WASHINGTON — It’s a good year to be a college basketball fan around these parts.
Last season saw the return of Maryland to the NCAA Tournament, where both the Terrapins and the Georgetown Hoyas won a game before being sent packing in the round of 32. Fans of the Virginia Cavaliers may have been disappointed by their finish, but any 30-win season is a good one. And there is promise for all three of these teams to exceed those accomplishments this year.
Maryland leads the group in hope and hype, landing prized big man recruit Diamond Stone to go alongside returning stars Melo Trimble and Jake Layman. But the Terps will get other reinforcements via the transfer, with Rasheed Sulaimon coming in from Duke and Robert Carter eligible to play after sitting out a year following his migration from Georgia Tech. The Terps are ranked third in both the preseason AP and USA Today Coaches polls, garnering multiple first place votes in each.
Virginia lost senior leader Justin Anderson, but nearly everyone else is back in Charlottesville for Tony Bennett’s team as the Cavaliers eye another March run. Malcolm Brogdon will be the focal point of the offense, but the continued growth of Mike Tobey and the contributions of Anthony Gill on the inside will be key in determining just how good the Cavaliers can be.
Georgetown doesn’t enjoy a number next to their name to start the season, but just because they are unranked doesn’t mean the Hoyas don’t have promise — after all, five unranked teams in last year’s preseason poll (West Virginia, Notre Dame, Xavier, NC State and UCLA) made the Sweet 16. If Georgetown is going to be one of those teams, senior D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera will have to be even better than he was last year, when he led the team with 16.3 points and 3.2 assists per game.
Read full previews of those three schools, along with American, George Mason, George Washington, Howard, Richmond, VCU and Virginia Tech above. And take a look through the slides to see some predictions for the season ahead. We’ll wait to pick a champion until we see how the bracket shapes up. This is all about who gets there.
