vehicles all over the country, and generally being put upon for very little money. Now, they get the opportunity to actually coach.

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You've likely heard by now that Charlotte is leaving the Atlantic Ten to pursue greener pastures elsewhere. Actually, that's not categorically true. Charlotte wants to participate in Division 1-A football, and the A-10 doesn't offer that opportunity. Rather than have different conference affiliations for each sport, Charlotte has decided to just pick up its whole operation and move to a different conference. This is both perfectly understandable and frankly not that harmful a move for the conference.

It does, however, leave the A-10 with 13 teams. While this does not preclude the playing of the basketball season (which is what we're all really here about), it does lack the symmetry afforded to leagues with an even number of teams. The conference has made no secret of its desire to add one or both of George Mason and Virginia Commonwealth University, and I have been similarly forthcoming regarding my opinion that George Mason is not the answer if the question has anything to do with the best way to add prestige to the Atlantic Ten as a basketball conference. Last week, we took a peek at the last five years in the programs of Temple and Butler. Today, we'll perform a similar exercise regarding George Mason and VCU and try to outline why I think Mason is not a great potential add for the league.

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Former Xavier guard Mark Lyons tweeted today that he is on his way to Arizona to join coach Sean Miller, the man who recruited him to play at Xavier. Lyons is expected to graduate from Xavier this month and would thus be eligible to play immediately for the Wildcats. UK and Kansas were also rumored to be in on Lyons when he announced that he was transferring due to a desire to play PG his senior season.

We already brought you the twists and turns of this story and analysis of what Lyons' departure means for Xavier. Further bulletins as events warrant.

Matt Stainbrook, you may have noticed, is not Alex Oriakhi. There are some easy ways to tell the difference: Stainbrook doesn't have any visible tattoos, Oriakhi wears his hair shorter (though there are reports circulating that Stainbrook recently got a trim), Stainbrook chooses Rec Specs over less obtrusive ways to correct his vision. The most pertinent differences are twofold: Stainbrook is not eligible to compete this year, and Oriakhi is not in possession of a scholarship from Xavier.

When Griffin McKenzie announced that he was taking his game to a level more suited to his talents, Xavier fans were ready for Coach Mack to use that scholarship on Oriakhi. He was on the market, immediately eligible, and filled a need for Xavier. Instead, he went to Missouri and the Muskies ended up with Matt Stainbrook, a relative unknown who had been playing his ball at Western Michigan.

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Once word leaked out that Temple was leaving the Atlantic Ten - whose title is a misnomer for more than one reason - fans of the conference immediately began to wonder who the leadership of the league would bring in to replace them. With the Owls' return to the Big East - whose title is only a misnomer in the geographical sense - the A-10 needed to land a team with at least a similar pedigree to continue to stand out from the other non-BCS leagues. Today, the announcement that Butler will join the Atlantic Ten when Temple leaves was made official.

Does Butler really replace Temple, though? The Owls were consistently one of the top teams in the conference, and they generally ranked in the top 50 or so teams in the nation, depending on what your preferred method of measuring such things is. The below chart shows a comparison of Butler's and Temple's respective KenPom ratings over the past five years:

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