I listened to that last night. I think they're wrong, but it's good to listen to an unbiased view. 
The key is we are much more hopeful on our transfers than they are.

I think 13th is much too low. Depth, talent, and a more experienced head coach will more than make up for player inexperience. This ranking will actually be good, however, in that the team will enter the season with a chip on its shoulder.

The problem I have with preseason previews in general is that too much stock is placed on teams with returning production or incoming transfers that scored a lot at their previous stop. Not saying that's not important, but I think too little is placed on the unknown and it's hard to account for that. I'm referring more to transfers who have spent a year in college with modest production because I agree that relying on too many freshmen is risky. Teams with more unproven talent are docked way too much where the projection is that none of the players pan out because they haven't proven anything yet. Case in point, Bart Torvik has us 92 spots worse (293rd) than the 14th place A10 team. I think that's ridiculous. Additionally, CC deserves at least a little credit for what he did with Max last year. GW has exceeded preseason expectations the past two years despite still being poor analytically.

I'm not overly high on next year's team, but 13th seems a bit harsh. Just Bishop + Edwards provide a slightly higher floor than that. The reality is that many teams in the league have to integrate a ton of new pieces and that's the bigger key for me than what a player did previously.

As for their other points:
1. Think defense will be just as bad or worse than last year - disagree, because we were playing like six guys last year. I will agree that defending the paint is still a concern though. Perimeter defense will hopefully be a lot better. Perhaps a step forward on defense will offset a step back on offense.

2. Relying on freshman for depth - agree with that (all freshmen go through growing pains) but I think the talent level of the freshmen is above average for the league.

3. Who will replace Ricky's rebounding - fair question, but I think there's more depth/players capable of rebounding to make it more of a committee approach. Max's skills on that front were a pleasant surprise.

4. Went 4-0 in OT games last year. If they go 0-4, GW's conference play doesn't look so good. - This is true but lacks context. I like the 3MW guys, but it's impossible to follow every team closely. In three of those four OT games GW had a lead for a good part of the game but lost it down the stretch due to a lack of depth. Going 4-0 in OT inherently takes a certain amount of luck and GW had more seniority than the average A10 team but I would say execution mattered a bit as well.

There was also mention of BA being awesome and him graduating being a loss but no mention about how he grew under CC in year 1. A career sub 30% shooter improved his 3-PT percentage by 10% and was able to stay efficient playing major minutes. BA was expected to start, but no one expected that kind of a leap. At least they did confess to being a bit biased towards "brand teams".

As for their standings, I more or less agree with the other teams outside of GW.

St. Joe's continuing to be picked high again is understandable but questionable to me. Reynolds is awesome and they return a lot, but their style of play leads to high variance from game-to-game and their defense is a question mark even with Essandoko.

Richmond at 7 is terrible and I'm confused about their reasoning. You need continuity when running the Princeton offense, but over half the team is new/unproven so how does that check out?

Davidson is one of my favorite A10 teams outside of GW, but I think they're getting too much of a pass. Offense is supposed to be their strength but their three point shooting was terrible and while Mennenga was not the best defender he was one of their best shooters on the team last season. Maybe a freshman or transfer steps up but that's an unknown. Moss from Stanford shot 43% but only took 14 threes all of last year so a bigger sample size is needed. I don't see a path to a much improved defense either but I guess we'll see.
 

Don’t know which was worse: the quality or the content!
Coach Miller is “Arch?”  And we have a “german guy?”
Give me a break.
This exercise is 99% speculative. 
Here is what I know about our squad.
Last year, for the first time in years, we had players getting coached up.  We watched Lindo, Dean, BA, and JB4 improve.  Lindo had the great motor and effort but didn’t know or want to modulate it.  Yes, rebounding will be a question until proven otherwise. However, rebounding is a team effort. Basic fundamentals and spacing can be taught and drilled.  Just look at FAU last year. One freshman big man and everyone else around 6’5”. They gang rebounded and flew around. Same with Miami.  CC now has more pieces to blend and I can’t wait
to see it in action.
The process begins with coaches seeing skills early. 
These two knucklehead “peas in a pod” don’t know squat because so much is yet to be determined.  Between now and start of season will bring answers both good and bad. And between start of season to end is a world away.  Looking forward to the ride.

Well said Dude!

My hope is to have new weapons who buy-in and pleasantly surprise to the upside.

The fun at this early juncture is what CC et al create in competitive workouts. 

Jacoi had me at “my favorite player is Shai Gilgeus-Alexander. How can you not love him?

Obviously the A10 is a big unknown. Busting Brackets has UMASS as #8 while 3 Man Weave had them behind us at #14.  Its going to be interesting!

Can't really comment on the U-Rates other than to say that one must have played college ball to have received one which rules out about half of our team.

What I will say about Busting Brackets is that our 10th place prediction was written before the team added Akingbola, Weluche-Ume or Antoine Smith.  I guess our starting center would have been Keegan, Darren, or Garrett at that time?
 

So Torvik and Busting Brackets essentially feel this year's upcoming team is not very different than say MoJo's third season (and second full recruiting class), in the aftermath of Lonergan-Nero, where guys like Collin Smith, Jordan Roland and Kevin Marfo had already left the program, Jair Bolden would follow, and the best freshmen recruits we could attract were Marcus Littles, Mezie Offurum and Shandon Brown (along with transfers Armel Potter and DJ Williams).  I'll ask the simplest possible question:  does this year's team coached by Chris Caputo and his staff "feel like" that 2018-19 team which also happened to win just 9 games all season?  Of course it doesn't.

It is irresponsible to offer up a prediction based solely on which players a team loses without even beginning to understand the level of incoming talent.  It's lazy and careless.  So if you're really asking the question "how high should anyone expect us to finish" given the defections or losses, the answer would be much higher than 13th place if you just took a little time to evaluate the new team as a whole.

Looking at the Blue Ribbon prediction, GW last season defeated 4 out of the 8 teams predicted to finish in front of them, as well as each team picked to finish behind them. 

3-15 in the A10?  I can only hope this serves to fuel the fire.
 

Rising, I understand that predictions are not worth getting worked up over and are relatively meaningless in the overall scheme of things.  And, I agree that underestimating the team could result in an added level of motivation.  That said, to suggest that there's too little college history to go on (in order to justify a better prediction) is the same lazy conclusion that some of these forecasters are displaying.

Should Buchanan being the DC Met player of the year and a Virginia Tech recruit count for nothing?  How about Benny and his experience playing in Germany?  Or picking up Stretch who successfully fills a genuine need on this team?  And Jacoi who has already been tested against national competition while starting for IMG Academy? 

I could keep going but I hope the point has been made.  There are legitimate things to go on, outside of prior college experience, to suggest that this team will be better than what Torvik has to say.  Instead, all that's looked at by these lazy prognosticators are:  Bishop and Edwards returning, Lindo, Adams, Dean, Harris, Brown, and Samuels leaving, so therefore, they couldn't possibly be any better than last season.