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CBB Guessing Game, Part 1
CBB Guessing Game, Part 1
Published by Swampy Meadows
10-07-2022
CBB Guessing Game, Part 1

BEVERLY HILLS (MI) – There’s a whole lotta prognosticatin’ goin’ on right now when it comes to forecasting the top teams for the upcoming men’s college basketball campaign. 2022-2023 is one of those all-too-rare seasons where the Flyer Faithful doesn’t have to worry if the team will be ranked, but rather where they will be placed. “From the Swamp” is here to aggregate all that speculation in one place for your preseason reading enjoyment.

“Once upon a day” (as my 3 year old granddaughter likes to begin her stories), "From the Swamp” used to produce an annual column where I cruised the magazine rack at the local Borders Bookstore and took notes summarizing the Flyer content from the various college basketball yearbooks. Borders is long gone, as are almost all of the annual publications (RIP, Street and Smiths), save for Lindy’s. We’ll get to them later. As for now, here is the first of three parts featuring all of the online projections that “FTS” could unearth.

Blue Ribbon

“The Bible of College Basketball” can be purchased as a digital download for $17.95 or in print for $24.95 here:

https://blueribbonyearbook.com/

That’s way too rich for my UD Pride expense account, so fortunately Blue Ribbon Editor and Publisher Chris Dortch issues an annual press release with their Top 25. UD checks in at #23:

https://blueribbon.substack.com/p/bl...=twitter&sd=pf

The Almanac

The Field of 68 has partnered with Verbal Commits, Heat Check CBB and Three Man Weave to bring you this comprehensive season preview, available as a digital download for $19.99 here:

https://thealmanac.gumroad.com/l/almanac

Like Blue Ribbon, they also graciously released their Top 25:



And also teased their Top 100 players with this graphic:



Jeff Goodman, one of the contributors to The Almanac visited UD on 9/22 and tweeted this:

Here at Dayton: There are good guys in coaching, there are great guys in coaching, and then there’s this guy. (picture of AG)

The Almanac’s A-10 prediction: Top four are Dayton, VCU, Saint Louis and Loyola.

NCAA.com

Former ESPN college hoops guru Andy Katz released the latest edition of his “Power 36” in late September:

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball...katzs-power-36

Katz has UD at #18 with the comment “The Flyers have the best young talent in the A-10.” No argument here, dude.

CBS Sports

Gary Parrish produces a weekly Top 25 +1 ranking. UD squeaks in at #25:

https://www.cbssports.com/college-ba...for-acc-title/

Parrish on Dayton:

The Flyers are returning the top five scorers from a team that just missed the NCAA Tournament - among them double-digit scorers Daron Holmes and Toumani Camara. Dayton should be a slight favorite over Saint Louis to win the Atlantic 10.

Busting Brackets

You have to consider the source here, as Busting Brackets is part of Fansided which is predominantly fan-generated content and fans, as we all know (looks in mirror), can be just a tad bit biased at times. Here are their Preseason Top 25 power rankings for 2022-23 season:

https://bustingbrackets.com/2022/09/...022-23-season/

The Flyers are slotted as an “Honorable Mention” at #27, just behind that school to the south. The following is their analysis on UD:

After a dismal start to last season, the youngest team in NCAA Basketball last season won 24 games and nearly made the NCAA Tournament. Big man and leading scorer DaRon Holmes is a national breakout candidate, while point guard Malachi Smith is one as well in the Atlantic 10. The backcourt as a whole will need to improve in the scoring department after none of them averaged double figures but Dayton will be a problem in league play.

Busting Brackets
also cranked out an Atlantic 10 preview with the Sons of Anthony Grant at #2 behind SLU:

https://bustingbrackets.com/2022/09/...-23-season/15/

Like I said before, consider the source.

SB Nation

Speaking of ‘considering the source’ this Top-60 preseason ranking is courtesy of The Only Colors, a Michigan State fan site. Take whatever they have to say with a boulder of salt because (with apologies to Blazing Saddles) after all these are just simple farmers; these are people of the land; the common clay of the new West. You know… Sparties.

#31-60:

https://www.theonlycolors.com/2022/8...rankings-31-60

Dayton is #32, just behind Michigan. Their outlook:

This team returns its entire nine-man rotation. This strong fact, alone, should make you believe that I should rank Dayton higher, and I fully anticipate pushing them into the top-30 once some of those teams begin to falter. This group has excellent guard play in Smith, Brea and Elvis. It has a dominant star post-player in Holmes, who will get NBA looks next summer, and it has excellent glue-guys in Blakney, Camara, Amzil and Washington. Heck, the Flyers even bring in a top-90 recruit in Sharavjamts. This team is going to win at least one NCAA Tournament game, and should be a betting favorite to get to the Sweet 16. Atlantic 10 favorite; strong bet to rise.

UD’s “team returns its entire nine-man rotation” eh? Elijah Weaver says ‘hello’ guys!

#1 -30

https://www.theonlycolors.com/2022/8...michigan-state

ESPN

The final release of The Worldwide Leader’s Way-Too-Early Top 25 men's college basketball rankings was posted on October 6th and has UD at #22:

https://www.espn.com/mens-college-ba...-carolina-no-1

Despite wins over Kansas, Miami, Virginia Tech and Davidson, Dayton failed to reach the NCAA tournament thanks to awful losses to Austin Peay, Lipscomb, UMass Lowell and La Salle. That was with the youngest rotation in college basketball last season, with six of Anthony Grant's top seven players having freshman eligibility. All seven are back, along with ESPN 100 recruit Mike Sharavjamts. The headlining returnee, though, is DaRon Holmes II, who averaged 20.0 points, 6.0 rebounds and 2.0 blocks over his final five games of 2021-22. Potential all-conference picks Malachi Smith and Toumani Camara are also back. With everyone a year older, Dayton may not have to sweat out Selection Sunday.

The August 23rd version had this to say:

Dayton announced its non conference schedule earlier this month, and it's again a slate that allows the Flyers several chances at résumé-boosting victories. There's a home game against SMU, road trips to UNLV and Virginia Tech, as well as a neutral-site game against Wyoming. On top of all that, Anthony Grant's team is in the Battle 4 Atlantis, where it will open against Wisconsin and then face either Kansas or NC State. On paper, Dayton is likely the third-best team in the field, meaning it could end up playing USC in the third game of that tournament.

It's a difficult stretch, but the Flyers' top-25 credentials will be tested before Atlantic 10 play -- although, as mentioned many times this offseason, beating good teams wasn't Dayton's issue last season.


In a previous update from July 25th ESPN shared this:

The Flyers came in at No. 3 in our retention rankings, but the job Anthony Grant did to keep this team together after last season might have been the most impressive of anyone near the top of that list. Dayton had the youngest rotation in college basketball -- dead last in personnel experience at KenPom.com -- and six of its top seven players had freshman eligibility. Not a single key player opted to transfer out of the program, though, and Grant is geared up for an NCAA tournament run after last season's bubble popped in the Atlantic 10 tournament. The freshmen being a year older should help Dayton avoid being arguably the most inconsistent team in college basketball again in 2022-23. Either way, I don't think the Flyers will be sweating their fate on Selection Sunday again.

Projected starting lineup:

Malachi Smith (9.3 PPG)
Kobe Elvis (8.9 PPG)
R.J. Blakney (6.5 PPG)
Toumani Camara (10.9 PPG)
DaRon Holmes II (12.8 PPG)


Stay tuned for Part 2!

That's it "From the Swamp."
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
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