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

4. Dayton Flyers (6-3)

In the first couple of weeks in the season, Dayton not only lost at home to Austin Peay, UMass Lowell, and Lipscomb, they were at times flat-out dominated. Then came the Battle 4 Atlantis Tournament, which saw this team beat Miami, shock everyone with the upset of No. 4 Kansas, and then beat a really good Belmont team to win the title and turn everything around. I personally had the Flyers in the 4-5 range to start the season and after balancing out the extreme highs and lows, placing them here seems fair for now.

What has helped this young team is the stabilizing play from the backcourt, led by freshman  Malachi Smith. He along with leading scorer Elijah Weaver (10.9 ppg) combined with the frontcourt duo of Toumani Camara and Da’Ron Holmes has given this team a strong defensive identity with a growing offensive game. They have a few more tough games that’ll determine if they have true at-large hopes but this team’s ceiling is top-3 in the A-10 without question.

3. Richmond Spiders (5-4)

The record looks disappointing on paper but the Spiders have played by far the hardest schedule in the conference. None of the four losses (Mississippi State, Maryland, Utah State, Drake) are bad, while also having won over both Wofford and Northern Iowa on the road.

Congrats to now the all-time NCAA leader in steals in Jacob Gilyard, also averaging 11.9 ppg and 5.3 apg for the season. Junior forward Tyler Burton has emerged as the go-to player at this point, leading Richmond in 18.6 ppg and 6.3 rpg in nine games. And big man Grant Golden has been putting up impressive numbers as well, averaging 16.4 ppg, 5.6 rpg, and 4.0 apg. Nick Sherod is back after last year’s injury and is playing at 17 mpg and 6.2 ppg but if he gets into another gear by league play, the Spiders will be a real contender for the crown.