Welcome to November! It’s time again for our annual preseason previews of the local college basketball teams.
The Atlantic 10 Tournament won’t be held in D.C. this season — bummer. Last March’s tournament saw a championship game showdown between locals VCU and George Mason go down to the final possessions, as the Rams punched their NCAA Tournament ticket with a 68-63 win.
This year, thanks to transfers Barry Evans from Bryant, Jadrian Tracey from Oregon and Tyrell Ward from LSU, VCU is picked to win the A-10 again, with a different “George” projected to finish in the upper tier.
George Washington posted 21 wins last season, its highest total since the NIT Championship season of 2016, and is picked to finish fourth. Coach Chris Caputo said he feels good about the team he’s put together.
“I think we’re unselfish and I think we play very hard,” Caputo said. “I think those two things are evident and some of the things we need to clean up everybody needs to clean up this time of year.”
Preseason A-10 selection Rafael Castro averaged 14 points with nine rebounds in his first year at GW and anticipates a fun style this winter.
“You’re going to see a lot of defense, we’re going to play hard,” Castro told me last month. “You’re going to see a lot of dunks, a lot of alley oops, a lot of exciting play.”
Caputo added Duquesne’s Tre Dinkins III through the transfer portal while holdovers Trey Autry and Christian Jones each had their moments last season. But he also knows that success this season does not hinge on what happened last year.
“You can’t look back and say, ‘OK, if we were good last year and we got some returners we’re going to be good again,'” Caputo said. “We’ve got to do a great job of getting there every single day with the work that we put in.”
The work continues this month with games against American at the Smith Center and next month with a neutral site matchup against defending national champion Florida.
George Mason was picked sixth and coach Tony Skinn’s team is coming off a 27-9 season, tying the 2006 Final Four team and the 2011 squad that reached the round of 32 for the most wins in program history. And he’s had to tweak his preseason preparations after losing standouts Jalen Haynes to Cincinnati and Giovanni Emejuru to East Carolina.
“To be honest with you the new X’s and O’s is really just management. You know, everyone can run offense and draw on the clipboard, but can you manage your team,” Skinn said. “Especially with six, seven, eight, nine, 10 new guys.”
The main holdover from last year is preseason All-A10 selection Brayden O’Connor, who will look to produce on the floor and in the locker room.
“He’s a big-time player, he’s the hardest working guy on our team,” Skinn said. “He’s one of the hardest working guys that I’ve coached. He puts so much pressure on himself, but he’s a great leader and he’s going to have a chance to lead the charge this year.”
Mason’s charge through the nonconference season includes a two-week stretch where they’ll host former CAA foes James Madison and Old Dominion while visiting Virginia Tech.
VCU went 28-7 last season and, as mentioned, was picked to win the league again, as new head coach Phil Martelli Jr. tries to become the seventh consecutive Rams coach to lead the program to the NCAA Tournament. This is a streak that goes back to Jeff Capel, who left the school for Oklahoma in 2006.
Current Richmond coach Chris Mooney wrapped up his first season with the Spiders with a 10-22 record and Richmond is tenth in the preseason poll.
But the Spiders have not posted consecutive losing league seasons since 2007, and they also have potential with senior center Mike Walz getting preseason notice and junior guard Mikkel Tyne returning after averaging 9.3 points per game last winter.
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