CAA Basketball: Ranking of 25 best players from last decade (2013-23)

9. Matt Lewis

James Madison departed for the Sun Belt in 2022 but they had quite the explosive player in the years before they left. Lewis is a 6’5 combo guard from Woodbridge, Virginia who experienced personal success under coaches Louis Rowe and Mark Byington during his career with the Dukes.

He was a great shooter and already averaged 14.5 points a game during his freshman season. Though James Madison struggled as a team for much of his career, Lewis was a big bright spot for the program. He reached 19.0 points per game during his junior season and repeated the feat after the pandemic, now in Byington’s system. He had a 40-point outburst in a junior year overtime win at Hofstra before hitting 38% of his 3-pointers in that senior year.

Each year was better than the last, and Lewis certainly developed into one of the top backcourt pieces in the CAA. As a senior, he led the league in points per game and field goal percentage and was named CAA Player of the Year, anchoring a surprising run from James Madison, who finished a shortened-season with a 13-7 record. Lewis was just under 2000 career points but did fantastic work for the Dukes program during both some dreary days and some more hopeful ones at the end of his career.