This Week in Wrenball: Cool Gunnings

Connor Burchfield's been in the weight room

There are lots of reasons to believe that the 2017-18 season will be a challenging one for the William & Mary hoops squad. The team's top three scorers and rebounders from last year, Daniel Dixon, Omar Prewitt, and Jack Whitman are all gone - the first two via graduation, and the latter via transfer. Greg Malinowski, who gave W&M 7.7 ppg and was poised to be a team leader, transferred to Georgetown so he could play with George Muresan (who seems to be missing a couple of h's). The cupboard may not be completely bare, but it's down to Cheetos and a couple of potatoes with those root thingies growing out of them. Only senior David Cohn returns from the 2016-17 starting lineup.

So we may not get that much opportunity to celebrate our Wrens this year, which is why you're reading about them on August 10th. W&M might not make much noise in the CAA, but our boys are smacking the crap out of some Jamaican dudes this week.

With one contest remaining in their three-game tour of the Blue Island, the Tribe are 2-0, with an average margin of victory of 44.5 over the Jamaican U-21 National Team and a collection of professional players known as Jamaica Select.

Boston College transfer Matt Milon led all scorers with 22 points in the Tribe's trip opening 103-59 win over the Jamaican U-21s. Frosh Jihar Williams added 16, with both W&M debutants going 4-7 from deep. Returning high scorer Nathan Knight went for 10 points and 9 boards, sophomore Justin Pierce (of whom much will be demanded this year) got 8 and 9, and point guard Cohn added 9 assists to his 10 points.

SPIKEBALL!!!

In W&M's second matchup, a 98-53 win over Jamaica Select, sharpshooter Connor Burchfield scored 16 points on 4-9 three-point shooting, while Williams kept up his production from downtown, scoring all of his 15 points on 5-11 longballs. Pierce scored 11 and grabbed a game-high 13 boards, and Cohn dropped 8 dimes and scored 15 points. In what we hope isn't a bad omen, Milon missed the game with an injury.

The Tribe finishes their tropical slate this evening against the Mingo 79'ers, which is either a Jamaican pro squad or very painful Caribbean sexual position.

If our 2017-18 outlook is any indicator, go with the pain.