William & Mary men's basketball 2016-17 season preview

Overview: William & Mary is one of just five schools that has been competing in Division I since the first NCAA tournament in 1939 and never made the tournament, but the Tribe has been on the verge of breaking the curse for several years. It won 20 games last year for the third straight season before losing to Hofstra in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament semifinals and has an experienced core back for this season.

First-team All-CAA performer Omar Prewitt will lead the team as a senior after averaging 17.8 points per game last season—the third best mark in the conference—and senior sharpshooter Daniel Dixon will also stretch defenses from the wing. Prewitt and Dixon were William & Mary’s two leading scorers last year, and redshirt junior point guard David Cohn also started all 31 games last season and was second in the CAA with 4.6 assists per contest.

Although the Tribe is getting most of its production back on the perimeter, it is losing some of its most effective rebounders from last year’s squad. Versatile swingman Terry Tarpey graduated after averaging 7.8 boards per game, and 6-foot-9 forward Sean Sheldon is also gone. William & Mary generally looks to players on the wings for rebounding production, and it will be no different this season with nobody taller than 6-foot-9 on the roster. Prewitt averaged 5.2 rebounds per game in 2015-16 and may have to crash the boards even more this year.

Although Duke has not played the Tribe since 2000, William & Mary head coach Tony Shaver is no stranger to Cameron Indoor Stadium or the Triangle area—he played for Hall of Fame head coach Dean Smith at North Carolina in the 1970s.