G-Dubber wrote:

Rising, any confirmation on how many years of eligibility Lovro will have?

Does it matter? Just assume everyone is here for one year and be pleasantly surprised if they stay longer.

It's like rent-a-player. Not good!

Early 1980´s SF punk band Flipper had a song with the chorus "This is my game, new rules NO RULES!". I guess the NCAA is now being run by a Flipper fan (that, or life really is imitating art at this point; and Flipper had another song with the chorus "Life? Life is the only thing worth living for!")

More roster additions are apparently on the way. One is likely an overseas kid and the other a guard who has college experience. Should know for sure soon.

Thanks Insiders...a few random thoughts:  Agree that it would've been nice to see Jones and Autry continue developing, but equally fascinating will be how they do in their respective new situations both coaching and campus wise.   

Always fun to speculate starting 5's even when way too early.  This past years disclosure of injuries left us all hanging.  So, not only don't we know how much each transfer is receiving as compensation, we also don't know their health status and complete injury history.  Is it possible that some players never fully recovered their pre injury form?  Remains to be seen how money, personality, durability, and coaching get's mixed into the soup.

As for expanding the NCAA tourny to 76, I agree that the number of play-in games is awful and it's only purpose is $$.  Personally, I would get rid of conference tournaments because it negates the meaning of the regular in conference season.  Teams beat on each other for months to win the conference.  That should be enough.  Yes, cinderella stories are wonderful but if you go 14-4 in conference you should be a wild card not need to win 4 games in 4 nights.  Add 2 games to the conference schedule.

Oh well...hope the next 5 months bring pleasant surprises to GW hoops.

I guess I should have posted Deng Manyangs signing here. Posted in a separate thread 

Hopefully next season's players can shoot free throws better than last season's-- particularly in the clutch.

Yes, looks like we still have a couple open roster slots if there is money.
We don't need walkons if we can fill the slots with better players. But Arrington might be grandfathered anyway under the new (and always insane) NCAA proposal that unfairly eventually diminishes walkons and tilts everything in favor of the big money "schools".
   Perhaps this is the time to get the reasonably priced if available, small, speedy PG from high school, unsigned in the portal or maybe internationally if we can.
    And in another slot, we can never have enough height.
Assuming we have money to spend on a couple more players.
Can't believe that openly has become the factor in college basketball.

Over the last couple of years, the two takeaways for me have been that the backcourt has not been good enough and that there has been a lack of leadership on the floor. The addition of size up and down the roster should help defensively, but ultimately what wins close games is having a guard that can take over/create their own shot and be willing to do so. It's been missing since JB left.

That's why for me Omari Witherspoon will be the most pivotal player next year based on the way the roster is constructed currently. For GW to have a successful year, he will need to be way more efficient than he was last year at Pitt (especially with the FT shooting). Coming down a level may help, and hopefully he benefitted from playing a ton of minutes his freshman year given how banged up the Panthers were at the end of the year.

He may also have to play the leadership role too. While Arceneaux is a winning player, I've never really seen him as a vocal guy. The same goes for James and Kossaras (I don't expect Felix to be a high usage guy either, but I really like the way he plays. I say the same thing about N'Landu, so maybe it's a Canadian/Fort Erie thing). Frost seems a bit young for the role. Perhaps a year at GW may help Aranguren become that leadership guy but I'm totally sold on that either. I don't hate the addition of all these international guys, but who is going to be the guy to bring everyone together?

I think the Phillips add was more of a nice-to-have (the shooting metrics are solid, and he showed up big against both Texas and West Virginia this year) but I think there may have been more value in adding another more dynamic guard in the vein of Witherspoon. If he can maybe embrace that leadership role, that will be a massive plus.

GWRising wrote:

Might not be done yet. Rumors of a 4th big from South America.

Pato would be proud.
 

Hopefully everyone formally signed soon if not already, so they can get started knowing each other,etc..