A-10 Basketball: Way-Too-Early 2019-2020 Power Rankings
By Stu Luddecke
2. Davidson Wildcats (Tier-1)
Just as with VCU, one can feel fairly safe predicting that Davidson will be well inside of double-bye territory come conference tournament time. They will return basically their entire roster (with the exception of backup Center Dusan Kovacevic), and that includes two of the top 5 players in the league. Jon Axel Gudmundsson deservedly brought home the A10 Player of the Year award for his efforts running point, and Kellan Grady, although relatively disappointing last season, still found a way to lead the team with 17.3 points per game. Both of them declared for the upcoming NBA draft, but I’d expect them to return for another season to raise their stock and to make a run at an NCAA Tournament berth.*
Outside of the Wildcats’ lethal backcourt duo, the next two most important players on the team, Luke Frampton and Luka Brajkovic, are prime candidates for freshman-to-sophomore boosts in production. They impressed in their debut seasons by averaging a combined 21.4 points and 9.2 rebounds, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see them push that first number closer to 30 next season. Frampton is a killer from three, and Brajkovic, while not physically imposing, has some of the prettiest post-moves in the conference.
One knock on the ‘Cats is that they will likely lack depth, but most everyone pointed out that same problem last offseason and they finished 24-10 (14-4 A10) record. Hopefully, we’ve all learned our lesson that Bob McKillop doesn’t need a lot of weapons in his arsenal to be effective – he just needs the right ones.