I'm hoping for the NIT

For the regular season: be competitive on the road.  We have a very tough road schedule this year with games against VCU, Dayton, SJU & Duquesne.  Would be great to get at least one win and keep the others within 10 points.

For the tournament: We have not won two games in the A10 tournament since 06-07. That should be our goal every year until we do it again.

It all depends on how quickly all the newcomers jell with the few players from last year. Obviously, the defense must improve for the team to do well in the league. 

BM wrote:

Basketball Jones wrote:

#7
middle of the pack

That's a lot better than #11 in KenPom.  None of the voters picked us worse than #10.
 

Which is interesting since there are 9 teams at least 50+ spots ahead of us in KenPom and a 10th that's 30 spots higher 

who are the voters in this poll?

I'd say that the A10 ought to be Exhibit A as to why so many of these pre-season prognostications are one step above worthless.  Either those doing the forecasts aren't equipped to properly assess every program or they lazily rely upon players that are staying (higher ranking) or mass exodus of players (lower ranking) without paying any real attention to most anything else.

Last season, Frank Martin and Archie Miller joined the A10.  Their programs were amongst the worst in the conference.  So naturally, they couldn't be much better this season, even though both coaches turned over practically their entire rosters.  In the case of UMASS, their best player and best freshman were among those who left.  Yet with a new roster in place, they are 11-4 with wins over West Virginia and Duquesne so far this season (plus the losses have been by 4 to Dayton, 3 to Georgia Tech, 3 in overtime to Harvard, and inexplicably, by 10 to Towson).  Rhody is 2-0 in the A10 with a home win over the Hawks and a road win at Davidson.  And speaking of the Hawks, who I believe will be fine but were projected as the pre-season darlings of the conference for no other apparent reason than they had the majority of players from a decent but not fantastic team coming back,  they sit 0-2 with road losses at URI and at a worse than usual SLU.

Playing with confidence is always a factor and in the case of GW, this is definitely a season where they can take the court knowing they can win against most any opponent.  I watched a bit of Mason-VCU this week and while it's dangerous to draw conclusions based on a single game (anyone can go 0-15 from 3 on a given night like GM did), I could not get over all of the accolades that GM had been receiving.  Their performance was uninspiring to say the least.  Davidson is another team whose name normally commands immediate respect and admiration but this year's squad?  Despite wins at Maryland, at Charlotte and at our friends from Ohio U, having watched them play a few times suggests that GW should take care of business at home on Saturday, plain and simple.

I suppose I am overlooking GW's own flaws in part and I am willing to concede this.  My point isn't that GW should necessarily win all of these games but that they should take the court feeling confident that they can.  That, and the point of realizing that some programs that have been down are now up and naturally, the reverse becomes true as well.
 

Last edited by Gwmayhem (1/11/2024 12:05 pm)

Joel Joseph wrote:

Good article on Richmond.com with Coach Mooney summarizing the reality of today's A-10. He does it in the context of scheduling and expanding the NCAA Tournament. I think he's spot on with his opinions. He presents a good argument on why we should expand the tourney.

Link?