With the release of the regular season schedules for both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball and Soccer teams, it’s time to review the timeline for the 2024-25 campaign, predicting where our Gaels might find themselves entering a rough patch, and proposing a hypothesized regular season record.
Basketball
After historic seasons from both the Men’s and Women’s Basketball teams, the Gaels will look to continue dominating their respective divisions during the 2024-25 season.
The first tip-off of the 2024-25 season is just around the corner, with the Gaels taking on the Guelph Gryphons on Oct. 26.
For the entirety of their seasons, the Men’s and Women’s teams will be playing consecutively, with the Men’s game typically taking place about an hour after the Women’s game ends.
The excitement continues as the Gaels return home for a thrilling back-to-back showdown against the Windsor Lancers and their long-time rivals, the Western Mustangs, on the weekend of Nov. 1 and 2.
With the way games have lined up for the Gaels this season, we should expect to see a strong road record because they never play rivals or powerhouses like Western, or Brock, on their home courts.
The Gaels will face other OUA powerhouses, such as the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees and Carleton Ravens, during the weekend of Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 which may prove itself to be a very difficult double-header.
The departure of numerous pillars of the Gaels’ offence on both the Men’s and Women’s teams will surely leave a plethora of holes to be filled, but there’s no doubt players like Michael Kelvin II, ArtSci ’25, and Mikayla McFarlane, Kin’25, are ready to explode and fulfill their roles as legitimate threats on the court.
With the identity of the Men’s and Women’s teams seeing significant changes in their respective starting fives, it would be foolish to expect anything other than a slight decline in both team’s regular season records.
Final Prediction:
Men’s Basketball 17-5.
Women’s Basketball 15-7.
Soccer
It’s going to be a while until we see our Gaels play at home, as their first three games will be played on the road at Toronto Metropolitan University, Ontario Tech University, and Carleton University.
The Men’s team started off notoriously slow last season, tying their first two matches, and then losing their next three. However, after that they continued to finish the season undefeated. If they can get off on the right foot, under new Head Coach Kasy Kiarash, it could be an extremely dominant season for the Gaels.
On the Women’s side, they faced relatively little pushback throughout their season, closing the season off with an outstanding 10-1-1 finish.
Last season, the Women’s team managed to make it to the OUA championship, where they lost in a shocking 1-5 match against the University of Ottawa Gee-Gees. With the departure of twin rookie stars, Leda and Vita Naihin, who signed National Letters of Intent to play for the University of Syracuse Orange next season, the Gaels must rely on the depth of their prospect pool to fill the gaps left behind by the Naihin twins.
The Orange are a Division 1 program competing in the National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA). There’s no suprise such a well-funded, and renowned program went for the dynamic duo. The twins combined for 20 points in just 12 games, and Leda earned OUA Rookie of the Year honours.
The Men’s team is also in a very opportunistic position. Players like Pablo Hempelmann-Perez, Comm ’26, and Diadie Traore, ArtSci ’25, will be returning, and if they can continue their upwards trajectory of dominance on the pitch, there’s little doubt they should be able to grow alongside their new coach and bring the Men’s team to new heights.
Final Prediction:
Men’s Soccer 9-1-2.
Women’s Soccer 9-2-1.
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