• St. Bonaventure returned its entire starting lineup in the 2021-22 season and received all 28 first-place votes in the preseason poll but finished fourth.
• Richmond returned all five starters in the 2020-21 season and received 19 first-place votes but finished eighth.
Not since Rhode Island in the 2017-18 season has the preseason favorite lived up to the hype.
The release of the schedule pairings for the 2023-24 season on Wednesday will not help anyone fill out their preseason poll. It’s just the next step toward the season in a long offseason dominated by transfer portal news. Here’s what Dayton fans should know about UD’s opponents.
1. Repeat opponents: Dayton will play VCU, Saint Louis, Davidson and Duquesne twice — once at home and once on the road.
Here’s a closer look at those four opponents:
• VCU finished 27-8 last season and 15-3 in the A-10. VCU and Dayton have split two games in the regular season over the last two seasons with each team winning on the other team’s court. The Rams ended Dayton’s season in March with a 68-56 victory in the A-10 championship game.
Coach Mike Rhoades left for Penn State after the season and took the A-10 Player of the Year, Ace Baldwin, with him. VCU’s new coach is Ryan Odom, the former head coach at Utah State and Maryland-Baltimore County. He has reshaped VCU’s roster with six transfers.
• Like Dayton, Saint Louis failed to meet expectations last season, finishing 21-12 and 12-6. It returns its top scorer, Gibson Jimerson, but lost its next five leading scorers, including point guard Yuri Collins.
Dayton and Saint Louis have also split the regular-season series the last two seasons but with each team winning games on its home court.
• Davidson finished 16-16 overall last season and 8-8 in the A-10 in the first year for coach Matt McKillop, the son of the previous coach, Bob McKillop. It was Davidson’s first non-winning season since a 15-17 finish in 2000-01. Davidson lost its top two scorers, Foster Loyer and Sam Mennenga, who combined to average 31.5 points.
Dayton swept Davidson last season, winning 69-55 at Davidson on New Year’s Eve and 68-61 at UD Arena 18 days later. Dayton has won the last seven games in the series.
• Duquesne was the most-improved team in the A-10 last season, going from 6-24 and 1-16 in the 2021-22 season to 20-13 and 10-8. Dayton beat Duquesne 69-57 at UD Arena.
2. One and done: Dayton will play one game against the other 10 A-10 teams.
• Fordham, George Washington, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and St. Bonaventure will play at UD Arena. Dayton was 3-2 in road games against those teams last season.
• Dayton will visit George Mason, La Salle, Loyola, Richmond and Saint Joseph’s. Dayton was 4-1 in home games against those teams last season.
3. Schedule highlight: Second-year Rhode Island coach Archie Miller will coach at UD Arena for the first time since leaving UD for Indiana after the 2016-17 season.
Miller and Rhode Island beat Dayton 75-70 last season in Kingston, R.I. That was Rhode Island’s best victory of the season. It finished 9-22 and 5-13 in the A-10, ahead of only last-place Loyola Chicago in the 15-team league.
4. Familiar foes: This will be the 10th straight season Dayton has played two games in the regular season against Saint Louis, the eighth straight season it has played two games against VCU and the second straight season it has played Davidson twice.
5. Back again: This will be the eighth time in the last nine seasons Dayton and Duquesne, the closest school in the conference to UD geographically, have played twice in the regular season. Last season was the first time they played only once since the 2012-13 season.
Duquesne replaces Loyola Chicago on the list of teams Dayton plays twice. The Flyers swept the Ramblers last season, which was Loyola’s first in the A-10.
6. Windy City return: Dayton will place twice in the Chicago area for the second straight year. It beat Wyoming 66-49 at the United Center in a non-conference game last season and then won 65-49 at Loyola. This season, it plays Northwestern on Nov. 10 at Welsh-Ryan Arena in Evanston before playing at Loyola in A-10 play.
7. NCAA hopes: The A-10 tournament champion, VCU, was the only team from the conference to make the NCAA tournament in 2023. It was the first time since 2005 when the A-10 tournament champion, George Washington, was the only representative the league failed to send at least two teams to the tournament.
In his latest bracket prediction for 2024, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi predicted the A-10 will once again be a one-bid league with Dayton being the automatic qualifier.
8. Postseason plans: The A-10 tournament will return to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, N.Y., from March 13-17 in 2024. This will be the eighth A-10 tournament held in Brooklyn and the second in a row.
The tournament moves to Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., in 2025 for the third time. It was held there in 2018 and 2022.
9. Schedule change: With the A-10 expanding to 15 schools with the addition of Loyola last season, each team will play four teams twice and the other 10 teams once in the 18-game schedule for the second straight season. In previous years, each team played five teams twice.
10. Looking ahead: The exact dates of the A-10 games will be announced at a later date. They are typically announced in early September. The date was Sept. 7 last year.
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