LINKS: Jon Rothstein Previews, Ranks the BIG EAST

Jon Rothstein has tweeted his preview of the BIG EAST. He notes there’s only 134 days until the college basketball season begins and that more in-depth discussion (including an interview with Patrick Ewing) will be on his podcast this week.

Despite ranking the Hoyas at #3, Jon Rothstein does not include any Hoyas on his lists of first-team, “breakout,” or “impact freshmen” projections.

Rothstein does, however, include Qudus Wahab on his “under-the-radar freshmen” list, Omer Yurtseven and Terrell Allen on the “impact transfers” list, and Galen Alexander on the UTR transfers list.

It’s likely tough for fans to see a preseason BIG EAST list without the names Mac McClung, James Akinjo, or Josh LeBlanc, but the #3 ranking is undoubtedly due to that core group’s expected improvement.

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... 4. Georgetown (19-14, 9-9): The trio of James Akinjo, Mac McClung and Josh LeBlanc rightly sent expectations soaring with superb freshmen campaigns. Postman Jessie Govan’s departure leaves a hole but this group will be fun to watch.

With 7 athletes playing for Patrick Ewing for the first time, the newcomers are certainly expected to make an impact.

Perhaps we’ll hear more about that this week from Patrick Ewing, himself...

UPDATE:

Highlights:

• Several second-weekend tournament teams in this conference
• JR’s sources indicate a UConn addition would lead to 20-game league schedule in 2020 like other leagues; one thing very important to this Big East model is the double-round robin tournament
• DePaul has a transfer guard from Kansas who may get a waiver...
• Patrick Ewing: no comment on UConn
• PE: Yurtseven is different than Govan—Jessie was more of a perimeter, Omer is a post-up who can step out (pronounced more O-mir than O-mare).
• PE: expecting for James Akinjo, Mac McClung, Josh LeBlanc to make significant maturity growth
• PE: LeBlanc’s effort and energy may be like Oakley, but Josh is not an enforcer. LeBlanc’s success will be from getting stronger and get in better shape for “scratching and clawing.”
• PE: Akinjo’s game will have to blend with Yurtseven (especially post and perimeter, pick and roll); whole entire team work together.
• PE: “Omer is the type of player who only comes around every so often, so you definitely have to use his abilities.”
• PE: “Galen is another player we’re counting on; Myron Gardner, we’re counting on”
• PE on Qudus: “we will need him [] to play like an upperclassman” (pronounced more like “kudos” than the “Qa-DUCE” that we’ve previously heard)
• PE: “We definitely want to improve on what we did last year... get to NCAA Tournament and go as far as we possibly can.. interesting to see how well we blend together”
• PE key: “playing together, sharing the wealth... with the talent we have returning and the talent that we added, the key will be sharing the wealth.”