Atlantic 10 Basketball: 5 takeaways from start of 2022-23 conference play

GW is for Real

There was a period at the beginning of the season in which GW was a really tough team to gauge. They took a couple of horrendous losses to teams like UCSD and American, but they retained a semblance of A10 relevance by throttling South Carolina and playing some other solid opponents to the wire. Still, the bad well outweighed the good, and it was worth asking if the win over the Gamecocks (who are ultimately in a tough, rebuilding year themselves) was a fluke.

Now here we are seven games into A10 play and Chris Caputo and co. are 5-2 and well-positioned for a double-bye in Brooklyn. James Bishop looks like a bona fide conference first-teamer with averages of 22.0 points and 5.4 dimes per game, and the depth around him has been solid. Brendan Adams in particular deserves mention here – he’s putting up 17.5 per contest and should be considered the frontrunner for the conference’s most improved player award.

The defense still has issues that need working out (283rd nationally in defensive efficiency on KenPom), but the offense can run with anybody in this league. GW has a golden opportunity to pick up even more ground in the standings over their next three games (at Fordham, at La Salle, vs. Duquesne), so these next couple of weeks are absolutely enormous for keeping the top-4 dream alive in year one of the Caputo era.