RS

WH is a UMass grad, not GW.

Who said or realistically thinks GW is only gone to lose 1 or 2 games in the league this year?? Even before the season started it was and still is likely they be considered underdogs at Charlotte, at Xavier, and at St. Joes, and will probably lose at least one home game. The A10 tourney though will come down to GW, X and Charlotte. St. Joes relies too much on 3 point shooting and you can't win three games on 3 consecutive days like that because their legs won't hold up to allow them to shoot well enough by the third game.

>Admitedly my Xavier argument is weak, but with Hobbs' >schedules, the losses to teams like Xavier come under a >magnifying glass. Outside of the BB&T, he lost to Wake and >WVU (admitedly both on the road) last year and NC State this >year. He has no other top 50 RPI wins to speak of in this 2 >year run. > First of all, you refer to this two year run. I guess you mean last season plus the first 10 games of this year, not two full years. You seemed to have forgotten beating St. Joe's in the A10 final last year, beating Temple four straight times (2 of them in Philadelphia), and if you go back to the prior season beating Xavier who made it to the final 8 that year and winning at Charlotte that year.

As far as who GW has next year to replace Pop's etc, we supposedly have signed a 6'10' kid who originally signed with Cincinnati and was there one year (redshirted) before tranferring to a JC college in Texas this year. Chayenne Moore, a 6'6" scorer from Baltimore who started as a freshman last year at Clemson has transferred to GW and is eligible next year. Also reports have been about 6'9" Omari Israel transfer from Notre Dame (he has already left Notre Dame) going to GW though not offical yet. Three other talented front court reserves (two freshman and one junior) from this year's team will be back next year. All backcourt players return next year unless Pinncok decides to turn pro, but I think he could use another year to smooth out his game, though he is freaky atheletic and has an NBA style game. Sophomore Maurice Rice comes off the bench at guard this year, but would start on most other A10 teams. He was the all-time leading scorer in Philadelphia high school basketball history.

I think you are underestimating the strength of some of the visiting teams that you have as should wins or toss-ups at home, specifically Fordham, Xavier and Temple and maybe even UMass and Dayton.

As an A10 follower I can say that some of you you are under estimating Fordham and probably UMass. Fordham has some very good young talent returning and the program is on the upswing. I think the coaching change at UMass will help, coupled with the fact they have a some decent players returning especially 6'9" Rashawn Freeman.

To add to my summary of the legaue's big men I want to also mention Rashawn Freeman's back-up at UMass, 6'11" 350 pound (at least) Jake "Big Deli" Salovski. He is huge, can't be moved once he establishes position and though he doesn't run very fast he has soft hands and a nice touch around the absket. He'll be a sophomore and he's the biggest player in the league since Temple's 6'11" 400 pound Ron Rollerson played about 3 years ago.

As a longtime follower of the A10, the league is generally better than it's preseason Out of Conference record and OOC RPI, as its teams have historically played, year in and year out, the toughest non-conference schedule of any league. I believe the league decided to revisit that philosphy at it's recent annual meeting in Florida. Size wise there are some good big men, though not as many as in the Big East, but Temple is as big as any team in the country. They go 7'2", 6'11", 6'10" up front. 6'9" Rashawn Freeman of UMass is a stud and Fordham has some young topflight talent with size returning. GW has a very balanced and veteran front line and is also being bolstered by 6'9" LSU transfer Regis Kounja who become elegible at end of December. Xavier probably has the deepest front court talent. The top teams will be GW, Xavier, Temple, Charlotte and Fordham. St. Joes will be good if 6'11" Dwayne Jones decides not to sign if drafted by the NBA and return for his final year, though the graduation of Pat Carrol is a huge loss to them. UMass is a wildcard but with Freeman and some of their other returning players plus a new coach, they could be tough. Dayton will be pretty good but not great as the loss of Treant Meachan who transferred to Illinois really hurts. Don't expect much from Duquense or St. Bona. With Steve Smith pulling out of the NBA draft coupled with an excellent caoch at LaSalle, they are a tough out for a lot teams when playing in Philadelphia but not so hard to beat at home. Smith is the best all around front line player in the league and can single handidly lead them to victory.

GW plays it's home soccer matches at it's Mount Vernon campus, which is in a more residential (and very nice) part of DC a few miles from it's main campus. Mt. Vernon College was formerly an independent all girls college and GW bought the school just a few years ago. One of the benefits to GW was the the site had the soccer field (along with numerous tennis courts). GW doesn't have room for a soccer field at its main campus location which is not surprising being located along Pennsylvania Avenue near the White House, Watergate Complex and various US Government Departments. Previously home soccer matches were played at off campus locations in the DC area.

I'm sure GW is playing the same number of league games as all the teams. If they're playing 9 league games then so will all the other teams. With a 14 team league I guess not everyone is going to play everyone else each year.

GW Athletic's home page has story on GW's 2005 soccer schedule and mentions that A10 tourney is at St. Louis Nov 10-13. GW surprisingly won the A10 tourney last fall after going on a late season run, and beat North Carolina in 1st round of NCAA's. GW hosts the Billikens on Oct. 28 as well. Link is: http://www.gwsports.com/

Doubt it will happen. The league just changed its logo a couple of months ago, and as part of the change it is putting more emphasis on being known as the "A10" rather than the Atlantic 10. The league has had 12 members for a few years now continued to go by the Atlantic 10, so going from 12 to 14 has no materially affect. People know them as the A10 regardless of how many teams they have. Don't foget they also are a Div. 1AA football league (and the number of teams keeps growing), though some of those teams don't participate in any other A10 sports.

From the GW Newspaper "The Hatchet" ******************************************** Breaking News: Atlantic 10 to expand By Brian Costa Posted Tuesday, Nov. 4, 7:08 p.m. GW student-athletes will be playing in a bigger and likely more competitive Atlantic 10 conference in two years, when two schools will join the league. A University official told The Hatchet late Tuesday afternoon that the A-10 will announce its expansion plan on Thursday. After the Big East conference added five schools from Conference USA Tuesday, the presidents of the A-10 met via conference call and requested "more information" from the two universities that will be invited, GW Director of Athletics Jack Kvancz said. The three schools the A-10 had reportedly been considering were the University of North Carolina-Charlotte, Saint Louis University and Boston University. Kvancz declined to comment on which two of the three would receive invitations. The two schools will begin play in the A-10 for the 2005-06 academic year and should increase the competitive quality of the league in men's basketball regardless of which schools are invited. All three potential members ranked higher than GW in Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) last year, a statistic the NCAA uses to measure a team's relative competitiveness. The A-10's move comes after a long-expected decision by the Big East to extend invitations to Louisville, Cincinnati, South Florida, DePaul and Marquette, all of whom accepted on Tuesday. The musical chairs act leaves Conference USA in a state of flux while making both the Big East and A-10 stronger in men's basketball. GW is a charter member of the A-10, which will officially increase from 12 to 14 schools once nine out of 12 university presidents approve the measure. GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, who also heads the A-10 Presidents' Council, is currently out of town but is expected to call in his vote.

The mentioning of BU in the Tractenberg article should not really be a surprise, as they have been generally considered one of the 3 candidates for several weeks (even if most people posting on this and the A-10 board would prefer SLU and Charlotte and din't want to think about BU). Tractenberg really didn't say anything differently now than he said before. However, being a GW grad but impartial in terms of the "politics", I truly believe SLU will get invited. The reason will be that the league will invite the one Catholic school and one non-secterian school to keep everyone happy on that level. The latter contingent (GW, Temple, UMASS, Richmond and URI) are in the voting minority. It will come down to BU or Charlotte (I'd prefer Charlotte). However, if a school as large as BU were to make a serious commitment to upgrade their baskeball program, and their new arena is a step in that direction, they could be a significant player on the national level. It is a VERY large private school.

>If Trach gets what he wants, then why hasn't GW been a good >basketball team in five years? Trach is a strong believer in the importance of a university's sports success in helping it's national visibility and recognition. He hired Tom Penders at GW after Penders and U. of Texas parted ways 6 years ago and paid him over $500K a year. Unfotunately, other than in Penders first year when GW made it to the NCAA's, it didn't pan out and Carl Hobbs was hired to start over and he has had two very strong back to back recruiting classes. GW's women's team has consistantly been one of the top programs in the country.

As a GW grad an A-10 follower I am obviously closely following the likely plans for expansion. I think adding SLU and Charlotte would be great for the league. Boston U has been mentioned in the mix as well, and while they are upgrading their program (e.g. new arena) I think SLU has a much better national recognition, at least for basketball. A few comments about the league and GW. Basically the league has been top heavy for some time with a couple or three weaker teams consistently hurting the overall RPI of the league. However, with significant coaching turnover a couple of years ago that has led to improvement in recruiting by many teams, and the league is now on the verge of getting stronger overall. Unfortunately last year's late season scandal at St Bona. could hurt their recruiting for years to come, and Fordham will need time to recover from the Bob Hill coaching disaster. Temple should be back to their usual strong team, possibly even this year, after having been out of the limelight the past couple of seasons. Rhode Island, Temple, Xavier and UMass have built new arenas in the past few years. Fordham and St. Joe's play in dumps though some of St Joe's bigger games are at the Palestra (the so-called "Mecca" of college basketball). If Fordham ever got good again they would likely play more games at Madison Sq Garden. GW's arena is not large, holds 5,454, but is a great place to watch a college game with great atmosphere, particularly when GW is fielding a good team. Though the students' side has bleachers (which is across from the TV cameras) the rest of the place is seats. So on TV it looks sort of like a high school gym but it is not really like that. Because of the close proximity of the fans to the floor it can be very loud and intimidating. Due to neighborhood issues, GW likely can't expand the Smith Center. GW does play two games each year in the BB&T tournament in early December as co-hosts with Univ of Maryland at the MCI center in DC. Georgetown, who was at one time GW's biggest rival, has refused to play them or other DC area teams for several years (blame it on John Thompson). For more indepth info on each team, check out WH's write-up at the A-10 messageboard:http://www.basketballboards.net/forum/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=79