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

#40: Taylor Funk, Forward (Saint Joe’s Hawks)

Funk has cooled off a little bit over the course of his career at Saint Joe’s, but he’s still a reliable big man that the Hawks could have desperately used after he was prematurely sidelined for the year (just 7 games played). In the time that he was out there, he wasn’t excellent but he was solid.

He averaged 9.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 2.3 assists per game, and at 6’8” 230 lbs, he helped the Hawks avoid getting absolutely massacred on the glass and in the defensive interior. He shot just 25% from deep in his seven games, but that’s an anomaly of a statistic for a usually reliable three-point shooter (as a freshman he hit over 39%).

It’s never encouraging to see a player, especially a shooting specialist, decrease from his freshman to junior seasons in scoring and three-point percentage, but there was a lot for the Hawks to figure out last season between hiring a new coach and adding Ryan Daly into the rotation. Overall, there’s reason to believe that Funk can return to A10 relevance with a season that, if it’s not better than, should at least be reminiscent of his Freshman campaign.

#39: Maceo Jack, Guard (GW Colonials)

Jack is a player that has been up and down over the course of his three seasons with the Colonials, but he can score the ball at all three levels and occasionally go off for A10 Player of the Week-worthy performances. For the season, he averaged 11.2 points per game while shooting a solid 52.6% from two and 34.2% from deep. His shot selection can be erratic at times, but just as he can go ice-cold for prolonged stretches, he can be absolutely lethal when he’s feeling it.

One never knows when he’ll suddenly go on four-game stretches like the one he had this past February, in which he put up 75 points while hitting 16/34 three-point attempts. Jack doesn’t do a whole lot outside of scoring the ball, but that ability in tandem with his veteran poise should go a long way towards helping a skilled but inexperienced Colonials team claw their way up the conference standings.

#38: Chase Johnson, Forward (Dayton Flyers)

Dayton fans didn’t get to see a lot of Chase Johnson last season (just 8 games played), but what they did get a glimpse of was promising. In 11.1 minutes per contest, the 6’9 Florida transfer averaged 5.1 points and 2.8 rebounds while hitting an outrageous 79.2% (28/40 in 8 games) of his shots. That’s obviously not a sustainable pace moving forward, but the point remains that Johnson can efficiently put the ball in the hole.

The Flyers are going to need some previously non-essential players to step up with so much of their interior scoring, defense, and rebounding graduating or declaring for the NBA draft, so Johnson will have a real opportunity to break out and become a household name across the league if he can maintain availability for a full season for the first time in his career.

Mostly because of how talented the Dayton backcourt should be, Johnson shouldn’t be expected to fill up the stat sheet as far as offensive production, but he absolutely has the talent to be counted on for at least 10-12 points and 5-6 rebounds each time out, and his ceiling is even higher than that.

#37: Jack Clark, Forward (La Salle Explorers)

Clark missed all of last season (his Sophomore season) due to injury, but he was impressive in the 9 games that he played as a Freshman for the Explorers, averaging 10.3 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.0 steals per game while connecting on 41.0% of his three-point attempts.

He’s obviously still got a lot to prove in terms of becoming a proven A10 star, and it never looks great to compete in just 9 games over the course of two seasons, but Clark has the tools to be a go-to guy for Ashley Howard this season and to help La Salle get back towards the middle of the standings.

The team roster will look a lot different than it did the last time he stepped out on the court, so it may take some time to find his rhythm and establish his role, but no one should be surprised if he goes for 13.0 or 14.0 points per game on a team that could use some offensive firepower.

#36: Carter Collins, Guard (Davidson Wildcats)

Collins has made extremely encouraging statistical leaps over the course of his three seasons with the Wildcats. He reached double-digits in scoring last season with 10.0 points per game after putting up 1.4 as a Freshman and 5.4 as a Sophomore, and he got there in an efficient manner shooting an even 50.0% from inside the arc, 35.4% from deep and 81.1% from the line.

He looked much better in some games than others last season, but there were long stretches in which he was impressive — over one nine-game period in December and January he was averaging 13.4 per game. As far as the other facets of Collins’ game outside of scoring, his numbers are nothing to write home about, but they’re perfectly adequate (3.8 rebounds, 1.5 assists per game) for his role.

The bottom line for 6’3″ guard is that he’s probably not going to go off statistically this season in the wake of Jon Axel Gudmundsson’s departure, but he should continue to improve across the board and be extremely useful for taking defensive attention away from Kellan Grady.