We are now, gloriously, less than two weeks away from the start of the college basketball season. Last week, I revealed my preseason AP Top 25 ballot with various explanations as to how I voted. Today, I’m here to pass along my Mid-Major Top 10. This debuted last season as a weekly staple of my Monday Hoop Thoughts column. I will continue the practice this season.
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The term “mid-major” has never been quite so simple to define. For our purposes, we will consider all schools to be mid-majors if they are outside of the top six conferences, with the exceptions of BYU, Cincinnati, Gonzaga, Houston and Memphis.
1. Dayton (24-11 last season)
With 12 freshmen on the roster, the Flyers were the youngest team in the country last season, and yet they still pulled off an early-season upset of Kansas, won 24 games and were the first team left out of the NCAA Tournament’s at-large field. Now everyone is back, most prominently last year’s Atlantic 10 rookie of the year, 6-10 sophomore forward DaRon Holmes II, who averaged 12.8 points, 6.1 rebounds and 2.3 blocks and made the league’s All-Defensive team. The backcourt will be sparked by another A-10 All-Rookie selection, 6-0 sophomore Malachi Smith, who averaged 9.3 points and 5.3 assists, as well as 6-6 redshirt sophomore Kobe Elvis, who was the league’s Sixth Man of the Year. Dayton won’t be as good as the 2019-20 team led by Obi Toppin that was headed toward a possible No. 1 seed when the NCAA Tournament was canceled, but it is a Top 25-caliber squad that has the potential to win multiple games in March.
2. San Diego State (23-9)
Brian Dutcher has taken to the Aztecs to the NCAA Tournament three out of four times, but this may finally be the year he gets a win there. (Although to be fair, the Aztecs were 30-2 and looking at a possible No. 1 seed when the 2020 tourney got canceled.) Four starters return from the squad that went 13-4 in the Mountain West and lost in overtime to Creighton in the first round last season. The most significant returnees are a pair of super seniors who took advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted during the COVID-19 pandemic – Matt Bradley, a 6-4 guard who transferred from Cal and averaged 16.9 points on 40.1 percent 3-point shooting, and 6-10 center Nathan Mensah, who was the league’s Defensive Player of the Year after averaging 2.2 blocks per game.
3. Saint Mary’s (26-8)
The Gaels lost three starters from the squad that finished second in the West Coast Conference and throttled Indiana in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, but Randy Bennett, who is entering his 22nd season in Moraga, has long proven his ability to maintain a winning culture. The strength of the lineup will be in the backcourt, where 6-2 senior Logan Johnson and 6-6 senior Alex Ducas provide leadership and long-range shooting. Much will depend on how well 6-10 junior forward Mitchell Saxen, who averaged 3.3 points and 2.3 rebounds in 7.4 minutes, fills in up front for the departed Matthias Tass. Bennett also landed a transfer with potential in Mason Forbes, a 6-9 super senior who started for Harvard.
4. Wyoming (25-9)
The Cowboys were picked to finish eighth in the Mountain West during the preseason, but they went 13-5 and finished fourth in the conference, cracked the AP’s Top 25 for a week in mid-February, and earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament, where they lost to Indiana in the First Four. Now they return four starters, including two all-conference players in 6-9 junior center Graham Ike and 6-7 senior guard Hunter Maldonado. The team also added three Pac-12 transfers in 6-6 junior Jake Kyman, who came from UCLA, and USC imports Ethan Anderson and Max Agbonkpolo. Third-year coach Jeff Linder, who previously spent four seasons reviving Northern Colorado, is a rising star who could be headed for a more high-profile location if all goes according to plan this winter.
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5. Saint Louis (23-12)
The big question for the Billikens is whether Javonte Perkins will return to the form he showed during the 2020-21 season. The 6-6 senior guard averaged 17.1 points, 3.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists as a junior, but he tore the ACL in his left knee last October and missed the entire season. Beyond that, five players who started at least 10 games will return. That includes 6-0 junior point guard Yuri Collins, who led the nation in assists at 7.9 per game, and 6-5 redshirt sophomore guard Gibson Jimerson, who led the team in scoring last season with 16.3 points per game on 42 percent 3-point shooting. Both of those players were All-Atlantic-10 selections. Javon Pickett, a 6-4 senior guard who transferred from Missouri, should add offensive punch after averaging 11.1 points and 3.1 rebounds for the Tigers last year.
6. UAB (27-8)
Andy Kennedy is set to begin his third season as coach at his alma mater with his best team yet. The Blazers return three starters and six of their top nine players from the squad that went 14-4 in Conference USA and won the league tournament to garner their first NCAA bid in seven years. UAB boasts one of the top mid-major players in America in Jordan “Jelly” Walker, a 5-11 super senior who previously played for SMU and Tulane. Walker was named the league’s player of the year after averaging 20.3 points, 4.9 assists, 2.8 rebounds and 1.5 steals. The other two returning starters will buffer the frontcourt — 7-0 senior center Trey Jemison (7.0 points, 7.4 rebounds, 1.5 blocks per game) and 6-8 senior forward K.J. Buffen (10.0 points, 6.8 rebounds). Kennedy likes his teams to be old, so instead of recruiting high school seniors he went into the portal and signed six transfers, four of whom will be playing for their third school. This will be UAB’s final season in Conference USA before it moves to the AAC next season.
7. Liberty (22-11)
The Flames have dominated the Atlantic Sun the last few years, and that should be the case once again thanks to their high-scoring dynamo, Darius McGhee. The 5-9 super senior ranked second in the country last season in scoring (24.6 points per game) and was first nationally in made 3s (142), for which he was named the league’s player of the year for the second straight time. McGhee will be bolstered by a lineup that includes three other returning starters, with 6-7 senior forwards Kyle Rode and Shiloh Robinson back to anchor the frontcourt. The Flames are even harder to beat at the defensive end, where coach Ritchie McKay deploys a Virginia-style pack-line defense built on toughness, efficiency, and controlled tempo.
8. Western Kentucky (19-13)
Seventh-year coach Rick Stansbury has never taken the Hilltoppers to the NCAA Tournament. This season they have some big aspirations, many of which revolve around Jamarion Sharp, the 7-5 senior center who led the nation in blocks at 4.6 per game while also averaging 8.2 points and 7.6 rebounds. Last year’s leading scorer, 6-1 guard Dayvion McKnight (16.2 points, 5.5 assists), is also back for his junior season. Beyond the returnees, few coaches around the country did a better job upgrading their rosters via the transfer portal than Stansbury. He brought in Dontaie Allen, a 6-6 redshirt junior guard from Kentucky, 6-3 junior point guard Khristian Lander from Indiana, and Emmanuel Akot, a 6-8 super senior from Boise State who had originally committed to Memphis but changed his mind in August.
9. North Texas (25-7)
The Mean Green have quietly become a consistent force under sixth-year coach Grant McCasland, the former Baylor player and assistant coach who has guided his teams to 20 or more wins in four of the past five seasons. Last season’s 25 wins were the most in school history. North Texas returns four of its top six players for its final season in Conference USA before heading for the AAC next season. The best of the bunch is 5-11 senior guard Tylor Perry, who started just one game last season but led the team in scoring at 13.5 points per game on 41.1 percent 3-point shooting and was named Conference USA’s Sixth Man of the Year. He forms a potent inside-outside duo with 6-10 junior forward Abou Ousmane, a rebounding force who also scored 10.2 points per game. North Texas supplanted Virginia as the slowest team in the country, per KenPom, but McCasland expects the pace to quicken this season after three of his top defenders graduated.
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10. Iona (25-8)
The Gaels upset Alabama early in the season and went 17-3 in the MAAC, but they were knocked off in the conference tournament by ninth-seeded Rider and ended up in the NIT. Now entering his third season as Iona’s head coach, Rick Pitino will need another big season out of 6-9 junior forward Nelly Junior Joseph, who was voted first-team all-conference after averaging 13.0 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.9 blocks. Iona graduated its all-league backcourt of Elijah Joiner and Tyson Jolly, so it will be up to their replacements, 6-3 junior Daniss Jenkins and 6-2 sophomore Walter Clayton, to pick up the slack. Most coaches at the mid-major level rely on the transfer portal to replenish their rosters, but Pitino opted instead to sign five freshmen whom he hopes will stick around in New Rochelle and develop over the next few years.
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(Top photo of DaRon Holmes II: Geoff Burke / USA Today)