You've got to hand it to us here at ESPN.com. When we're wrong, we're not wrong by a little bit. No, when we do wrong, we do it right.

And it looks like we were wrong about the Atlantic 10 and Big East. As in, the Atlantic 10 was supposed to be really good, and the Big East was not. The Atlantic 10, we hypothesized, might just be the new east beast.

	Jameer Nelson and the Hawks fell a few more times than expected heading into the A-10 season.

Oops -- to say the least.

The A-10 doesn't have a single team ranked in the Top 25. Meanwhile, the Big East has four ranked teams -- No. 10 Syracuse, No. 12 Boston College, No. 21 Miami and No. 23 Georgetown -- and three others also receiving votes (Connecticut, Notre Dame and Pittsburgh).

Shut out of the Top 25, the Atlantic 10 did have three teams receive votes: Saint Joseph's, Temple and Dayton. St. Bonaventure probably deserved at least one vote by someone, somewhere, especially after the Bonnies salvaged what little head-to-head pride remains for the Atlantic 10 by drumming Connecticut 88-70 on Dec. 28. It was only the fifth non-conference loss in 16 years for Huskies coach Jim Calhoun at the Hartford Civic Center, where the fans booed UConn off the court.

"We were a hungry team," Bonnies coach Jan van Breda Kolff told the Buffalo News. "We were focused. We got all the loose balls. ... Our guys just had a great game and I'm really proud of them."

That game, alas, has been one of few high points this season for the Atlantic 10. The Big East not only won 12 of the first 17 meetings between the two leagues, but won those games by an average margin of 11 points.

This is not to suggest the Big East has reclaimed its status as one of the country's preeminent two or three conferences. It has not.

In RPI projections tabulated this week by CollegeRPI.com, the Big East is rated No. 6, one spot ahead of the A-10. Granted there is much basketball to be played, but as of New Year's Day only four Big East teams had RPI rankings in the top 40, the make-or-break neighborhood for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. And get this: Boston College wasn't one of them. The Eagles' 12-1 start merely merited them the No. 50 RPI slot despite their lofty ranking in the latest coaches' poll. That'll happen when the biggest "name" victim on your non-conference schedule looks to be Iowa State (RPI: No. 156).

According to the RPI, the Big East teams who can feel best about their NCAA tournament hopes are Syracuse (No. 13 RPI), Miami (No. 25) and St. John's (No. 27). Syracuse has wins against Michigan State, Wake Forest and South Florida. Miami has beaten Indiana, UNC-Charlotte and LSU. St. John's' victims include Wake Forest and Tennessee.

Elsewhere in the Big East, Pittsburgh (No. 31, with a win against Ohio State) also was looking good. Connecticut (No. 48) had some work to do.

The Atlantic 10 has it much worse. Only one of its teams had an RPI ranking in the top 40 -- No. 29 Massachusetts, with wins against Oregon and N.C. State. St. Bonaventure dropped from 27th to 42nd after losing to Kent State.

Xavier is No. 76, which is no good but better than Temple at No. 81 -- which is no good but better than preseason top-10 pick Saint Joseph's at No. 95.

The Owls have had a particularly humbling start, even given their recent non-conference history. They traditionally play an incredible schedule in November and December, take their lumps, then get even in the NCAA Tournament. In the past six years, Temple's record in November and December has been 31-28, yet the Owls have reached all six NCAA Tournaments, and advanced five times. Twice the Owls reached a region final, in 1999 and 2001, after entering the new year 6-6 and 6-7, respectively.

This season could be different. Temple is 3-8, a record that provides almost no margin for error in conference play should the Owls need an at-large bid to get into the NCAA Tournament. Temple ended the 2001 calender year with a six-game losing streak capped by a loss to Penn.

"It (looks) like we're lost," Temple coach John Chaney told The Philadelphia Inquirer.

There's a lot of that going around in the A-10.

Game of the Week

Wake Forest at North Carolina Saturday Are the 9-3 Deacons really that good? Are the 5-5 Tar Heels really that average? Tune in, find out. Pittsburgh at Boston College Saturday Pitt has won 12 of its first 13 games, but competition has been weak. This game, plus its league opener against St. John's, should reveal Pitt for what it is -- whatever that is. Xavier at Dayton Saturday Time for the cream to start rising in the Atlantic 10. It can't all curdle, can it? Oklahoma at Connecticut Monday The Huskies' non-conference wins lack an eye-opening victim. This one would fill that void.

Top-heavy ACC
To date the ACC has been about what people expected the ACC to be: incredibly strong at the top, and then the bottom falls out.

Four ACC teams have RPI ratings in the top 16, but the league's next highest-rated RPI team is N.C. State at No. 56. After N.C. State, the bottom four ACC teams (Georgia Tech, North Carolina, Clemson and Florida State) have triple-digit RPI ratings. That's sad.

But this is impressive: No. 2 Duke, No. 5 Virginia, No. 12 Maryland and No. 16 Wake Forest make the ACC the only league in the country with four teams with RPI ratings that high.

The Terps narrowly escaped Raleigh in their ACC opener, beating the Wolfpack 72-65 Sunday thanks to 35-for-49 shooting at the line. N.C. State just missed on the chance to pad its NCAA Tournament resume, which includes a victory at Syracuse, but not much else in a 10-3 start. Maryland coach Gary Williams expects the Wolfpack to get it done, especially at home.

"State is going to beat some teams (at the Entertainment and Sports Arena)," Williams said. "To get a win on the road against State is big."

Duke and Maryland have surprised no one with their starts, Duke entering the new year unbeaten and Maryland having lost only to Arizona and Oklahoma. Judging from their No. 4 ranking in this week's Top 25, the Cavaliers have been slightly better than advertised. But their schedule is about to ratchet up a notch, beginning with a home game Saturday against N.C. State, which has a better RPI rating than any of the Cavaliers' first nine foes.

No. 24 Wake Forest clearly has exceeded expectations in coach Skip Prosser's first year. The Deacons have three losses, but they're not bad losses -- at Kansas, at St. John's, and against Syracuse in the Preseason NIT. They've beaten Arkansas, Fresno State and Marquette.

After his team's 64-59 loss Dec. 29 at Winston-Salem, Marquette coach Tom Crean didn't know where to begin with his praise of the Deacons.

"You must bring the best effort the entire time at Wake, here in ACC country," Crean said. "Wake has great rebounding, guard play, inside play -- but they also have great transition."

That about covers it, don't you think?

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