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Thanks for posting BGF. Some notes about the players mentioned:
The top two A10 [players are Jalen Crutcher (#1 overall) and Fatts Walker. Am interested in seeing how their roles and play may change due to changing circumstances surrounding their teams. Last season, Crutcher proved to be a scorer who also knew how to get his teammates involved. Made easy by the presence of Mr. Toppin. Without Obi, can Jalen increase his scoring load without sacrificing his ability to distribute to others? Does he start thinking "shoot first, pass second" because the team may need his scoring? As for Fatts, his surrounding cast has generally declined throughout his tenure at URI. He started out as an off the bench sparkplug and today, he does a serviceable impression of SirValient Brown. Over this time, URI has gone from being a top 2 A10 team to more like a Top 6 or 7 team.
Jacob Gilyard is on the list which is interesting in that he has not had his best games against GW. The reason is because he really hasn't needed to. Seems like Spider after Spider serves up a career game against us (see Golden, Fore, Buckingham, Cayo, Jones), while Gilyard chugs along with something like an 8 point, 7 assist, 4 steal performance. Solid if not spectacular, but more prolific against the rest of the conference.
It's hard to remember that Jordan Goodwin was once thrown off the SLU basketball team. He has made the most of his reinstatement, and SLU should be favored to win the league under his leadership.
Tre Mitchell could take an Obi-like leap? I don't even want to think about this.
Finally, there's Kellan Grady, ranked #20 on the list (of top midmajor players). He was awesome as a freshman, and then blended in a bit over the past two years, allowing room for the emergence of Jon-Axel. Now, it's Kellan's show and Grady represents my dark-horse choice to be the conference's Player of the Year.
Finally, there is also a great article about Chris Mooney in The Athletic. Roughly 3 years ago when the conference tournament was in DC, I was sitting near a pair of Richmond fans. #FireMooney was a thing by then and I asked them how they weighed in. One said that half of the fan base is totally irrational, thinks someone like Bill Self ought to be coaching at Richmond, and wanted him gone years ago. The other half are intelligent and loyal fans who do not fly off the handle at the first sign of trouble. Those fans believe it's time to make a change.
Interesting how much can change over the span of a year or two.
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Thanks for that info, Mayhem. I'm really good at finding good articles but don't have nearly the depth of knowledge on the rest of the A-10. I appreciate your thoughts!
Also for everyone, for what it's worth, if you don't have a subscription to The Athletic you're doing yourself a disservice!