America East Basketball: 2021 Conference Tournament preview, predictions

UMBC Retrievers

After a subpar season for their standards last year, the Retrievers found themselves back atop the conference. Tying with Vermont in the standings, UMBC got the one seed based on the tiebreaker. That is super critical for the America East because the home seed hosts, thus UMBC should be the favorite.

Their two workhorses were pivotal to their success but having every player who contributes for them be an upperclassman, the Retrievers hope to get back to the promise land and shock the world as they did in the 2018 NCAA Tournament.

Vermont Catamounts

Anthony Lamb is not walking through that door, but John Becker did tremendous work once again. Ryan Davis did a marvelous job replacing Lamb as the best player on the team, but the most important player is Stef Smith. The senior is the straw that stirs the drink for the Catamounts.

Add fellow senior Ben Shungu’s toughness, Vermont is back in its usual setting. It will be interesting to see how Vermont responds after losing by double digits to UMBC. The layoff could lead to some rust, but getting drilled in their last game, confidence could be shaken…or it will lead to revenge…again.

Hartford Hawks

My dark horse pick for the America East is the Hartford Hawks. With the new alignment in the tournament, Hartford has the likelihood of hosting two games right off the rip. If they can manage to advance to the semifinals the following week, they will have the luxury of facing a team that has not played a game for two weeks.

Yes, I do believe being in the semifinals off the bat is an advantage, but the layoff that UMBC and Vermont will have could be dangerous. This Hartford team was all ready to compete in the America East Championship game last season, but the pandemic unfortunately shut that down. Between being on the easier side of the bracket, as well as having the experience from last year, the Hawks are the sleeper team out of the America East.