HoopsHD’s Jon Teitel will spend the upcoming months covering several Georgetown basketball home games, with (hopefully) a very special reward coming in March. However, since the A-10 was kind enough to hold its media day just a few blocks from his apartment on Monday, he was in attendance at the Westin for press conferences with a player/coach from every team. See below for some Q&A from the morning session, and check back later today for some Q&A from the afternoon session.
It is a rare occurence for fellow HoopsHD podcaster Rocco Miller to leave the comfy comfines of the Pacific time zone, but he made the cross-country trip today to give our website not 1 but TWO representatives in the house!
Since there were not individual breakout rooms for media members like myself, I spent the day trying to squeeze in 1 question at all the press conferences. I asked Davidson SR SG/SF Katie Donovan how she could possibly improve her long-distance shooting since her 45.8 3P% last year was #3 in the nation. She said her team has some great assistant coaches, and because she does not expect to get many open looks this year, she has been working on her catch/shoot skills.
I wondered how impressed Dayton SR F Jaiun Simon and Coach Anthony Grant were with Landen Joseph’s standout play during the Flyers’ 1st 2 exhibition games. Jaiun was most impressed with his growth: he said that Landen was stressed at 1st and a little overwhelmed by everything that Coach was asking him to do, but has responded to that adversity very well. Coach Grant said that Landen has some innate talent that will become evident as he gains more experience, and was impressed that Landen is more than willing to grow/learn/listen/adapt/adjust.
GW women’s coach Tamika Williams-Jeter appears to have more Canadians on her roster than anyone else in the US so I wanted to know how that happened. She said she had an assistant coach who was Canadian and her campus is only a 6-hour drive from Toronto. There are 3-4 schools in that area that produce kids who play at a high level. They got lucky when they signed Liv Leung, and look where she is now: people want to play with her so she is a magnet. They were in gyms by themselves up there because the players were very under-recruited. Tamika played in the WNBA with Lindsay Whalen, who coached 1 of her current Canadians at Minnesota (Ajok Madol), and it meant a lot to Ajok to go from 1 coach she trusts to another coach who she can trust. As you get a couple of Canadian players, experience matters, and more of them want to keep coming here.
I noticed that JR PG Izaiah Pasha will face 1 of his old schools in December (Delaware) so I inquired whether it was circled on his calendar. He smiled and admitted that he was kind of excited to see the Blue Hens on the schedule. He is always trying to prove himself, so it is definitely on his radar. Since Coach Dru Joyce III had a high school teammate you may have heard of (LeBron James!), I figured I would see if he was stunned that LeBron is still active in the NBA. He explained that while it might not make sense from an age perspective, it certainly makes sense based on his love of basketball. He is so impressed by LeBron’s will to keep playing at a high level…and is very excited that LeBron is now on the East Coast in Philly so that he can watch his games on TV at a reasonable hour.
I asked Duquesne JR G (and Hagerstown, MD native) Gabby Grantham-Medley how excited she was to return to the DMV for media day. She said it is great to be back: she got to walk around the city last night, enjoyed all the architecture, and even got some ice cream.
St. Bonaventure has a new coach in Mike MacDonald, who might have to respond to adversity for the 1st time in awhile after going 61-3 during the past 2 years at D-2 Daemen. He joked that after they lost a 3-PT exhibition game to Penn State the other night, 1 of his assistants noted that they had not lost a lot of games recently! It is part of the growth process: they will get better and there will be adversity regardless of whether they are picked 1st or last in the preseason poll (spoiler: they were picked 14th out of 14).
The St. Bonaventure women improved from 6 wins in 2025 to 16 wins (including 1 in the WNIT) in 2026, so I was curious what the next step on the trajectory is for coach Jim Crowley and JR G Mackenzie Pettinelli. Coach said that the next step is consistency, which is more about the “eye test” rather than a specific number of wins. Mackenzie said it is about how hard they are playing each night and showing effort.
St. Louis coach Josh Schertz had great success in Year #3 at both of his previous stops (Lincoln Memorial/Indiana State), so I went fishing for a prediction on whether he can repeat this pattern. He said that he would prefer to do it in Year #1 (rather than wait until Year #3), but he has a blueprint for building his culture. They had a great year last year with a great group of guys: he talks about being focused on the process over the outcome, stacking days, competitive humility, and prioritizing winning. The retention piece gives him an opportunity; nothing is a given in sports so rather than an “expectation” of success he talks about the “possibility”. He hopes that by Year #3 his core values are well-embedded in what they do on a daily basis.
GMU women’s coach (and Mount St. Mary’s Hall of Famer) Vanessa Blair-Lewis will host her alma mater for an exhibition game this Saturday, and I was curious whether it was a weird situation for her. She said she has very good feelings about the place that she came from and said this is the 3rd time she will face them. It was weird the 1st time, but once the ball is tipped off it is just a game.
That is a wrap for now, but check back later today for more coverage from media day.
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