Atlantic 10 Basketball: Non-conference viewer’s guide for 2022-23 season

Five Biggest Questions

The answers to these five questions will likely determine how many NCAA Tournament bids the A-10 is headed for this year and who should be the end-of-December title favorite.

1. Did Dayton take a step up in the offseason?

If the young Dayton roster spent the last few months just soaking in the hype then they are headed for a double-digit seed or more likely, back to NIT road games.  But if four or five of the seven returning rotation players come back as more complete players and freshman Mike Sharavjamts joins them, the Flyers are a no doubt Top 25 team.

2. Can Saint Louis win a garbage game?

The Billikens are going to light up the scoreboard all season and could put up an 80-point game against any team on any night. But Saint Louis is largely devoid of big-time defenders and on the inevitable few nights where shots aren’t falling, they will need to show the resolve to grab a few victories when the game is in the 60s.

3. Are VCU’s centers ready?

Jalen DeLoach only played 13.5 mpg in his first year and is now joined by a pair of freshmen in Christian Fermin and Tobi Lawal.  It could be the most athletic frontcourt trio that VCU has ever had but they all need to overcome any growing pains and contribute immediately on defense for the Rams’ Havoc to be able to work.

4. Does George Mason’s improved depth mean improved defense?

Coach Kim English believes that a deeper bench will enable his players to go harder on defense and for him to be able to remove them after mistakes. But the Patriots had a lot of average and below average individual defenders on the court last year and with some newcomers, especially grad transfers Saquan Singleton and Ginika Ojiako, who will really help, it’ll show early on if those struggling defenders were a victim of circumstance.

5. How many basement dwellers loom in NET hell?

Every year, two or three of the worst A-10 teams embarrass themselves in the non-conference, racking up Epitome of Brutality losses and tanking their advanced metrics. Those teams can murder a bubble resume on the day that things finally go right (see La Salle-Dayton 2022).  There is no obvious terrible team this year so we’ll see how many of the bottom-tier teams can simply take care of their easier games early on and who inevitably ends up as a sub-200 disaster (cause at least one team always does).