Atlantic 10 Basketball: Top-5 non-conference matchups for 2018-19

George Mason vs. Cincinnati (Neutral Site)

When: Friday, November 23 

A lot of pundits, including BustingBrackets’ Tristan Freeman, are predicting that the Patriots will end up on top of the A10 in the final standings. There’s a lot of merit to that school of thought: they have a good coach (Dave Paulsen), one of the league’s best players in Otis Livingston II, and are deep with returning talent (100% of last year’s scoring production). Those are some pretty important boxes to check in terms of building a successful college basketball team, so it makes sense that expectations are high in Fairfax. How could they not be?

Those expectations are why this game versus Cincinnati is so important. It’s a game that the Patriots not only could but should win, especially with it being at a neutral site. If the Bearcats were coming back with the same team as last season then forgets about it, they’d win convincingly – but they’re not. Jacob Evans, Gary Clark, and Kyle Washington, three of the most important factors in last year’s success, have all moved on.

The Bearcats should still compete in the AAC, but if this Mason team wants to be for real, I mean kings-of-the-A10 “for real,” then they should win this game. By the time it comes around, the toughest team they’ll have played thus far is Penn – a solid team, but not the level of even a down Cincinnati. I’m sure the Patriots will be eager for this game to prove a point and to put themselves on the map nationally in the early-goings of the season. Let’s see what they’ve got.