Atlantic 10 Basketball: Dayton, VCU rises in latest 2021-22 power rankings

Coming into the season, there was a feeling that we know how Atlantic 10 Basketball would work out. The projected teams at the top were led by a bunch of talented seniors, while the middle-tier had some promising prospects with high ceilings. And then the bottom had the same suspects based on the past few seasons.

However, an argument can be made that this conference has seen the most shakeup up and down through the first 20+ days of the season. As we head into the month of December, all 14 programs have at least two wins and one loss, with many of them having head-scratching results. There have been double-digit “buy” game defeats, or at least upsets on paper and several programs have looked downright awful.

At the same time, there were times where some of these teams looked incredibly impressive, pulling off wins against ranked programs such as Maryland and even No. 4 Kansas during “Feast Week”. Just about everyone has gone through some level of ups and downs, with the inconsistency making it difficult to pin down who are legit contenders once league play starts or not.

But with another few weeks of non-conference play ahead of everyone, look for some real separation to occur now that teams’ rotations are getting into shape and certain individuals start to stand out as go-to players on offense.

It’s been just a few weeks but there have been enough on-the-court results to make a new set of power rankings for the Atlantic 10 Conference. Here’s how I would currently rank the leagues’ teams.