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

14. La Salle Explorers

The Explorers aren’t working with a whole lot this season from a roster standpoint, so combine that with the fact that it’s Fran Dunphy’s first season on 20th and Olney and it could be a long winter for both Philly teams.

La Salle finished 5-13 last season and, even if the coaching is improved under Dunphy, it’s hard to make a case for this year’s roster being superior to last year’s. The most promising players from that team were big man Clifton Moore and wing Jack Clark, and both of them have transferred out (to Providence and NC State, respectively).

There is some potential here for the backcourt to be a pleasant surprise – Khalil Brantley, Josh Nickelberry, and Jhamir Brickus are all guys who could breakout in a new system (though the latter two were considered breakout candidates last offseason as well). Across the rest of the board, though, there just weren’t enough offseason adds to really give this team the firepower it would need to compete in the top half.

The Drame twins, two big men from the Elite Eight Saint Peter’s team, should be solid on the block, and Rokus Jocius and Andres Marrero could have strong rookie seasons, but overall neither the talent at the top nor the depth is there at this point. Maybe Khalil Brantley or one of the other guards goes berserk and the rest of the team plays hard enough to finish around 7-11 or so in conference, but that’s just about the highest ceiling that one can envision at this point.