The entire email:

To our loyal alumni, donors and fans,

As you are aware, we have been planning to renovate the Charles E. Smith Center to provide space for a basketball practice facility inside the building. Unfortunately, we recently discovered structural constraints that make the project no longer feasible, and the university has made the difficult decision not to pursue this renovation plan at this time.

In recent weeks, as we advanced a DC Zoning application to proceed with this renovation, our architects and designers provided final assessments for the project. These plans indicated that we would need to undertake extensive, unanticipated additional work within the existing building that would significantly increase the scope and cost of the project while also requiring a more than yearlong closure of our building. We believe this would be too disruptive to our athletes, fans, and broader GW community.

As we noted, this has been a very challenging situation. While we considered the possibility of advancing with the proposed construction, we determined that doing so would not serve anyone’s best interest. We want to reiterate that this late-breaking development has us as disappointed as much as anyone, and we are committed to our pursuit to enhance our facilities for all our athletes.

To that end, the university and GW Athletics are exploring alternative approaches to deliver a state-of-the-art practice facility for our basketball programs that will augment our ability to compete with the nation’s best, while also increasing the availability of the Smith Center for other university and community events.

[color=#515764]Additionally, we will continue to seek options for an improved pool experience. The enclosed pool does not best serve our community in its current form, as it limits our ability to host events where all-deep pools are requir

Looks like a good compliment to Castro, as he appears to be a 3 point threat.  Would also seem to have 2 years of eligibility due to the lost Covid year.

"Offensively I bring versatility. I'm a big energy guy and I'll bring a lot of dunks. Defensively, I'm blocking shots, real active on the glass, and will push in transition to get my teammates involved and pump up the crowd."   Sound like anyone we knew?  Glad he is coming and hoping the "raw stats" translates into higher numbers over increased minutes, but I will temper my expectations for the time being.

I guess we can assume that Castro was one of the 2 bigs that Rising was referring to.

Rafael Castro Season Stats

PTS:   2.9
Rebs:  2.4
Assists:  0.2
FG percent:    67.8%

Babatunde Akinbola's season stats:

PTS:   3.8
Rebs:  5.8
Assists:  0.3
FG percent:    59.5

  Unless Castro is a defensive game changer,  you will forgive me for not getting too excited about this possible recruit.     I really hope that the bar is set higher than this.
 

Portal  up to 1,151.

You are a good grader.    My points of disagreement was a follows:
Babatunda Akingbola:   Wasn't expecting much based on prior performance, but he was the consumate one trick pony.   He blocked shots but did not otherwise protect the rim so much.    I would have given him a C-

Trey Autry:   A "C" at best.   I did not see much growth from him as the season moved along, and he too was somewhat of a one trick pony (the 3 point shot) and I did not see where we were getting much from him other than one or 2 three pointers made per game.   Did play some defense.

James Bishop:   I kinda agree with the assessment, but if I was to grade based upon expectations, then he would have been a "C" or "C-", as I saw a reversion back to his first 2 years at GW.  

Darren Buchanan:   Agree with the assessment.

Jacobi Hutchinson:  exceeded my expectations.  A solid player whom I would have given an A.

Max Edwards:  My biggest disappointment of the season.    No court sense.    His skill set was much greater than his performance.   I would agree with a C-, as there were games in which he would single handedly keep us close.

Garrett Johnson.   I would give a B or B-.  Another one trick pony although he could rebound some, but he could not finish at the basket, demonstrated no midrange game and his defense was awful.

Benny Schroeder.   D-.   Showed me nothing on offense, and his defense was worse.

Antoine Smith   "F".     I can't think of a single aspect of his game in which he was an asset.

Zamoku Weluche-Ume:  I would give him an incomplete.  I just didn't see enough of his game to get a good feel as to what kind of player he can develope into.   Was disappointed that he was a non-factor this season.

Coaching Staff:   "D".    Too many recruiting misses and far more games that I though we should have won but we lost over games I thought we should have lost but won.   The offense became stagnant and predictable and the defense ne

Portal numbers now at 812.   My quick perusal saw some NIT losers but not yet any NCAA losers.  The list also includes players that are not currently playing at a D-1 basketball school.

I went back to 2015-2016  A-10 has a  5-15 record (not counting the VCU forfeit), with no appearances beyond the round of 32  FYI...After Richmond beat Iowa, they lost the next game to Providence by 28.  The A-10 has hardly distinguished itself in the tournament in quite some time.   

As much as it pains me to say this, betting against the A-10 in the postseason seems to have been a wise investment over the past several years.