I meant to say "Blue Ribbon College Basketball."

most of the top half of the conference visits GWU
a lot of chances for good upset win

AT Hiker wrote:

Yes, the Revs are one team from the bottom in the brand new 2024-25 College Basketball. I predict we will finish in the top 8 in conference play.

I hope you’re right.  All depends on if we can get enough scoring without Garrett (big injury loss this summer), and whether we improve defensively.

Things I’m confident about:
- Buchanan will be a top 3 player in the A10.
- Hutch will improve quite a bit.
- Sean Hansen will be a strong offensive addition with his ability to pass and hit a three, while Castro will give us some of the defense of Stretch.
- Drumgoole will be a key player and a strong addition.
- Weluche-Ume won’t be a starter, but will contribute more as the season goes on. I like the talent.
- Nessah will contribute.

Things I’m not confident about:
- rebounding and defense, especially our ability to force turnovers.
- Trey Moss’s defense
- Drumgoole’s defense.  Can he play it at a high A10 level?
- Autry’s ability to take a step forward. He’s a smart player and I think he’s capable of shooting better, but I’m not confident his defense will be top 6 A10 level for a guy counted on for big minutes. Wouldn’t shock me if he’s better, but I’m not confident.
- contributions from the freshmen (Jones and Jerome)
- whether Nessah will be a big impact freshman. He clearly has serious talent and I suspect he’s closer to Hutch last year than the two Euro newcomers last year. 

So essentially im confident in Buchanan, Hutch, and to some extent Drumgoole.  I’m confident in our center rotation, but since we can only play one at a time I worry we’re giving up offense or defense regardless of who we play. And I’m confident Nessah will give us something. 

But whether Nessah is ready to be an all-rookie type player, whether we can defend, force turnovers, and get rebounds, and whether we can rely on the bench guards/wings will ultimately decide whether AT Hiker’s top 8 prediction comes true, or if Blue Ribbon has us pegged - or something in between. 

Feels like Nessah and Autry are the true swing players for us.

Pretty much agree with the above posts. These rankings are also based off what happened the previous year when a lot of teams are projected close to each other. I'll admit that what CC was able to do in year 1 probably clouded my judgement as to how last year's team was going to fare. The reality is that outside of JB and Antoine Smith who wasn't even a primary scorer on a bottom 50 Evansville squad no one on the team even had two years of extensive D1 experience (Stretch was basically a bench warmer for multiple years prior to coming to GW having not really played much after his sophomore year).

I feel slightly better about this year's team on paper. It starts with interior scoring, which can only go up from last year - Hansen was a good get. I wouldn't be surprised if GW was last nationally in 2023-24 when it came to scoring from the 5 spot. It was just Akingbola and no one behind him. It's honestly amazing the team was still above average nationally on offense playing 4 on 5. In year 1, the team was great from inside the arc. Last year it was from 3. Hopefully there's a better balance this year (I think there's still enough shooting even without Garrett).

Defense is an obvious question mark. Generating turnovers would be nice, but even just making teams uncomfortable/getting stops would be a step in the right direction (also closing out properly on 3s). Until that is seen bottom 5 in the league is probably justified. I understand needing to bring in scoring after losing JB/Max but I would have sacrificed a few points per game to get guards who are better defenders. Moss in particular played on such a poor W&M team that the hope is he's better/more motivated with better talent around him. It helps that he's likely coming off the bench.

As much as I love Jun, feeling confident he'll be a top 3 player in the league feels like a fairly hot take (although he can definitely get there). Hopefully he can take some strides forward with his outside shooting this year which will open a lot of things offensively.

Drumgoole will have to be a key player now after Garrett went down. His numbers were elevated against CAA competition which is simply not the same league as it was prior to conference realignment (talk about a league that's just added teams for the sake of adding teams). In 9 games against teams from the top 10 conferences in CBB, he's shot under 30% from the field between his time at Albany and Delaware. That's not great, and if I'm being honest seeing both Moss and Drumgoole struggle against GW's defense last year doesn't strike me as a great sign. Hopefully it was just a down game for both. Given the OOC schedule, this probably isn't a factor for the most part until A10 play comes around.

I think Nessah is a better prospect than Schroder (his passing alone feels like it will translate better) but I'm skeptical that his skills will translate immediately. We'll need him to back up Drumgoole by conference play at the very least so hopefully any struggles with his transition to college will be figured out by the end of OOC play. Also hoping Zam's defensive awareness improves after another offseason (will probably be Jun's backup).

Moss having the ability to get downhill and into the lane is big for this team. If there was one critique of Jacoi last year, it was that his finishing ability at the rim at times was lacking (which could very well improve this year). Autry similarly didn't particularly put pressure on the rim. With JB out of the fold, hopefully we see more of that from these guys.

I am personally a bit higher on Autry but some of that may come from the fact that he's the son of a head coach. His shooting definitely came around the second half of the year. I also liked Christian Jones as a prospect coming out of HS although it was clear he needed to add strength to his frame last year. He's an unknown but I think he may be the biggest surprise of anyone this year. Bevins has potential, but if he's playing a lot this year he's either a transcendent talent or the team is in trouble.

In general, this year's backcourt feels less "dynamic" but hopefully being more "solid" on both ends will help make up for that. Having Jun up front as a go-to player is great, but I can't help but feel someone in the backcourt will have to step up to be somewhat of an alpha at points this season.