As an Oregon football fan, I obviously CANNOT WAIT for basketball season to start.
True, it is not with as much enthusiasm when, instead of wondering if the PF who started to emerge as a player at the end of last season has progressed or thrilling at the prospect of the dead-eye three-point shooter developing his defensive footwork, the attitude is "well, let´s see what we have here." 
Just over a month to go before we get our first glimpse in an epic battle of all that is good and virtuous in the universive against the embodiment of all that needs fixing. 
 

Very positive about the roster, but the big question will be this: Will the coaching staff be able to protect leads in the second half of games, unlike last season when they blew lead after lead and lost games they should have won (check last year's results to see their failures). You can have all the talent in the world but waste it if you can't make second half adjustments to win games.

I wrote a post a little while ago asking for opinions about this.  I go along with the consensus which is to say that something has been taken away from us but this likely won't dampen my enthusiasm for this team.

What's been taken away, to a large extent, is watching players you're familiar with develop.  Remember how pleasantly surprised you were by Armel Potter's senior season compared with his junior season?  Or Jordan Roland's sophomore year?  Or Matt Hart transitioning from preferred walk-on to legitimate contributor on an NIT championship team?  Unless you were a phenom coming into college or you were a joining a poor team when you had to start out of necessity, there had often been a "paying your dues" philosophy as guys waited patiently until it was their time to shine.

Those days are gone.  It would have been nice to see whether Luke Hunger could have been a 30 minute, 15ppg, 8 boards a game player at GW.  Or whether a more experienced trio of Autry, Jones and Aranguren would have done a better job of protecting the ball (and leads) with another year of playing together.

If you remember Plan B free agency in the NFL, this is very similar.  Great NFL dynasties had the luxury of staying together and playing together for many years.  Free agency meant that players were constantly changing teams and many felt that the quality of play deteriorated as a result.  (The Patriots were the exception because Brady could well afford to take on a lesser salary, given who his wife was at the time,  thereby freeing up funds to retain a core group of talented players in their prime.) 

Despite all of this, at the end of the day, it's still GW basketball.  My sincere hope is that CC only lands players who are every bit as interested in surpassing team goals as they are cashing NIL checks.