Stonehill returns about 43% of their scoring from a team that went 10-6 in the NEC last year, and just 1 of their top five scorers: Max Zegarowski, a 6-8 Grad student who averaged 12.6ppg and 4.2rpg earning All-NEC third team honors.

Sophomore transfer Tony Felder, Jr. is a wild card who put up 22 points against Davidson for VMI last year, and also went scoreless on 0-13 shooting across two games in December. He shot 35% from the field last year, so it could go either way with him.

Pomeroy puts Stonehill at #346, which, given all the roster turnover, doesn't seem crazy. With the lack of returning scoring, Stonehill will have to retain the NEC's best defensive FG% to stay in games all season long.

Opening nights in college basketball can certainly be kooky, but if this team is really the top half of the A-10 like Caputo alluded to at Media Day, Laziz Talipov should be logging 4+ minutes in this game in 20+ point win.

Like GW, Stonehill has chosen to eschew a pre-season exhibition before the season opener. So basically, two teams will heavy roster turnover will debut against each other. Good luck to all on coming within 20 points of your pre-game predition. My prediction? This game will be forgotten long before either team makes an NCAA Tournament appearance.
Still, it is the GW season opener, and as such I will be watching closely.
 

Wouldn't surprise me to see the line open at the same spot as the KenPom prediction

Currently GW -12


 

Free Quebec wrote:

My guess is we are favored by about 14.5 or 15. I’m guessing Vegas rates us slightly higher than KenPom at the start of the season.

Seems likely about Vegas generally re Our low KenPom

I'd be surprised opening night though to see a line that high.

Less than 1 week away.  Excited to get down to the Smitty and see basketball again!!

So what's our starting lineup?

RyanPuleo wrote:

We open as 8.5 point favorites. Do with that information what you will

Wow.  I would have thought we’d be much bigger favorites.

Is it possible stone hill is better than I think?

Last edited by Free Quebec (11/02/2023 9:43 am)

It's possible, but not probable.  The more likely explanation is that GW is either being downgraded due to an underestimation of our talent (which is the result of lack of game experience), a realization that it will likely take time to learn to play together, or both.

My feeling is that the talent will be apparent to many soon enough (so take advantage of the betting market now while you can) and with the team being essentially together for four months now, the learning to play together thing has become vastly overrated.

I think that something CC learned in Year 1, the same thing that Jamion and MoJo experienced before him, is that there is a value in putting away subpar opponents for if you don't, if you let them hang around, they may very well pull off the upset.  Last year under CC,.there were a few good OOC performances (the win over SC tops the list but even the loss at Hofstra was a good loss) but there were also some shaky wins (Howard, UMES) and inexcusable losses (UC-San Diego, American). 

Don't wonder too long why Bart Torvik so badly underrates GW...these OOC results have everything to do with it.  My sense is that taking care of business by putting away teams where we have substantially more talent will be a point of emphasis this season. 
 

This team is going to blindside a lot of folks.We have a top coaching staff at GW and I want to see what they can do with a full bench.The player development has been amazing. Dean will pay a price for leaving this staff. Edwards and Bishop along with Adams worked so hard that by the end of a big game had little left in the tank.I could see the coaches grooming either Trey or Jacoi into an on the ball third guard. We more likely will see a lot of the freshmen guards for good stretches as we give Bishop and Edwards get blows. I really think that the coaches have to come up with a way to speed up the game to put the deep of this team into play, whether anyone respect it or not. Buchanan leads a group of 3-4's to GW who have proved that they can score within 9 feet without getting to the rim. This is a change up of years of watching Brown struggle. This should limit the help on Bishop and Edward.

The coaching challenge is getting Schröder to learn what he can get away with at this level and how he can create as a 3. If he is cooking, and teamed with Buchanan, the future in the A10 could be bright. One can only hope that the portal becomes less of a factor.
 

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

I know everyone is thinking blowout win in the opener, but 8.5 sounds fairly reasonabe, as we are basically an expansion team playing its first game together.  I can easily see an 80-72 win in which we look solid throughout but fail to cover.   Over the past few seasons, we have not done so well in the opener,  Here are some results:
2022   Howard +10
2021   St. Francis +3
2020   Navy -7
2019   Towson -14
2918   Stoney Brook -3
2017   Howard +9
2016  Md Eastern Shore  +4
2015  Lafayette  +9

I would not recommend betting on GW...at least in the opener, until we see the team actually play its first game together.

Tangent, but that Towson game was so deflating.  In my mind, we finally hired a "real" HC after three years of Mojo and we were starting the climb up from the bottoming out that took place in 18-19.  To see the team get whomped by a CAA team on the road was tough.  I was also expecting to see "mayhem" in the mold of VCU, which never actually materialized.