Atlantic 10 Basketball: Preseason rankings for 2018-19

3. Davidson Wildcats

2017-18 season record: 21-12 (13-5)

Losing the one of the 2018 A-10 Player of the Year Award winners in Peyton Aldridge is a tremendous blow to the Wildcats. He averaged 21.2 ppg and 7.6 rpg his senior year and was a great scorer and leader throughout his career at Davidson.

That would normally cripple an A-10 team for the year but the program has a ready-made replacement who could be the best pro prospect in the conference. Kellan Grady scored 18.0 ppg his freshman season with elite efficiency. He’s the odds-on favorite to lead the A-10 in scoring in 2018-19 and could win the POY Award outright.

He’ll be joined by rising junior Jon Axel Gudmundsson, possibly the best all-around offensive player in the league. He averaged 13.2 ppg, 6.0 rpg and 5.1 apg on 41% shooting from deep. After that, the returning production for the Wildcats gets pretty thin.

6’6 wing KiShawn Pritchett is the only other returning player who scored more than 4.0 ppg and played in double-digit minutes. He also was efficient from the field and could easily break double figures in scoring to help out the top contributors.

In the frontcourt, 6’7 forward Nathan Ekwu returns after missing all of last season with an injury. Per 40 minutes, he averaged a double-double in all three seasons, so there’s hope that his production will increase with more minutes. Same goes for 6’10 forward Dusan Kovacevic, who played just seven games last year due to an injury.

Davidson arguably has the best A-10 talent at the very top of the roster but is extremely thin players 4-13. Both Grady and Gudmundsson played over 35 mpg in 2017-18 and may have to do so again to stay near the top of the league.