America East Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2019-20 season

HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT - MARCH 21: The Vermont Catamounts bench cheer on their teammates as they play against the Florida State Seminoles during the first round game of the 2019 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament at XL Center on March 21, 2019 in Hartford, Connecticut. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images) /

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DURHAM, NC – DECEMBER 05: Players of the Hartford Hawks react from their bench during their game against the Duke Blue Devils in the second half at Cameron Indoor Stadium on December 5, 2018 in Durham, North Carolina. (Photo by Lance King/Getty Images) /

America East Basketball is an underrated mid-major conference filled with talent. How do the teams stand for the 2019-2020 season?

America East Basketball looks to produce a lot of good match-ups in the 2019-2020 season. The conference is one of the only conferences in Division 1 to still have their conference tournament at the schools and not at a neutral site. Over the past couple of NCAA tournaments’, the America East has always put up a great fight. Remember in the 2018 NCAA Tournament when the University of Maryland – Baltimore County (UMBC) upset Virginia, they were in the America East. Great way to build up the conference and get people to tune in to see some America East games.

The America East conference can be considered a Mid/Low-Major conference. With the conference constantly improving year after year, they can be in consideration as one of the best mid-major conferences out in the country. The win over Virginia helped a ton, but since then they’ve produced lots of good games. Vermont has had some pretty consistent seasons and so has Albany.

The America East consists of Maine, New Hampshire, Binghamton, Albany, UMass-Lowell, Hartford, UMBC, Stony Brook, and Vermont. Many of the players have had shots of competing in the NBA Summer League and either went on to play in the NBA or playing overseas. So lots of really good talent has come out of the America East. Each year the conference continues to get better talent year in and year out.

So here are my Preseason Power Rankings for the America East Conference for the 2019-2020 season:

#9 – Hartford Hawks

Hartford lost all five of their main scorers from the 2019-2020 season. With only a few players returning, I see this as a rebuilding year for Hartford. Their top five scorers from last year totaled 68.5 out of 83.1 ppg. The Hawks are going to have to deal with losing 84% of their scoring from last year. The returning players for the Hawks all averaged below three points per game. I see some new roles for the returning players and seeing the incoming freshmen having improved roles as well.

Besides conference play, some of the Hawks big upcoming non-conference games @ Oakland (Horizon League), @ SMU (American), and @ Cornell (Ivy League). This will give the returning players and the freshmen a good taste of what it’s like to play against good non-conference Division basketball teams. Yeah, it’s only the beginning of the season, but it’s still good opponents. Bigger crowds, bigger arenas, and bigger, stronger players. When you’re playing the best, you’ve got to play your best.

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