Busting Brackets
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Big East Basketball: 2019-20 preseason power rankings

By Lukas Harkins

NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 16: The Villanova Wildcats celebrate the 74-72 win over the Seton Hall Pirates during the Big East Championship Game to claim the Big East title at Madison Square Garden on March 16, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NEW YORK - MARCH 16: The Villanova Wildcats celebrate the 74-72 win over the Seton Hall Pirates during the Big East Championship Game to claim the Big East title at Madison Square Garden on March 16, 2019 in New York City. (Photo by Elsa/Getty Images) /
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MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – MARCH 09: Akinjo of the Hoyas shoots. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images)
MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN – MARCH 09: Akinjo of the Hoyas shoots. (Photo by Quinn Harris/Getty Images) /

7. Georgetown Hoyas

Georgetown is a difficult team to place. The Hoyas hovered around the NCAA Tournament bubble last season but their metric rankings were pretty poor. They do, though, return a great deal of talent including a trio of sophomores that could absolutely take off this season. James Akinjo, Mac McClung, and Josh LeBlanc all posted strong campaigns a year ago and they are the three top returning scorers for this season.

In order for the Hoyas to exceed this preseason expectation, those three will all need to be great. This is due to the fact that although the coaching staff is bringing in Omer Yurtseven as a proven big man transfer, the program lost Jessie Govan this offseason. Govan was one of the team’s top contributors over the past couple of years and he will be difficult to replace. Yurtseven is more than capable of playing a major role but it will be tough for him to really be an improvement over Govan at the center spot.

As a result, Georgetown will mostly need to rely on internal developments to take the next step. This means that those three sophomores will need to take jumps in their individual output. That is certainly a reasonable expectation but it is also possible that one or many of them experience sophomore slumps. If that occurs, the Hoyas could quickly slide down the rankings in the conference and they might need some of their veteran reserves to step up.

Most notably, Georgetown’s bench will feature a few solid upperclassmen pieces. Jamorko Pickett and Jahvon Blair are two juniors that were definite parts of the rotation last season while averaging over 10 minutes per game. Additionally, Terrell Allen is an excellent grad transfer addition as a playmaking guard who formerly played at UCF.

Georgetown, in my opinion, is one of the tougher teams in the conference to rank. I have them slotted in the middle of my third tier of the league but they could either massively exceed those expectations or fall closer to the cellar. Their ceiling is insanely high.

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