Dayton picked to win A-10 by two more publications
Oct. 10—The official Atlantic 10 Conference men's basketball preseason poll comes out Thursday as the league holds its first in-person media day since 2019 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y. Dayton Flyers coach Anthony Grant will appear in a live interview on ESPN+ at 10:30 a.m.
Dayton will likely be the preseason favorite in the vote by the A-10′s 15 head coaches and select media members if two more recent predictions are any indication.
Kevin Sweeney, of SI.com, picked Dayton to win the A-10 on Monday while naming sophomore forward DaRon Holmes II his pick for A-10 Player of the Year.
"In a year in which men's college basketball was the oldest it had been in a long time, Dayton went through 2021 — 22 with a rotation nearly entirely made up of freshmen and sophomores," Sweeney wrote. "After a disastrous start, the Flyers played like a top-25 team most of the way and now will essentially run it back. Sophomores DaRon Holmes II and Malachi Smith seem poised to blossom into household names nationally-Holmes as a two-way interior force and Smith as one of the better young point guards in the sport. This group won't be as dynamic offensively as the '19 — 20 Flyers who were on their way to a No. 1 seed before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the ceiling here is still sky-high."
In the Lindy's Sports College Basketball magazine preview, Dayton ranked 20th in its preseason poll and also topped its A-10 prediction.
"How far can they go?" wrote Dave Mackall. "The Flyers will be motivated after missing out on an A-10 regular-season championship. Holmes leads the way with all five starters returning from a team that tied for second place in the A-10. It was the least experienced team in Division I at the start of last year. Not so much in 2022-23. Dayton returns 163 of a possible 175 starts, 90% of possible minutes played, 91% of scoring, 92% of rebounding, 99% of blocked shots, 91% of 3-point shots and 90% of free throws."
In other preseason predictions, Dayton ranked 24th in a preseason top-25 prediction published in The Almanac, and it ranked 23rd in the Blue Ribbon Yearbook's poll. It also was a consensus top-25 pick by national writers in the spring.
The Flyers will find out where they rank in the Associated Press preseason top-25 poll at noon on Oct. 17.
