The James Madison men's basketball team hasn't finished in the top five of the Colonial Athletic Association since winning the conference in 2000.

But that's where Matt Brady's team is expected to finish in 2009-10, according to the league's preseason poll released Tuesday.

Brady had said last week that he expected the Dukes to be picked "somewhere in the middle of the pack" in the preseason poll.

In his first season at JMU, Brady led the team to 21 wins, including a 9-9 mark in the CAA. The seven-seed Dukes advanced to the CAA Quarterfinals for the first time in five years.

At CAA Media Day in Washington, D.C. Tuesday, Brady predicted his second team at JMU would surpass last season's in at least one area: talent.

"With the new guys we have coming in that didn't play last year, there's every reason to believe that we can be better," Brady said. "I don't know that we're going to get more wins, but I do think that we're going to have a better basketball team and that by season's end I think that we'll be a much improved team from the year before."

JMU forward Julius Wells was also named to the All-CAA preseason second team Tuesday. Well was the lone Duke to receive preseason recognition.

The six-foot-five-inch tall sophomore was the conference's rookie of the year last season.