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For anyone who cares, This is our 10th H and H with Dayton since the A10 stabilized in 2013/14 after the multiple departures. This will be our 4th H and H with VCU, (there should have been more) Amazingly this is our 1st H and H with Davidson (they came in 14/15) Of course this is our first H and H with Loyola

No ouch about it, this is exactly what we needed. I'm pumped.

Dayton has the same H&H pairings. Loyola has us, Dayton, GMU, and SJU. VCU has us, Dayton, Richmond, and Davidson. Davidson has us, Dayton, VCU, and Fordham. So it really looks like the league is telling us and Dayton this is our chance.

Waiting on the international student visa to clear. Once it does, he's good to go. He expected it "about two weeks" from the time of our interview, which was 13 days ago as I write this, so it should be any day now.

No indications that it’ll be us but should hear something soon

T-Rank preseason rankings are I think computer generated based on prior year with adjustments for players IN/OUT. Obviously to be taken with a massive grain of salt (Richmond & LaSalle are overrated in my eyes), but are just as good as MBM guesses at this point. Putting teams in tiers instead of specific rankings is a way to hedge your bets / be less specific on early predictions. You can look at the teams overall grades on T-Rank & lump ones that are closer together into tiers if you'd like.

I was wondering that as well. There hasn't been any sort of official announcement to my knowledge.

I like it. You really couldn't get any better IMHO. Loyola and Dayton are no-brainers. VCU will pump up the SOS. Davidson has always been hard on us at Davidson so payback time is coming. We avoid the great white north. We get a potential riser in Rhodey at home. Mason, Duquesne, and La Salle at home are likely wins. The only away game of contest is likely Umass. Fordham, Geedubya, St. Joe's and Richmond are all rebuilding. I don't see how it could have broke any better. Fordham, St. Joes anmd Geedubya are on the early travle schedule for me. I hope Fordham is a weekend.

-yep, let's go win a league title -I guess the ADept will have some sort of Jordair Jett promotion when SVU comes to town?

My thoughts exactly. No excuses this year.

By T-rank (https://barttorvik.com/trankpre.php) projected finish: 1. Dayton - H & A 2. SLU - N/A 3. Loyola - H & A 4. VCU - H & A 5. Richmond - A 6. Davidson - H & A 7. Mason - H 8. Rhody - H 9. UMass - A 10. Fordham - A 11. LaSalle - H 12. Bona - H 13. GW - A 14. Duq - H 15. St Joes - A Hold serve at home / beat all the teams we should on the road. Barring unforeseen circumstances, anything worse than 13-5 is totally unacceptable. O/U is probably 14-4 or 15-3? Loving that we don't have to travel to Olean to face what looks like mediocre / bad Bona team and that we finally get to place Davidson at home. I like that we have the same H&H pairings as Dayton so there isn't a big SOS difference between the projected top 2.

Not much of a write up just a bunch of stats and names. They usually do a brief written analysis.

D'shawn Schwartz signed a summer league deal with knicks.

sounds like you'll need another vacation soon

Just got back from vacation and I'm a little backlogged. I got a couple new ones entered but still have like 6-8 left. I'll update here when they're done.

Macaleab Rich picked up a ton of new offers this weekend playing in the Ridgewood Showcase. His recent offers include Indiana St, UIC, MO St, Bradley, Northern Illinois, Eastern Michigan to go along with previous offers from Lindenwood, SIUE, and SLU.

Wouldn't a gel be better for team chemistry?

Old guy burn.

I don't understand this desire to itemize Nesbitt's perceived shortcomings. He had a good freshman season by Billiken standards. He's moving on to a team where he can be the centerpiece of the offense and we got a more experienced player who will likely produce similar numbers. This is a win-win for everybody

Checked in on Forte's new follows and he has recently followed 2 transfer guards. Finally the coaches are listening to the board!! Trey Boston - 6'2" 165lb Soph. Guard out of UL-Monroe (originally from Chicago) Averaged 10 points, 2.2 reb, and 1.9 ast in 9 games last year (19 min/game average) Tray Croft - 6'1" 170 Redshirt Senior Guard from Wisconsin-Parkside (DII) Last year averaged 20.5 points, 4.6 reb, and 3.84 ast. Shot 40% from 3 and 89% from the FT line. He's had a very interesting collegiate basketball career which started back in 2016 2016-17 - Played at Iowa Central CC 2017-18 - Played at Iowa Central CC (named DII player of the year) 2018-19 - Transferred to Northern Iowa and redshirted March of 2019 announces transfer from UNI and ends up at Wisconsin-Parkside, looks like it was academic (https://siouxcityjournal.com/croft-to-transfer-from-uni/article_7ba3c156-17b0-5023-b28c-e5646f3e2d03.html) 2019-20 - UW-P Started first 5 games but misses rest of year with injury 2020-21 - UW-P played and started in 9 games 2021-22 - UW-P Played and started 25 games, put up big numbers In May 2022 he announces he will transfer Looks like one option is someone who would sit behind yuri and learn to then see increased mins next year and the other is the definition of a veteran guard that some on this board have been asking for. Forte has followed a bunch of 2023 and 24 HS players recently too but I'll leave that up to @Pistol

I hope Conklin is in some strange locale, watching a pick-up basketball game, and then Hustl[ing] after the kid to sign as a new combo PG/F, and an assistant coaching gig.

What a cool shout out for Larry the Legend. Didn’t know much about Armon Watts before reading this but I’ll be rooting for him if I catch any Vikings games this season. Best of luck Mr. Watts. Armon Watts, now in NFL, feels ‘duty to give back’ to North St. Louis https://www.stltoday.com/sports/columns/benjamin-hochman/hochman-armon-watts-now-in-nfl-feels-duty-to-give-back-to-north-st-louis/article_82337d33-a9f6-5fff-8f85-49118b449410.html There are kids he doesn’t know, but he knows them. They live in north St. Louis, like he did. Like his family still does. They are so innocent and precious, yet vulnerable and imperiled. “You know, gun violence, stuff like that,” Armon Watts said. “You know, robberies. ... “I grew up right off Newstead and Bircher. Back then, it was still dangerous with some of the violence that happens in the city. Of course, we had to witness some of those things. Just being able to make it out of that, to where I am now, it’s definitely a big achievement.” Growing up, Watts could’ve been a number. Now he’s No. 96 for the Minnesota Vikings. The defensive tackle tallied five sacks last season, third-most on his team. Two forced fumbles, too. And as each career step takes him farther from north St. Louis, it also brings him closer. He’s starting the Armon Watts Foundation this summer. He’s hosting a free football camp for kids. And now that he’s a name around the NFL, he wants to meet and inspire kids from his neighborhood. “I just felt like it was kind of my duty to give back,” said Watts, 25, who played high school football at CBC and college ball at Arkansas. “Because I see a lot of potential (in kids), especially with (the impact) of somebody being like me, who can make a change or start to make a change. Whether it’s with the youth or my plan to buy back some property (in north St. Louis) and build some new stuff ... it’s definitely just the beginning. I’ve got a lot of plans for that part of town. ... “I was raised by my mom. ... My dad was actually incarcerated for a while, but he’s back in my life. Just getting over some of those hurdles — some of the things my mom had to go through — she made life as easy as possible as she could on us. Having seen her go through adversity, and me go through some of those adversities, adversity wasn’t anything I was new to. You just overcome it. And I’ve just been blessed to do what I do now.” Watts remembers his mentors, back to those who worked at the Boys & Girls Club. And he cherishes a childhood encounter with a pro athlete. The impression was inimitable. Everlasting. It’s one he hopes to make with this new generation of kids in north St. Louis. “Larry Hughes would throw these inner-city camps,” he said of Hughes, a St. Louisan who played 11-plus years in the NBA. “And I remember going, him teaching a basketball skills, passing out T-shirts, taking pictures and signing autographs. As a kid, being able to meet somebody on professional level — it sticks with you for a while. So it’s kind of exciting being able to be in his shoes now.” Watts’ camp, for kids ages 10-18, is from 12:30-3 p.m. Sunday at CBC. He’s hosting the camp along with another CBC alum in the NFL. That’s Jonathan Owens, who made his first-career interception last year for the Texans — and is engaged to the famed Olympic gymnast Simone Biles. Watts recalls waking up before the sun in order to make the bus to CBC each school day. He became a star athlete for the Cadets, noshing on quarterbacks every fall Friday. This newspaper named an all-decade high school football team for 2010-19, and Watts was named to the second-team defensive line. Incidentally, the first team D-line was rather stacked, featuring Edwardsville’s AJ Epenesa (second-round draft pick by the Bills), Edwardsville’s Vincent Valentine (third-round pick by the Patriots), Lutheran North’s Ronnie Perkins (also a third-round pick by the Patriots) and East St. Louis’ Terry Beckner Jr. (who was a marquee signee for Mizzou and a seventh-round pick by the Buccaneers). Watts also was a contributor to a winning basketball program at CBC before he went on to play football for the Razorbacks. Alas, he didn’t play much. Entering his final season, he had yet to start a game or sack a quarterback. But he unleashed a strip-sack in each of the first two games in 2018. The 6-foot-5, 307-pound Watts became a force. He finished with seven sacks and was picked in the sixth round of the 2019 NFL draft by Minnesota. “So it’s a big year for me,” he said of 2022. “We’ve got a new coaching staff, it’s my contract year. And especially coming off a big year, which I had last year. “And I think for me, just having this platform I have, it’s just taking advantage of it while I’m playing. Me being from the inner city, actually growing up there and seeing day-to-day stuff ... I want to do what I can to do my part. ... There are people around the neighborhood who just weren’t able to take things as far as I did, as far as college and being able to play sports at the highest level. But that’s part of why I’m doing my foundation.”