Atlantic 10 Basketball power rankings: Davidson, Saint Louis lead early season list

8: Massachusetts (5-4)

The Minutemen had a tough opening couple of weeks, but they seemed to be finding themselves for a while and were playing harder and harder each time out. After their brutal loss to Howard on the November 17, they won three of their next four contests. One of those wins was an absolute throttling of a solid Southern Illinois squad, and the only loss over that span came against #6 Nevada (who they played surprisingly tight for most of the game).

The obvious best player on this young and relatively inexperienced UMass team is Luwane Pipkins.  He was picked in the coaches’ poll to end up as a first team all-conference selection, and so far he’s put up Player of the Year type numbers with 19.6 points, 5.6 assists, and 6.4 rebounds per game. If he can keep up his current pace and the team can start playing with more consistent energy, this team could be dangerous by March. Curtis Cobb has already shown that he can score from anywhere on the floor, and Jonathan Laurent is the ideal A10 power forward because of his length and versatility on both ends.

Overall, UMass has been hard to judge because of their mostly lackluster competition, but with some tough road games coming up at Temple, Providence, and Georgia, we’ll know a lot more about where they stand in a couple of weeks. They just gave up a frustrating loss against Holy Cross, so we’ll see whether it was one poor outing or the beginning of a downward trend.