America East Basketball: Preseason rankings for 2018-19

6. New Hampshire

The Wildcats have to replace their two best players from last year’s squad in Tanner Leissner and Iba Camara, but New Hampshire does return five other players who appeared in at least 23 games last season.

The methodical pace (313th nationally in tempo) New Hampshire plays at under Bill Herrion is not conducive to a lot of scoring, yet the Wildcats do shoot a lot of three’s – over 43 percent of their shots came from behind the arc a year ago. The Wildcats are expected to employ a three-guard lineup with Josh Hopkins, Elijah Jordan, and Jordan Reed running the show, all of whom averaged multiple three-pointers per game.

They need to make them at a much higher clip (Jordan’s 37.3 percent is the highest percentage of any returning player) as their perimeter shooting will likely determine their success.

5. Albany

Albany is a great program that has won at least 21 games overall and 10 games in conference play each of the last four seasons, but 2018-19 expects to be one of the more difficult years of late.

Star guard Joe Cremo left for Villanova as a grad transfer, fellow starter David Nichols left for Florida State, and both Travis Charles and Greig Stire are no longer with the team. That means that Devonte Campbell is the Great Dane’s leading returning scorer, and he averaged all of 6.7 points per game last year.

Youth and inexperience are the common refrains when talking about this Albany team, but the program is good enough and Will Brown is a good enough coach to keep them relevant in the America East. However, it’s going to take some time for all of these pieces to settle in and find their new roles.

4. Stony Brook

The Seawolves do have a number of things going for them entering the new year – guard Akwasi Yeboah is the conference’s leading returning scorer and backcourt mate Elijah Olaniyi is a national star in the making.

Those two players will have Stony Brook competing in the top half of the conference, but outside of them, there’s a lot to replace. Five of their top eight scorers from last year’s team are gone, and head coach Jeff Boals is counting on several young players to replace them. Expect Stony Brook to have a shorter rotation this year and an offense that completely centers around Yeboah, Olaniyi, and Jaron Cornish.