Schools like GW are going to need to make smarter decisions in their own self interest. CC is going to need to adjust his scheduling philosophy away from playing easier schools at home to playing a more challenging OOC schedule. The current philosophy might work when you are rolling into the ACC conference schedule where your SOS benefits, but not so in the A10 where you best school barely cracks  the top 70 and the entire conference only has 5 or 6 Quad One wins.

If Dayton turned down an NIT bid, call me disappointed. Few schools can claim a fan base that would have filled the gym for an NIT game, and few cities respect the game more. I’m wondering if they said no because they knew they’d have to play on the road given the First Four is in Dayton on the same dates scheduled for the NIT first round games. If so then maybe I can understand not wanting to trek to some place like North Texas, Alcorn State or Liberty. That would be the “Fuck it” call to make.

Pretty darn proud of coach amd these guys. An unanticipated season of positives.

After the quick start, the guys looked low energy for the most part tonight. I was sitting just behind the arc and got a Birds Eye view of every horrific three coming out of Lindo’s hands. They needed one of those collars that shock you when you get close to the line.

Bishop was just flat and off tonight. Trying to do too much and summoning up the ghost of Bishop 2022 with some ill advised shots. Just an off game at a bad time. But that’s the way the round ball bounces.

Thankful for this year, this Board, and you guys. Really looking forward to seeing who comes, who goes and next year.

No quit in these guys. Love it.  Better team won today and that’s the way it goes. I would have placed a very large wager against us winning 10 games in the conference. Very glad I didn’t see that over/under. 😂😂

Congrats to the team for leaving it all out there every game, and for never mailing it in all year. And thank you Chris Caputo for demonstrating what leadership and teaching looks like. The team today was dramatically better than the team we first saw in November. That was always my yardstick for the year.  These guys exceeded expectations.

We’re back. And it feels good to go into next week looking forward to next week, and not next year.

Colonials are +250 on the money line. I’m a homer as I proved with last week’s wager, but even a homer has to take a pass every now and again.

Ralphie wrote:

I'm not sure I agree with the oft-heard casual assertion about the A-10 being weak this year, and destined for a single rep in the Tournament.   The fact that some erstwhile A-10 recent bottom feeders have had reasonably good years (Fordham, Duquesne, LaSalle, even GW) has, I believe, lifted the competitiveness level of the entire League by a significant margin.   It always seemed like there were at least 4-5 fairly easy pushovers in the League - not this year.   What we lacked in overall quality by having a truly runaway top team(s) (the usual Dayton,VCU,SLU roles....) has been MORE than made up for by the improvement at the bottom in my view.    While we may only get one NCAA Tournament rep (I think we get 2 with VCU already in), that does NOT mean our League is weak.

 
The league may be more balanced but it is certainly not having a good year. We have exactly ONE team (VCU) in the top 70 NCAA NET, and the entire conference had only 5 Quad 1 wins. There isn’t even a prayer of an at-large bid unless maybe - and it’s a real maybe - VCU were to lose in the final to SLU or Dayton.

Alum1 wrote:

Colonials +310 on the money line. Me likey.

 
Me REALLY likey.

$350 returned $1435.

Anybody  criticizing CC or the team for tonight is on heroin. Despite giving up 16 offensive rebounds in the first half - yes, you read that right - they were only down two and completely shut down the second chances in the second half. 20 went down to 8 because LaSalle starting burying lucky crazy threes. And give me a break for getting on Caputo for clearing his bench. I recall he got hammered here after the SC game for NOT doing so. Unfortunately there is no bench. Looked like some guys pulled out of the gym. When it looked like there was even a remote chance of it snowballing into a catastrophe, he had to put Bishop back in with a minute or so left. Even Bishop was laughing about it. Great effort tonight and a nice win. There’s one or two of you that would no doubt be saying, “Yeah but he got his feet wet,” when Jesus walked across water.

We were picked to finish 12th. Are in the top 6, and all with a rotation of 6 or 7 players on a good night. We just won our 3rd in a row to guarantee at least a .500 A-10 record and we have a Coach pulling it off with guys he inherited for the most part. Count me as a glass half full guy.

Nice win for CC and the guys. You take two on the road anyway you get ‘em. There’s a lot of toughness with these guys. They may try to give the game away too often, but they don’t quit. I love that. It helps that we have a coach that can lead and motivate and has a plan. Remember these guys were picked to finish 12th preseason. They done good already, but I’d love to see us win two of the final three to finish 10-8.

Tonight’s special recognition award goes to none other than Archie Miller. We thank you, Coach Miller, for deciding - with two timeouts in your back pocket - to allow Ish Leggett to aimlessly dribble to ball for 15 seconds before launching a 25 footer that wasn’t even close,  when one free throw would have won the game. You earned your salary tonight, big fella.

They made a big splash hiring Miller but we got the better coach for sure. URI’s talent and depth sucks, but they’ve shown little-to-no improvement over the course of the year.  That’s the sign of an overpaid and over-hyped coach in my opinion. CC was dealt a shitty hand too, but he’s coached and motivated his players and they have responded and gotten better. They play hard for him. They don’t quit like RI obviously did against UMass,  We need to solve the mysterious and all-too-regular runs where we don’t score for 4 or 5 minutes a and are subjected to 12-0 runs, but by and large this team has been a pleasure to watch and they leave it all on the floor.  That’s not been the case with that circus act in Kingston, RI and it begins and ends with the coaches. One got his team to compete and overachieve, the other one is playing out the strings of a dismal year that didn’t come close to expectations.

The 21st Amendment was my introduction to the Tom Collins. Why Tom Collins, you ask? I have no idea. But I do remember downing a good dozen one night and leaving them behind in a  stairwell in Thurston. Haven’t had another in 40 years.

There was quite a row of interesting things on the block with the 21st. A “luggage and loan” pawn sho, a uniform shop, a parking lot, a cinema (Circle Theater, I think), and a liquor store where you could get a case of Natty Bo or Iron City for $3.99 on occasion.  Extra credit if you remember the name of that legendary store.