Atlantic 10 Basketball: Way-too-early power rankings for 2020-21 season

DAYTON, OH - FEBRUARY 28: Trey Landers #3, head coach Anthony Grant and Ryan Mikesell #33 of the Dayton Flyers celebrate winning the Atlantic 10 regular season championship following their win over the Davidson Wildcats at UD Arena on February 28, 2020 in Dayton, Ohio. (Photo by Michael Hickey/Getty Images) /

10 of 15

RICHMOND, VA – NOVEMBER 05: Nah’Shon Hyland #5 of the VCU Rams (Photo by Ryan M. Kelly/Getty Images) /

Tier 3: VCU Rams

The Rams are one of the A10’s most difficult teams to project at this point in the offseason. What was supposed to be an NCAA Tournament team last season ended up as only the 9-seed in Brooklyn, and once the season came to a close they lost more Senior production than any other team in the league; De’Riante Jenkins, Marcus Evans, Issac Vann, Mike’l Simms, and Malik Crowfield had all combined as to put up 37.1 points per game. As if that wasn’t enough, big man Marcus Santos Silva, who was set to be one of the Rams’ go-to guys, recently decided to transfer to Texas Tech.

Even with all of that in consideration, though, I still think the Rams could be solid this season and maybe even better than they were. There’s something to be said for a fresh start psychologically, even if the pure talent on the roster isn’t quite what it was. The Rams had all the talent in the world last season, but it didn’t matter because something was clearly off with the team’s culture. To help right the ship, the Rams have one of the league’s most highly-rated recruiting classes incoming – 4 3* Freshmen that each has the potential to be impact players sooner rather than later. I won’t count on any of them just yet to put up numbers this season, but Ace Baldwin (PG) has all the attributes of a good mid-major Point Guard, and 6’7” Jamir Watkins is one of the most versatile scorers in this incoming A10 class.

It should be noted as well that even with all the big losses, there are still a couple of returning players on this roster that can absolutely be key players on a good team. Bones Hyland is the marquee player to note – he was one of the most exciting Freshmen in the league last season (9 points per game, 43% from deep) – but Vince Williams, KeShawn Curry, Corey Douglas and Hason Ward all bring some veteran size and versatility to the table as well.

All things considered, I expect the Rams to be solid and to surprise people that are already marking them down as a bottom-4 team because of their youth. They almost certainly won’t contend for a title even if all the Freshmen fit right in and the veterans show nice development, but I think they can still realistically aim to finish in the middle of the pack.

Home/Atlantic 10