Preseason Primer

One day its 85 degrees and you're playing golf, the next day its 55 degrees when you wake up and you're seeing preseason college basketball ratings pop-up onto your feed. While I'm sad to put away my clubs, especially since I just updated my irons for the first time since I was born, I'm excited that the Davidson Cats will be playing basketball in the not-so-distant future.

First off, where are the early preseason rankings placing your Men's Cats? Most predictions have the Cats floating around the 125-135 range nationally and 10th or 11th in the A10. The former may feel underwhelming, but you have to remember that the Cats finished 147th on KenPom last season; a 125th place finish would be very real progress for Matt McKillop in his fourth season. The latter number also feels underwhelming, and unfortunately it is. An 11th place finish would find the Cats right back in the pillow fight, a spot that's become all too common the past few seasons. The Cats certainly do not have sanguine expectations heading into Matt McKillop's fourth season as head coach.

This is probably where you'd expect me to brighten the outlook and provide a bevy of reasons why the Cats will out-perform their dour preseason expectations... sadly I don't have much to offer. There are reasons to be excited: Sam Brown was a phenomenal get and should be an All-A10 player immediately, JQ Roberts brings a physical, athletic element to the Cats down low that they haven't had since Nathan Ekwu was healthy, Ian Plautteeuw could not look more like a freshman Luka Brajkovic if he tried (he could call up Dylan Raiola to get some tips on that front), and more. That said, last season was the opportunity to blow away expectations and make a real run; we had the A10 POY candidate in Reed Bailey, a secondary star in Bobby Durkin, and the roster was stocked with guys who theoretically should've been able to shoot the 3 at a high clip. Unfortunately, the team fell well short and collapsed in conference play. On the heels of that collapse we saw Bobby Durkin and Reed Bailey leave for greener pastures (and by greener I mean extensively larger pay-days), Mike Loughnane went home for the chance at a bigger role (where he should thrive), and Connor Kochera and Zach Laput graduated. All-in-all, every starter from last season has moved on and the staff hit the reset button. We are ostensibly in year 1 of a rebuild, again.

The one saving grace this time around is that Matt Berman, Steph Curry, and their families stepped up BIG TIME and started a fund in the range of 8 figures (yes, that means at least $10m) to put the Basketball Program on competitive footing with it's peers. At the very least, Davidson will have the resources to compete in the A10 in the Revenue Sharing era. So far, the money has in fact talked, and Matt McKillop was able to put together a talented, deep roster replete with A10 talent. This is still Davidson though and for academic and stylistic reasons we will never be able to flip a roster with transfers in just one offseason. This offseason was about stockpiling talent and the season will be about figuring out who can play at this level, what combinations work, and what finishing pieces we need NEXT offseason. For those reasons, I think this season will not be the dredge last season was but wins-losses expectations are still not terribly lofty. I think the fans will get to see exciting talent playing a style that's much closer to what Matt McKillop wants, but there will inevitably be roster holes and shortcomings and things that just don't work. That is why I can't sit here and tell you that we are going to blow away the expectations. It is never fun to be entering a rebuild in season 4 when the first 3 were severely underwhelming, but crying over the past will yield nothing but a bad mood. With some patience and reason (and a dose of accepting reality) I think this season could yield a lot of fruit.

Now an afterword: we are really excited to continue bringing you the most extensive Davidson Basketball Coverage in the game right now. Expect the regular articles and podcasts to continue BUT we also have some fun wrinkles we hope to unleash this season as well. As always, Go Cats!