Dayton Flyers picked as Atlantic 10 Conference favorite by Blue Ribbon College

The Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook, one of the first preseason magazines released this season, picked the Dayton Flyers as the favorite in the Atlantic 10 Conference.

Dayton ranked ahead of defending champion Virginia Commonwealth, Duquesne, St. Bonaventure, Saint Joseph’s, Saint Louis, Fordham, George Mason, George Washington, Richmond, Davidson, Loyola Chicago, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and La Salle.

“Dayton won’t have Top-25 expectations, at least not externally, this time around,” Patrick Stevens wrote in the magazine. “But the Flyers do have the experience of navigating last year when they were almost never at their best and still came within a game of the NCAA Tournament.”

Blue Ribbon also picked Dayton to win the A-10 last season. It finished tied for second with Saint Louis, three games behind VCU.

“I think if anything, it’s disappointment,” Dayton coach Anthony Grant told Blue Ribbon. “Some things are out of your control. We can’t control injuries. We can’t control the availability of guys on given nights. The thing we talked about was controlling what we can control. I don’t anything was for a lack of effort or a lack of work.”

Dayton junior forward DaRon Holmes II was named a fourth team All-American by Blue Ribbon and was also its pick to win the A-10 Player of the Year award.

Blue Ribbon also picked Wright State as the favorite to win the Horizon League, while naming Trey Calvin the leading candidate to win the league’s player of the year award.

Ohio State was picked to finish seventh in the Big Ten. Miami was picked to finish seventh in the Mid-American Conference.

In other A-10 news:

• The conference announced Thursday it will move its office headquarters to Washington, D.C., in November. The A-10 has been located in Newport News, Va., since 2009.

“The District is a vibrant major location with significant advantages in travel, economics and nationally recognized media,” A-10 Commissioner Bernadette V. McGlade said in a press release. “Washington provides access to a highly educated, diverse community that embraces Fortune 500 companies, innovative technology and is the political center of the world, all factors in the current college athletics landscape. With its robust sports history and dedicated fan bases throughout the national capital region, we are proud and excited to move to Washington, D.C.”