Atlantic 10 Basketball: Observations from first month of 2018-19

WASHINGTON, DC - MARCH 09: Virginia Commonwealth Rams fans cheer against the Rhode Island Rams during the first half in the Quarterfinals of the Atlantic 10 Basketball Tournament at Capital One Arena on March 9, 2018 in Washington, DC.(Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images) /

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Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images /

Jon Axel Gudmundsson is a potential Player of the Year

Davidson shooting guard Kellan Grady was easily the most commonly mentioned A10 player all offseason, and that wasn’t without reason. The likely NBA draft pick finished his freshman season with 18 points per game, and his role was set to increase after the graduation of co-Player of the Year Peyton Aldridge.

Through the first ten games of his sophomore campaign, Grady has in large part lived up to the hype (19.4 points per game on a team that’s 9-1), but no one expected that his backcourt partner Jon Axel Gudmundsson would be the more impressive of the two.

So far on the season, Gudmundsson is averaging 19.6 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 4.8 assists while shooting 43.8% from three-point range. To say he has been efficient to this point would be an enormous understatement – he has been nothing short of spectacular. It’s not as though he wasn’t projected to be an all-conference level talent – he finished his previous campaign with 13.2 points per game and otherwise similar numbers to this year – it’s just that he wasn’t expected to mean quite as much to the Wildcats as Grady. It’s still true that Grady has the higher NBA ceiling of the two, but if the Player of the Year award were to be given today, Gudmundsson would have to be the favorite to win.

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