Atlantic 10 Basketball: Ranking of top 50 returning players for 2020-21 season

In this upcoming college basketball season, the A10 isn’t likely to have the AP Player of the Year again, but the league is still deep with players that fans should be excited about.

In compiling this list for top Atlantic 10 Basketball returning players, there was no single statistic like Player Efficiency Rating or points per game that I used to determine the final numerical rankings. I certainly relied on statistics and metrics heavily, but I wanted to allow for players that I believe are talented but didn’t have many opportunities to shine last season (because of health problems or loaded positional depth, for example) to make the final cut.

For example, Hason Ward barely played last season for VCU, but I included him on this list because of his pure athleticism and his potential to break out given more significant playing time. Similarly, some players might have put up double-digit scoring numbers or been otherwise solid players last season in terms of production, but if that was mainly the result of their team being atrocious or if they were extremely inefficient in achieving those numbers, they might have been omitted.

To get a sense of how I approached this exercise, imagine every A10 basketball player is available for the teams in the conference to draft for this upcoming season — what order would they be selected in, regardless of their statistical production last season or so far over the courses of their careers? There were many edits to this list and the 47-50 spots called for some particularly tough decisions.

But, without further ado and with apologies to Jalen Cobb, KeShawn Curry, Jamal Hartwell II, Jordy Tshimanga and Tavian Dunn-Martin, who were the “first 5 out,” so to speak, here are the 50 players that I finally decided on, after far too much deliberation, in order.