Atlantic 10 Basketball: Biggest cases to make for 2022-23 season
By Tyler Cronin
We are deep in prediction season, but anyone can put together standings and an All-Conference team with no boldness or explanation. So it’s time to dive into the details of the upcoming season in Atlantic 10 Basketball with seven predictions complete with the arguments for why they will happen.
The Case For… National Audience Attention
Remember how entertaining the 2020 Dayton Flyers were? Well after a rebuilding year and a 2022 season where the youngest team in the country nearly made the NCAA Tournament, the Flyers should be back to the Top 25.
And while this upcoming edition probably won’t feature the Naismith winner, the team does have a lot of matching elements to the 29-2 squad, an elite sophomore center with crazy hops and a penchant for highlight plays (DaRon Holmes), a brilliant pass-first point guard (Malachi Smith), a perfect fitting, rugged defensive forward (RJ Blakney) and an inferno bringing 6th man (Koby Brea).
Dayton will likely have to go through both of their archrivals to get the crown though. The A-10’s other traditional powerhouse, VCU, loses their leading scorer in Vince Williams Jr. but brings back elite two-way point guard Ace Baldwin, his running mate Jayden Nunn and adds a deep, talented group of wings with Michigan transfer Zeb Jackson, Top 100 recruit Fatts Billups, 2021 A-10 6th Man of the Year Jamir Watkins (returning from injury) and Hartford transfer David Shriver (41% from 3).
Saint Louis has been the epitome of good but not great in the Travis Ford era but the Billikens have their most talented roster since Rick Majerus’ last recruits left nearly a decade ago. Yuri Collins led the nation in assists (7.9) last year, Javonte Perkins scored 17.1 ppg in 2020-21 and was the preseason A-10 POY last year before an injury kept his season from ever starting and sniper Gibson Jimerson is coming off of an All-Conference season of his own.
Throw in center Francis Okoro, a late-season double-double machine (five in his last eight games) and SLU has four preseason All-Conference players. The Billikens even add Javon Pickett, a Missouri transfer who averaged double-digit scoring in the SEC, and he isn’t even a lock to start.
The three contenders play each other twice and four of those six fall on the night the power conferences don’t like to play on (Friday) and will be the signature college basketball clashes of those nights. And not only will they feature excellent guard play, but a physical war between a trio of frontlines that are going to overpower and out-tough almost every other group of big man that they face.
The A-10 also features a deep middle class with some level (at least NIT) of postseason aspirations, led by stars that pay homage to the old-school, George Mason post-up machine Josh Oduro, and a pair of pass-first, pass-second, shoot-later point guards in Davidson’s Foster Loyer and Loyola-Chicago’s Braden Norris, along with new school, Richmond’s Tyler Burton is perfectly designed to be an NBA 3-and-D guy and UMass’ Noah Fernandes is the mid-major answer to the question, what if Trae Young passed a little more.
A strong group of coaches even added a group of headliners with a coach who’s been to the Final Four (Frank Martin – UMass), a coach whose last A-10 job led him to a Blue-ish Blood (Archie Miller – Rhode Island), and a coach who’s resume is headlined by 17 NCAA Tournament appearances (Fran Dunphy).