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

Tier 2: UMass Minutemen

The Minutemen got off to a rocky start in conference play this past season, but by the end of the year they were playing solid ball under the leadership of Tre Mitchell, who had one of the best rookie campaigns in recent A10 memory (20.4 points, 8 rebounds per game in A10 play).

This season Mitchell will be without some former rotational pieces like Sean East, Samba Diallo, and Keon Clergeot, but the incoming talent should do more than just replace the production that was lost. The big player to note here is TJ Weeks, set to return for another try at a Freshman season after playing just 10 games and then red-shirting due to a surgical procedure. Before he was sidelined, he was shooting 3’s at a 49% clip while putting up 14.7 points per game. I don’t expect that former number to stay quite where it was, but if he can maintain even a steady low-40’s percentage from deep, that will go a long way towards spacing the floor and turning what was already a solid UMass offense into a certifiably good one.

As far as other secondary pieces outside of Weeks that Coach McCall will have at his disposal, there’s always the sweet-shooting Carl Pierre, but the depth behind that “Big 3” for the Minutemen will be very solid as well. Preston Santos emerged as one of the team’s most efficient two-way players down the stretch as a freshman last season, Mark Gasperini is a grad-transfer big who averaged 10 points and 5 rebounds per game during his first three seasons at American, and the incoming class of Freshmen is among the league’s best (4 3-star players according to 247Sports).

Add in players like Dibaji Walker, Kolton Mitchell, and John Buggs III (red-shirt Freshman), and the Minutemen should be able to press and push the pace with a tenacity that their limited depth didn’t allow for last season. It should be noted that Wichita State-transfer Noah Fernandes could end up with a waiver to play as well because of the mass-exodus that transpired there at the end of the season, and he is good enough to see significant playing time off the bat as well.

The bottom-line for UMass: they aren’t as deep with first-rate talent as the tier 1 and even some of the other tier 2 teams, but they should be as deep as any team in the league in terms of steady guys that have the potential to go off on any given night. If Mitchell is as good as I expect him to be – he’s my current favorite for A10 Player of the Year – then there’s no reason for UMass not to threaten the top dogs.