Hoops HD

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 afternoon session, and if you missed his coverage from the morning session then you can find it at: https://hoopshd.com/2026/10/19/all-access-at-a-10-media-day-in-dc-morning-session

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. Rhode Island coach Archie Miller has a birthday coming up later this month so I hoped he would share his plans for the big day. He said he did not even know when his birthday was but hoped that SR G Jahmere Tripp has it on his calendar and will “get me a cupcake or something”.

Rhode Island women’s coach Colleen Mullen’s 1st game as the new head coach of the Rams will mark 9,741 days since her final game as a player in Kingston on March 3, 2000, so I decided to see what her emotions were like as she prepares to tip off the season in a couple of weeks. She said she played in Keaney Gym back then so it will be different to be in the Ryan Center: her former team played there last year when she was at Albany but lost the game. She was talking to her dad about it this morning: he said he would not have imagined her becoming coach at her alma mater, but life works in mysterious ways and she is excited to get started.

St. Joe’s coach Steve Donahue was named 2026 A-10 COY despite not having a great 3-PT shooting team, which I assumed was his team’s biggest focus last offseason. He said I was being kind to describe them as “not great”, but that in addition recruiting shooters you need to recruit passers/screeners/high-IQ guys. He returns his 2 best 3-PT shooters in Jaiden Glover-Toscano/Austin Williford and thinks that FR G BJ Ranson will become 1 of the best shooters in the league. At some point last yeat he did not worry about it because they figured out another way to be successful.

St. Joe’s SR G Gabby Casey has seen almost every single 1 of her stats increase during each of her 1st 3 years (PPG/RPG/APG/SPG/3PM), so I was dying to know what she has in store for Year #4. She certainly hopes she can take her game to another level but her main goal is just to help the team be successful.

Loyola Chicago coach Drew Valentine was born/raised in Michigan so it felt appropriate to get his thoughts on the Final 4 returning to Detroit next April. He agreed that it will be interesting and they are doing a good job of building Detroit back up. He went home for a visit last summer and is very excited for his family/friends to watch some good basketball be played in his home state.

You might have heard of Loyola Chicago women’s coach Morgan Paige’s brother Marcus (the only 3-time captain in UNC basketball history), so I pressed her on who is the best coach in the family and whether she will get to see Marcus in person in December when his Charlotte team plays at UIC and/or when her teams plays at Davidson. She claimed that Marcus would say she is the best coach and he calls her “big-time”, but she respects that he is “in the rafters”. She does not know about the Davidson game because she has not checked the 49ers’ conference schedule yet, but she is planning to see him during his game at UIC. They talk about basketball a lot and it is a blessing that they get to share coaching at the highest level because their parents were both coaches: “Basketball is a Paige thing, for sure”!

I believe Richmond SR G Ally Sweeney and her teammate Payton Richard are the only 2 women in the A-10 who have played in the NCAA tourney during each of the past 2 years, so I asked Ally for the secret to winning games in March. She feels it is about paying attention to detail all season long and having everyone’s back. No part of March is easy, but when you have built the chemisty and have the connection, it helps for sure.

La Salle JR G Joanie Quinn is 1 of 5 juniors on the Explorers’ roster so I inquired about how much pressure there is on her to be a leader considering that her team has no seniors. She stated that it has definitely been an adjustment to go from 1 of the youngest kids on the team to 1 of the oldest, but she has settled into that role. She wanted to be a leader this year anyway and her fellow juniors have done a good job of leading the team, so it does not feel like they are lacking seniors.

In VCU’s exhibition win over ODU last weekend the Rams had a 33-7 advantage in bench points, so I asked SR PF Lazar Djokovic how impressed he was with the depth on this year’s roster. He thinks that anyone on the bench can play at any time and on any given day anyone can shine so he is excited for this season.

New VCU women’s coach Chelsea Banbury was hired last March after 7 seasons at High Point and was previously an assistant to current Atlanta Dream coach Karl Smesko at her alma mater (FGCU), so in addition to seeing how the job is going so far I requested a prediction whether her former boss is going to win a a WNBA title next week. She said the job is going good so far even though some of her players are banged up. She is bought into the W for the playoffs more this year than in the past but Karl had better win tonight: fortunately for him, he has won at every place that he has coached.

Fordham SR PF Rikus Schulte has played all over the world during the past 4 years (Germany/North Carolina/California/New York), so I wanted to know how excited he was to finally remain in 1 place for 2 years in a row. He smiled and said he is very excited because he likes the city and the coaching staff: they are like family.

New Fordham women’s coach Neil Harrow was born/raised in Scotland so I was stunned to hear that he went into basketball rather than soccer/golf. He laughed and explained that he went to a very big high school where he knew that he was not good enough to make the soccer team, so he tried out for basketball instead. He later realized that he was not good enough to become a pro basketball player, so he decided to get into coaching and after a few different stops he was hired at Fordham last April.

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.