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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ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN – DECEMBER 30: Everson Davis #22 of the Binghamton Bearcats takes a shot over Ignas Brazdeikis #13 of the Michigan Wolverines during the second half at Crisler Arena on December 30, 2018 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Michigan won the game 74-52. (Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images) /

#8 – New Hampshire Wildcats

The New Hampshire Wildcats averaged 60 ppg last year. Josh Hopkins, Jayden Martinez, Nick Guadarrama were the three leading returning scorers. They averaged 24.8 ppg out of the 60 total (41.3% of their scoring). Neither of them played every game last year with Hopkins only playing 23, Martinze playing 20, and Guadarrama playing 26. In my opinion, I think they will have to be averaging above 50% of the team’s scoring in order to perform better this season.

New Hampshire has games @ Holy Cross (Patriot), @ St. John’s (Big East), and @ Connecticut (American). St John’s and Connecticut will be tough for sure, but Patriot League opponents are always tough. Getting back to the three returning players, the only one that started all the games he played was Josh Hopkins. Another interesting stat was neither of them even averaged more than 10 ppg. It’s going to be a challenge for the Wildcats early on and they will be tested early on to see how they can compete with the America East later in the year.

#7 – Binghamton Bearcats

Binghamton’s Sam Sessoms comes back for the Bearcats leading the team in many categories. Sessoms led the team in total minutes played, minutes per game, FG%, ASTs, STLs and had a whopping 142 total turnovers through last season. With the 142 turnovers, you can tell he was running point and seem to have made a few mistakes during the season. The Bearcats averaged around 65 ppg, while letting their opponents average 72 ppg. While looking at their cumulative statistics, they had 152 blocks throughout the season, while their opponents had 92 blocks against them.

Two big non-conference games for the Bearcats are @ Michigan State (Big Ten), and @ Pittsburgh (Atlantic Coast Conference). With the Spartans constantly producing will in the Big Ten and Pittsburgh getting better with Jeff Capel, Binghamton will be tested early. Sessoms looks like he will be the leader again this season. The question for Binghamton will be whether or not Sessoms can have some help from the rest of the team. Sessoms led the team with 17.8 ppg.

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