Atlantic 10 Basketball: Preseason power rankings for 2022-23 season

2. Dayton Flyers

The Flyers are commonly thought of as being 1a or 1b with the team listed above them here (in either order), and for good reason. DaRon Holmes is my personal favorite to win Atlantic 10 Player of the Year after a phenomenal Freshman campaign; Malachi Smith is an all-conference level Point Guard; and the top to bottom depth is enough to make a double-bye at the A10 tournament a safe bet. This team finished 14-4 last season and they are bringing essentially everybody of import back plus debuting a couple of promising newcomers.

Holmes is really the guy who is going to make this team go. He’s the A10’s top NBA prospect and he’s coming off of a rookie campaign in which he averaged 12.8 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks on 64.9% FG shooting. More importantly, he really became the clear leader down the stretch in February and March, with 16.2 points per game over Dayton’s final 10 contests.

Outside of Holmes and his aforementioned classmate Smith (who together might make for the best 1-2 punch in the league), the rest of the Dayton roster is still upper tier in the A10 taken on their own. 6’8” Junior Toumani Camara is an electric athlete that brings double-digit scoring ability as well as defensive versatility; Kobe Elvis, Koby Brea, and R.J. Blakney are all solid veteran rotational pieces at the guard and wing spots; and top 100 Freshman wing Mike Sharavjamts has all the tools to win A10 Rookie of the Year.

I’m taking the team I have listed above the Flyers to be the best mainly because I feel they have a little bit more juice at the top end (think options ~1-5, even if I like Dayton’s top two options as the better 1-2) but it should really be viewed as a tossup with how good both of these programs are at this point in time. The bottom line is that I expect the Flyers to secure a Tournament bid one way or another.