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

Tier 5: Fordham Rams

For yet another season, there’s simply no reason to expect much of anything out of the Rams. Jeff Neubauer somehow still has his job after winning, respectively: 8, 7, 4, 3, & 2 games in conference play over the last 5 seasons. To be sure, that trend isn’t entirely his fault; the school as a whole simply hasn’t been investing enough into the program – but it’s certainly tough to get excited about his chances of turning things around this season.

As far as the roster that Coach Neubauer will have to work with, a core of Jalen Cobb, Ty Perry, Josh Colon, and Joel Soriano would be decent enough (still not great) if there was a deep rotation behind them, but the Rams are woefully thin off the bench. Of course, it’s not too late in the game to grab an impact transfer out of the portal, but I can’t envision any truly big-time players looking at the state of this program and deciding that it’s the best place to advance their careers.

Who knows, Soriano could end up exploding into one of the best big men in the league; he looked better and better as the season went on – but even if that ends up being the case, it’s still difficult to see this team’s path to anything more than five or six wins in conference. There simply isn’t enough firepower on the offensive end for the team to be relevant. The Rams defense is strong enough; they were 5th in the league in terms of defensive efficiency (in conference play) on Kenpom, but they were dead last in terms of offensive efficiency by a wide margin, and almost the worst team in the entire country in that regard (347 out of 353).

If they want to finish any higher than last place, they’re going to have to shoot a much higher percentage from all over the floor, and I just don’t see that happening at this point.