Thankfully the Bog Gods have seen fit to reboot the Atlantic 11 for another exciting season. If you’re not familiar, the Washington Post lets a panel of semi-enlightened voters rank the top 11 college basketball teams in the DMV. Sometimes they print our witty comments in the sports section.
Here’s my ballot for Week 1:
- UVA – Pundits expect a big year from the Cavaliers, but, as we learned in the offseason, you shouldn’t believe everything you read about UVA.
- Virginia Tech – Maybe now the Hokies won’t be the only thing from working class America that people in DC pay attention to.
- Maryland – That sigh of relief you hear is from Terps fans who don’t have to pay attention to their football team anymore.
- VCU – Whatever happens with their season, the Rams have the best hair in the Atlantic 11.
- Georgetown – How soon will they be Radforded in 2016? Over/under is 2 weeks.
- Old Dominion – Monarchs downed James Madison last week, which somehow feels like a metaphor for the election.
- Richmond – Spiders beat Virginia Military Institute on Veterans Day. Not cool guys.
- Towson – Hopefully Towson’s win over George Mason spares us the indignity of seeing the Patriots hanging around the bottom of the A11 rankings.
- George Washington – Barely holding off UMES in the season opener can’t be a good sign of things to come.
- American – Just like America, American kept it close but came up short last week.
Ranking the teams at the beginning of the year is tough. I like that American kept it close against Maryland and I’m guessing that tonight’s Maryland/Georgetown game is going to be solid (Update: it was!).
Looking forward, my guess is that UVA is going to be in the top spot all year. Maryland has six freshmen on the roster and Georgetown likes to Georgetown.
I like Virginia Tech as a sleeper this season. Along with Wake Forest, the Hokies are on the rise in the ACC.
Photo: Flickr user Hillel Steinberg.