Again, close games are mostly decided by leadership and grit on the floor. Nothing much else to say. The results will change when that changes. Until then wash, rinse, repeat.

If you think the sports section drives subscribers and readership to the Washington Post, I have a bridge in Kansas to sell you.

Nobody outside of the DMV cares about the Post's local sports coverage. If Trump doesn't care about the existence of the sports section, why would its elimination make the Post more irrelevant?  I could see it if they eliminated the editorial and op-editorial sections. The logic escapes me.

Gwmayhem wrote:

This is so much more than sad.  It's reprehensible.

Not looking to rile up Rising or any other Trump supporter but these moves are being made solely with an audience of one in mind.

The only decent thing to do is change the name since it will be beyond insulting to anyone who helped make The Washington Post an institution to continue to call this stripped-down product by the same name.  

C'mon Gwmayhem this is an absurd post. The Washington Post is eliminating its sports section because Trump wants them to? I want to hear the twisted logic behind that one. I'm being serious. 

Seriously, you need to get in touch with the fact that news and particularly sports are consumed much differently than they were even 10 years ago, especially among those 45 and younger. The Post Sports section has been dying a slow death for years and before Trump was in office (at least the second term). When was the last time you saw a Post Reporter at the Smith Center? Have you seen a HS box score? As someone once said to me recently who formerly worked at the Post ... "You can't even wipe your ass with the Post Sports Section anymore ... it's too thin."

By the way, I am a conservative and not necessarily a Trump supporter on every issue. The alternatives that were offered both within the Republican Party and Democratic Party I agreed with a lot less.

A few things:

1. Bench energy was terrible yesterday. CC was trying to rally the energy but no one wanted to be there it seems.
2. We have players pouting on the bench - you can see it in their faces. Their effort level goes down when the start pouting.
3. Why do we have #1 and #2? The same theme - lack of grit and leadership coming from the players. When you have 4th and 5th year players pouting it's not a great look and saps the energy.

Separately, I'd be very surprised if you saw Castro before URI and maybe not even then. What someone didn't mention was that in the AD's Club, Coach Thompson first said "a couple of days" then in response to a question said "a week or so." My sources tell me it will not just be a couple of days and could be a lot longer as in weeks. I hope they are wrong. Ugh!

"So 58 years later, with all the new technology we haven't advanced much beyond the Heidi game." That was my line and I got a credit. I also told them it wasn't even the money it was the principle. I have been a ESPN+ subscriber since inception and never complained once. If you are going to broadcast a game the reasonable expectation is you will broadcast the whole thing including OTs however long that takes unless it is a blowout or some other extenuating reason. There was no disclaimer that said this broadcast ends at 10 pm ET.

P.S. Any good lawyer here might threaten a consumer class action on the basis of no readily visible disclaimers and the reasonable expectation of a full broadcast. This could be brought on behalf of all ESPN+ subscribers.

Again, we melted. 15-0 run. I’m telling you and I will repeat it until one of these guys hopefully reads this, gets mad enough, and decides enough is enough … we lack grit and leadership. Talent will only get you so far. You can check all the analytics at the door. Without grit and leadership you won’t win on nights like tonight, at Dayton, at Mason etc. Let’s face it all of those teams are grittier than we are. Talent isn’t the problem. It never was this year. If we had grit and leadership we would be St. Louis or Mason. Instead we are 13-8/4-4. That’s the difference.

What you are missing here is that while every team has transfers every team does not have same blend of transfers/returners, every team's transfers do not have the same skill level and every team's transfers do not have same integration timeline. Clearly, the teams that gel first are better off. I just think looking at our team we haven't fully integrated whether it's a result of talent mix or guys not buying into certain roles or scheme. That's not unique. I'm not claiming it is. But I do believe that has much to do with what we are seeing. It may never happen or it may happen later than we all want. But I believe it is one of those things that would eventually happen if you could hold this team together for longer. I realize that won't happen but it may be the thing that in retrospect we all wish could happen especially if we jell late but too late for meaningful postseason options. It's akin to watching a game and saying one team ran out of time. That's all.

jf wrote:

This team actually reminds me of a minor league version of the Hobbs glory days teams. 
You knew they were going to come back in pretty much every game they trailed. But they had even more 
athleticism and basketball talent. Two NCAA players plus another drafted.
Hence 16-0 league, 27-3 overall. NCAA appearances (still
a distant dream).
   This team has a good amount athleticism, but not at that level.
Yet, basketball acumen (with several exceptions) certainly late game, and just ability to overcome anything
without folding again seems missing. The winning mentality/focus seems to be missing in crunch time.
   I wouldn't even say current squad was a G-League version of the team. More like Class AA minor league baseball.
   Thrilled if we somehow gel to reach our potential and payroll. But while there's always hope for a turnaround, we're underachieving at the moment.
 

 To be blunt, I am not sure that we are underachieving as much as maybe we were overrated. This might be who we are. Good enough to beat you but also not good enough to avoid losing to you versus almost all A-10 opponents. This is the risk you take when you bring in a bunch of transfers and expect them to gel in 15 or 20 games. There could be individual talent but that individual talent has to mesh well. You can see it elsewhere - Syracuse, for example. If we had this team together for 2 years I might like our chances in year 2 a lot better.

Let me be clear ... I did not say that no one on the team has the requisite grit. What I was saying is that the team as a whole does not have the requisite grit. That means we don't have enough aggregate grit to win these types of games right now.

Second point, at some point you are who you are. Do I expect an experienced college player to develop more grit - most likely not.

As far as a true PG, yes we lack that. We are doing it by committee of combo guards. Yes, CC brought these players in. So ultimately he is responsible. However, sometimes you make the best choices you can within the options you have. Maybe we couldn't get the type of PG that CC covets. I know we all would like to think that GW is a basketball destination but I can tell you that is not the case out in the AAU world or the transfer agent world. We have tried to offset this with more money but the result is we are forced to overpay for talent. CC has hit on some and missed on others. It's an imperfect world for GW.

22ndandF wrote:

As long as the college athlete is paid, I think the way to reduce this kind of problem is to treat them as professional athletes.  Payments to the athlete should not be private contracts, they should be salaries that are registered with the NCAA (or some entity that they create), subject to public oversight and published.  That's the ways it works in professional sports and, while they have their issues too, there's at least a constant light that shined on compensation.   I think there's too much secrecy surrounding how NIL money is doled out.  Secrecy attracts illegal activity.  I'd also publish what the coaches and referees are making. College sports is now professional sports and there's more money than every flowing in all sorts of directions.  Sunlight is the best disinfectant. 

I agree in principle that this is a good idea for a lot of reasons. However, I don't think it will do anything to affect gambling. These players were vulnerable precisely because they didn't receive any NIL money or if any, not much. Dante Moore who makes a reported 7.5 million is not throwing away his freedom over $50,000 or $100,000 or even $1 million to fix a game. A kid who makes little or no NIL will be way more enticed.