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

#10: Hasahn French, Center (Saint Louis Billikens)

French has been extremely reliable for his entire career as a Billiken, posting averages of at least nine points, seven rebounds, and 1.5 blocks per game in each of his first three seasons. Last season he bumped those numbers up into double-double territory with 12.4 points, 10.4 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks plus 1.0 steals per game on the other end as well.

French certainly isn’t without his weaknesses; he’s an atrocious free-throw shooter and he’s limited in his scoring range as a more traditional big, but he makes up for those deficiencies in other areas, eg. his offensive rebounding and ability to get opposing bigs into foul trouble. He might be the most physical player in the A10, and that leads to some dominating performances against teams that are smaller on the block.

In a game against Belmont last season, French finished with 21 points, 24 rebounds, and 7 blocks. In A10 play he never went off quite like that, but he still managed to finish the conference slate with 8 double-doubles. Expect a lot more of the same on that front this time around.

#9: Kellan Grady, Guard (Davidson Wildcats)

Grady hasn’t quite been the player that most people expected him to become after his stellar Freshman season (that player would be in the NBA right now), but he’s still a very good A10 guard by all standards. He hasn’t surpassed 18.0 points per game since that debut campaign, but he’s a clear all-conference talent that can be the difference-maker on any given night.

In the wake of Jon Axel Gudmundsson’s graduation, Grady will have a lot of extra weight on his shoulders, but he’ll also have an opportunity to log his best year to date. He put up 17.2 points per game while shooting 37.0% from deep and 46.3% overall to go along with 4.2 rebounds and 2.5 assists last season, and he also dropped at least 20 points in five out of Davidson’s final six games.

Ultimately, fans shouldn’t expect Grady to enter this season as a significantly improved player — he mostly is who he will become (at least at the college level) at this point — but that player is still elite at the mid-major level.

#8: Ryan Daly, Guard (Saint Joe’s Hawks)

Because of how atrocious Saint Joe’s was in 2019-2020, it’s difficult to determine where Daly should fall in these rankings. It may have been the case that as one of only several competent players in first-year coach Billy Lange’s rotation, he put up numbers simply because somebody had to out of necessity, but the numbers that he put up weren’t just good — they were fantastic — and he looked like the best player in the league on certain nights.

He put up a league-leading 20.6 points per game on the season, and it was in a respectably efficient manner considering the defensive attention that he garnered from opponents, shooting 42.5% from the floor, 31.1% from deep and 73.3% from the line. His rebounding and passing numbers weren’t league-leading but they were solid as well — 6.8 boards and 4.3 assists per outing.

The Hawks aren’t likely to be a contender for the A10 title this season, but they should at least be better, so even if Daly’s scoring numbers go down a bit, look for improved efficiency across the board.

#7: Grant Golden, Forward (Richmond Spiders)

It feels as though Golden has been in the league for the past decade — a testament to just how long and consistently he’s been finessing opposing bigs throughout the league. For three straight seasons, he’s averaged at least 13.0 points per game, and his field-goal percentage has gone nothing but up along the way.

He’s not a traditional center that will bully his way to the basket with his physical strength, but he’s one of the league’s best passers regardless of position, and that’s ultimately the kind of player that the trigger-happy Spiders need kicking it out to the perimeter. Golden is also extremely adept at staying out of foul trouble (1.3 fouls per game last season), and on a roster that has been and will continue to be relatively thin down low, that’s a very important quality.

One may be able to say that he can improve upon his three-point shooting — he has somehow never been able to eclipse the 30% mark in a season– but he attempted just 19 last season, down from a far-from-prolific 54 the season before. He doesn’t score from all three levels, but he’s simply a solid player across the board, and he’ll have a real chance to log his best season to date in an A10 that shouldn’t be particularly loaded on the block.

#6: Fatts Russell, Guard (Rhode Island Rams)

Russell is a somewhat streaky player, and his shooting percentages aren’t fantastic because of that, but he’s about as good of a pure-scoring guard as there is in the A10 (though one might make a case for St. Joes’ Ryan Daly as well). He ended the season averaging 18.8 points per game, and there were fifteen games in which he put up at least 20.

His 38.8% field goal percentage is far from where Rhody fans want it to be, but he’s trending in the right direction after shooting just 33.8% as a sophomore. The Rams will be working with a thinner roster than usual this season, and that might hinder his continued improvement from an efficiency standpoint as he’ll have to carry as heavy a load as any player in the conference, but he’ll also have a chance to be one of the nation’s top scorers if things go well.

Another reason Russell is one of the top 10 players on this list is the quality of his work on the defensive end. His quickness and tenacity led to an average of 2.9 steals per game, and there were two games in which he logged at least seven steals (8 against Saint Louis). That potential to explode on either (or both) ends of the floor on any given night is too good to ignore.