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.
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