Vogel's a total lightweight. Both JC and Vogel should be run out in another year.

Dr Mike wrote:

I expect GW will elect to drop down to DIII competition. Make efforts to join the Patriot League. 

Time will tell, but it is clear GW is non-competitive at the DI level without any prospects of getting better.

Patriot League is D1 so this post makes no sense.

Maybe you know something, but I’ve literally been reading idle speculation from disgruntled fans about us dropping down to the Patriot League (led alone to D3) for about 25 years, every time we struggle.  It seems like silly message boards blather to me given that we play in a 3-bid league that produces some revenue, have invested in our stadium, and are 5-6 years removed winning the NIT, making the NCAAs as an at-large with a single digit seed, and knocking off a top 5 team. 

It’s defeatist, and without evidence that the school is seriously considering such a move when literally NO college has ever chosen to drop down from a multi-bid league, it’s a waste of electrons that might even misleads casual fans who don’t really understand college basketball.

It’s about 1000 times more likely that we will try again with a new coach in two years than just get rid of D1 sports. It’s even more likely that JC will miraculously turn it around and prove me a fool.

Dr Mike usually knows what he is talking about but I don´t think he is anywhere near the mark on this one. I don´t see an interim president making too many major decisions, basically I see the position as a placeholder/steady the ship one so the new president takes over a stable school that is not going down the drain. Also, the "AU model" mentioned by FQ (though not by name) shows what can be done in the DC area without downgrading to DIII. The fact is the NCAA tournament payouts, TV coverage (such as it is) and 100+ years of tradition are pretty hard to walk away from. LeBlanc´s failings had to do with vision for the school, not vision for sports teams, and fixing that is going to be the priority from the powers-that-be for the next few years.
Meanwhile, our low-budget hoops teams will be scrappy and (hopefully) more successful in the next couple of years than FQ´s gloomy outlook would suggest. And if they are not, hopefully they will at least revert to using uniforms with the school´s name on them...
 

Last edited by GW Alum Abroad (11/20/2021 9:08 am)

I’ve been a fan since 1965.Yikes!!I can’t remember feeling so dissatisfied with our program.Through the ups
and more frequently downs I could see we simply didn’t have the talent-with few exceptions- to play at a high 
level.With the injury to Lee not withstanding I thought we would kick some serious butt during the OOC.
I also had hoped for a middle of the pack year in the conference.The coaching has been a disaster.
Anything is possible I suppose the rest of the year.I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again-“Faith is necessary but not sufficient “.This I know very well.

BookGuy wrote:

Why is men’s basketball considered the “only” sport on which to relate an AD?

Men's and women's basketball is the only sport that brings in $$$ via the NCAA tournament and television deals. At a lot of other schools it's football that determines the AD's fate. 

Even if we don't get into the NCAA tournament ourselves, helping multiple teams get into the tournament via a good KenPom/BPI rating brings us a smaller share of the tournament money.  Being a 200+ KenPom team does us harm because we drag down the conference and potentially cost another A10 team a spot in the tournament if we happen to pull off an upset and beat a bubble team.  

Sure, you want to have an AD that supports the students and make sure the school remains in compliance with NCAA regs, but I'm sorry you have to be living under a rock if you don't think maximizing revenue is not the primary responsibility of the AD and at GW that means having successful basketball teams.

Last edited by GW0509 (11/20/2021 11:16 am)

I think this post gets to the heart of the matter, and I think that Mike K may be on to something, or maybe not.  So you have to get into more general thoughts like:

1. Will a new GW President get into a restructuring of GW athletics.  Is there a reason to do so financially, or just through a strategic plan to focus elsewhere.  GW sees its peer schools (rightly or wrongly) as places like Boston U, NYU, Emory etc.  Outside of BU, not many of the schools in that group have a big focus on athletics.  The Interim President is from Washington U in St. Louis, not exactly a big sports school.  But Leblanc was from a huge sports school and our athletic dept is in shambles under his watch, so who knows.

2. GW was a founding member of the A10 so I don’t see the school just voluntarily walking away from the conference.  For years Fordham has been so bad that there have always been suggestions about that.  I don’t think the A10 is a bad place for GW.  It’s nice to be in a conference with schools like VCU, Richmond. and Dayton etc.  There is also some dead weight in the A10 (including GW), but it will always be a better league than the Patriot League IMO so why not stay in the A10 and try to figure this out.

3. GW desperately needs someone like a Bob Chernak in its Administration who will focus on athletics and be an advocate for it.  It’s hard to think of things drastically changing until GW starts thinking about athletics and basketball again as part of the bigger picture of what they want GW to be.  I think basketball, when it’s been successful, has actually paid off for GW.  So I’m not sure why they don’t get that more.

4. Without hopefully starting a flame war and debate over this, I will just say from an objective standpoint going back over the past 30 years I have seen GW hire 3 coaches that had success - Jarvis, Hobbs and Lonergan.  And three who did not - Penders, Mojo, and JC.  So we are kind of batting .500 here.  The next one needs to be a winner.  Otherwise we could be talking about a lost decade of GW basketball, or longer.  But again, the only chance of it happening is if the Admin puts their heart and soul into it.  They have to believe in the program first and convince a talented up and coming coach that they are walking into a real opportunity.  Am I hopeful this will happen in 2 years?  I’d rather not say.

 

FQ did a masterful job of summing this all up.  I said a number of times during the offseason that it will be up to JC and staff to figure out ways that this team can play cohesively.  The real value in having an influx of talent is that you don't become overreliant on any one or two players on offense.  That makes it much more difficult for defenses.  But, we show virtually zero signs of running an offense.  The first 2 plays, we made a concerted effort to do down low to Noel.  I knew after we failed to convert on either that we were finished doing this for the night.  If the staff saw that we had a real advantage in doing this, do you really stop trying after two possessions?  Crisp passing only exists in transition.  The half court set is atrocious.  Defensively, we were a step slower all game.  Was Lowell that much quicker than GW?  Probably not.

It's worth mentioning that JC had a fairly pedestrian coaching record before arriving at GW.  He made 2 NCAA's while at MSM which as we can guess, involved getting his teams hot over 3-4 days at the right time.  Not to undermine those achievements, but it's not like JC has come close to dominating his conference throughout his head coaching career.  He has remained loyal to Bousely and Devlin, and has since added less experienced coaches to his staff.  I just don't know if this group is helping to develop these players.  Noel is a great example.  While he's playing more than last year, I've yet to see any real noticeable improvement.  Do we have a coach who can help him get there?

Yes it's a new group, but one that has been together since July 1.  While there is no substitute for playing real games, the fact is that there has been ample time for this team to have learned to play far better than this...as a team.  There are two statistics of which you have to be strong in at least 1 to be competitive.  One is offensive rebounding because this means second chances.  The other is in taking care of the ball because turnovers means losing your first chance.  No second chances plus fewer first chances means NOT ENOUGH CHANCES.  Offensive rebounding may be out of their control but taking care of the ball is within their control.  That would be a great place to start looking for improvement.   Stop being so damn careless with the ball.

Lot to talk about here brought up by FQs well documented analysis, but also interesting point by GW Mayhem above on offensive rebounding. We somehow got a couple in the second half of the last debacle--one on a free throw and they were converted for points.
   Remember at one point, maybe last year, we were effectively ceding (offensive) rebounds on FTs to the other team. And we generally cede them from the field by not hitting the offensive boards or not taking shots with someone in position to hit the offensive boards, while some of our opponents clean up on second chance points.

Me too, I was all in for the guy even after last year. But this year’s start demonstrates that nice guys do, indeed, finish last.

As for Vogel, she made the choice, and while I too thought it was a good one, turns out it wasn’t. So she’s now riding a five year stink streak like we haven’t seen in a long, long time. It’s clown ball on a good day. So yeah, you run out with five abysmal years like she has in the business world, you’re held accountable.