1 of 1- xAC
- Buff & Blue Club
Offline - From: Alabama
- Registered: 7/22/2019
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The 2026-27 Season Approaches
While things are relatively slow, some notes as the GW WWB program heads into the 2026-27 season.
Coach G has put together a strong OOC schedule, with 4 power conference foes (Georgetown, West Virginia, Arizona, and Northwestern), and some pretty good mid-major opponents (Temple, UAB, Brown, and Maine).
The A10 will look vastly different this season, with new head coaches at Fordham, Loyola Chicago, Richmond, Rhode Island, and VCU. Also, in addition to graduation, the transfer portal took a toll on most teams, with many key A10 players moving on to power conference schools.
Graduation: The All-A10 players lost to graduation include Charlise Dunn (Davidson), Brooklyn Gray (URI), Maggie Doogan and Rachel Ullstrom (Richmond), and Nayo Lear (Dayton).
Transfer: Other A10 stalwarts that tormented league opponents last season are gone. They include Alexis Bordas (Duquesne), Kennedy Harris and Zahirah Walton (GMU), Ashleigh Conner and Aryss Macktoon (La Salle), Alex-Anne Bessette (Loyola Chicago), and Palmire Mbu and Vanessa Harris (URI). With the exception of Mbu (who has yet to commit to a program), all of these women will play for Power Conference programs. GW will still see the likes of Kennedy Harris, Walton, and Bordas, as the trio opted for West Virginia in the upcoming season.
The A10 will be hard to assess this season with all the changes to the 2025-26 rosters and coaching staffs. Due to coaching changes or other factors, several schools’ rosters will undergo major or complete overhauls-- George Mason, Loyola of Chicago, and Rhode Island were hit the hardest. Other schools had moderate attrition, but still lost key players that will be hard to replace. They include Dayton, Richmond, Duquesne, La Salle, Davidson, and Saint Bonaventure. The programs that had minimal attrition despite coaching changes were Fordham, and VCU. However, both schools lost their leading scorer. Outside of freshman recruits, the talent coming in is mostly from lateral transfers or players transferring up from lower level mid-major schools. With all the upheaval, only Saint Joseph’s, Saint Louis, and GW were able to keep their core players for 2026-27. With so many unknowns, particularly about the ability of the incoming players, it will be hard to handicap the upcoming A10 season.
It will be interesting to see how the coaches’ poll shakes out at the upcoming A10 Conference Media Day. Stay tuned.
Last edited by xAC (9/21/2026 3:36 pm)
- dmvpiranha
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- Registered: 7/23/2019
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Re: The 2026-27 Season Approaches
Thanks for the recap! Seems like all the turnover in the league gives WBB a possible chance at a double bye this year if they can keep up the momentum from late in the year. Newell might be the best PG that the team has had in years, and Bair gives them another shooter. Harris is another strong scoring option. Konate and Rust add more size to the frontcourt compared to last year. The pieces are there plus the returners. Hopefully Becker is able to be more of a factor on offense because the defense is already there. The bench is better than last year. I don't expect Coach G to suddenly play uptempo, but scoring closer to 70 (or even 60s consistently) would be a welcome sight.
I'd imagine Joe's is probably the favorite, but any of the new coaches could make a push with their new programs. SLU has some good players, but I'm not particularly high on their coach.
The schedule is pretty good overall, but I'm not particularly happy that there are two non-D1s on it. One is fine, but having two just should not happen.