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Northeast Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2020-21 season

By Benjamin Zacher

EMMITSBURG, MD - DECEMBER 17: The NEC conference logo on the floor before a college basketball game between the American Eagles the Mt. St. Mary's Mountaineers at the Knott Arena on December 17, 2019 in Emmitsburg, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images)
EMMITSBURG, MD - DECEMBER 17: The NEC conference logo on the floor before a college basketball game between the American Eagles the Mt. St. Mary's Mountaineers at the Knott Arena on December 17, 2019 in Emmitsburg, Maryland. (Photo by Mitchell Layton/Getty Images) /
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Northeast Basketball Aaron Clarke (Photo by Steven Ryan/Getty Images) /

10. Sacred Heart

The Pioneers are coming off an incredibly successful year, rallying off a 20-13 record with a 12-6 mark in NEC play, good for fourth place in the conference.  They knocked off Mount St. Mary’s in the opening round of the NEC Tournament before falling to Saint Francis in the semifinals.

Sacred Heart did not really feature a marquee non-conference win.  The best opponents they faced – Providence and UConn – ended in 46 and 22-point losses.  They were also unable to knock off any of the three teams above them in the NEC, going 0-7 against them throughout the season.

If everyone had returned for the Pioneers from last season, they would be a top-three team in the NEC.  But that is not how the offseason has gone for Sacred Heart.  Leading scorers E.J. Anosike (15.7 ppg) and Koreem Ozier (14.0) have transferred to Tennessee and Louisiana-Monroe, respectively.  The fourth-leading scorer, Kinnon LaRose (10.5), graduated, and Cameron Parker (10.1) transferred to Montana.

That leaves junior guard Aaron Clarke to pick up the pieces.  Clarke, who was slotted into the starting lineup in late January, showed late last season why he could be relied on as the new team leader.  A 10.5 ppg scorer across the entire season, Clarke averaged over 15 points a game in his final nine tilts, including a 23-point showing against LIU.

Clarke – who also averaged nearly three assists a game – will have to bring up his shooting percentages, which were 36% (FG) and 33.5% (3PT), especially if he continues to take the same number of shots he did towards the end of last season.  In Sacred Heart’s final ten games, Clarke took at least 11 shots in nine of those tilts.

The junior will have some help in the backcourt from sophomore Tyler Thomas, a two-time NEC Rookie of the Week and 5.6 ppg scorer.  There are some questions about the frontcourt, but North Alabama transfer Cantavio Dutreil will be expected to make an immediate impact.

The Pioneers were great, statistically, in the conference last season.  They ranked third in offense (73.3 ppg), fourth in scoring defense (69.4), fifth in field goal percentage (.430), and second in field goal percentage defense (.415). They dominated on the boards, hauling down a conference-best 41.3 rebounds a game, while ranking third in rebounding defense (34.3).

Eighth-year head coach Anthony Latina has a lot of shoes to fill, and this will be a challenging year for the Pioneers, especially after finishing in the upper echelon of the NEC in the past few seasons.  Despite those issues, Clarke’s talent will still put them in a condition to pull off a few wins over teams above them.