Today’s game:

George Mason (7-6)  @Fordham (4-8)
2:30PM on USA network. 


It George Mason wins:
- GMU would move to 7-5 with a win, staying a half game in front of us.
-Fordham would fall to 4-10 with a loss and be all but guaranteed to finish behind us.
- A Fordham loss would not clinch us avoiding the play-in, but it would leave us one win short of clinching.


If Fordham wins:
- We move past Mason into 7th, as they would fall to 7-7.
- We would actually be playing Richmond Tuesday for a chance at 6th. 
- Fordham would improve to 5-8 and still be in position to push us out of the top 8.

GW18 wrote:

Since the A10 moved to 18 conference games, there has been one season where a 7 win team has played in pillow fight (2018). We would have to lose out and have bottom feeders start playing winning basketball for us to not get a bye. We are more or less safe to get a first round bye.
 

Yes. One more win should do it for the bye (and if we can’t beat Duq at home, yikes).

If we can’t get up to 6 or 7, I do think there is a legit question about whether we’d be better off being 7th than in the 8-9 game.  That 7-10 game is at night, so maybe more of a pro-GW home crowd.  Though If we could actually make the quarters, I’d rather play Davidson than Dayton or VCU.

Fordham leading George Amerindian by 2 with 20 seconds to go.

Update heading into Tuesday games:

Heading into Sunday, 2/20, the standings (and remaining games) are:

6) Richmond 8-6 (@GW, STL, Dayton, @Bona).  Unbalanced schedule much tougher on them than us.  They have to look at Tuesday at the Smith Center as a must win with only top teams remaining.

7) GW 7-6 (Richmond, @Mason, Duquesne, @Fordham). We will only play 15 and not have to play Bona, which helps.  Richmond game will be for 6th and then Mason game could all but clinch a top half finish. Winning one or both of the next two (we’ll be underdogs in both) would be huge.  If we beat Duq, our floor is 8-9.  Need to keep winning.

8  Mason 6-6  (@VCU, GW, @Davidson, @UMASS).  They will be big underdogs in two of those, so the game vs us is likely pivotal for seeding with 8-8 their most likely ceiling.

9) UMASS 5-8 (@Dayton, VCU, @Fordham, Fordham, @GMU). We own the tie-break over them. Two games vs Fordham likely prevents one or both teams from catching us.

10) Fordham 5-8 ( LaSalle, @Davidson, UMASS, @UMASS, GW).  Big win over Mason. Assuming they lose to Davidson, they’d still have to sweep the rest to have a chance to pass us. Back to back games with Fordham will be big for standings.

11) URI 4-9 (@Bona, Duquesne, SLU, @SJU) we own tie break so as long as we beat Duq, they can’t catch us even if they sweep.

My hope, is that we end up with a path where somehow Dayton is knocked out, we upset Davidson, and suddenly we're a win or 2 away from the Dance.

Sounds crazy, but so does being 7-6 in the A10 after a 2-8 start in the OOC.  So I think that probably means the 8 seed if Davidson ends up #1.  They're the best team A10 team but also the best A10 team we match up well with

BM wrote:

3 of Mason’s 6 losses came with Oduro out.  Considering our problems with skilled bigs, it’ll be tough to squeeze out a win over there.

Agreed, especially because with Oduro playing they have two really strong rebounders. That said, they just lost to Fordham so who knows.

Thanks Free!

Today we should root for:

1) VCU (-6.5) to beat Mason.  Would keep us in front of Mason for 7th.  This is the biggest one.  Also need VCU to keep bubble hopes alive.

2) Dayton (-11.5) to beat UMASS.  Not only to deal UMASS a loss, but Dayton is close to in the tourney and we want them to keep winning to get another A10 team or two into the dance.

3) LaSalle (+3) to beat Fordham.  Seems likely, but would be good to deal Fordham a 9th loss before they go to Davidson and play Umass twice.

4) Davidson (-8.5) to beat Duquesne. Only matters for helping Davidson get to the tourney.

Looks like we will be underdogs at Mason and at  Fordham. If we finish 1-2, it looks like we would play Fordham in the 8-9 game. For you non-optimistic GW followers, how does a loss at Fordham in the final game of the season and a loss to Fordham in our opening round of the A-10 Tournament sound? To me, it sounds dreadful after a nice turnaround of the season in conference play. I know Fordham has improved and I now we have improved, but back-to-back losses brings back nightmares of 2019-20 season and would show how little progress we have made in JC's third year.

LA Colonial wrote:

10) UMASS 5-9 (VCU, @Fordham, Fordham, @GMU). We own the tie-break over them so one more win for us or a loss for UMASS means they can’t catch us.  The two games vs a Fordham loom large.

FQ, how does a potential tiebreaker with UMASS work when we play 17 games and they play 18?
 

Unbalanced schedule will be based on winning percentage so if UMass has one more win but same number of losses there is no tiebreaker and we finish behind them.