1-4. 
Plus a huge dose of turning over the roster while failing to do better with the "upgraded" personnel. Add in
an embarrassing lack of team play and a downward trend after 3 years. Covid can't excuse any of this.
  While appreciate the poster's efforts to bring us back to more relevant discussion and welcome
anything pertaining to GW basketball, wish we had more news to talk about. Without lowering our standards to sign someone.

50% X’s and O’s   
50% Game Manager

Somewhere in there is that he wasn’t able to take his enthusiasm and knowledge in a way that kept the players focused and free of unforced errors.

I loved JC as a coach, in theory. He had a plan. He had confidence. He seemed like a motivator. But he can’t be out on the floor passing the ball or taking the shots.

I felt his recruiting was very good, especially through the transfer portal.

It’s a shame it didn’t work out, and I would’ve loved one more season.  That being said, I am also truly excited about CC.

Gwmayhem wrote:

Let's try to have a respectable discussion about a sensitive subject.

On the Internet? In today´s America?
Good luck with that.

We only know what is in the public realm, so I have no idea if he ran afoul of the Title IX office, covered up a player´s sexual asault charges, or cussed out the AD with homophobic slurs at videotaped practices. All I know is what I saw on the court.
Player retention (i.e. graduation rate) and recruiting may very well have been impacted greatly by COVID, and the poor results on both fronts affected the decision. After watching the Davidson game slip away with JC eating two timeouts when he needed to sub in players for situational purposes, X´s and O´s certainly proved to be a reason for GW to move on. And after watching the massive steamer the team squeezed out against umASSholes at the tourney (IN OUR OWN GOD DAMN TOWN!), game planning/preparation certainly proved to be a weakness.
I also have to assume financial considerations played a part. Was his compensation package backloaded so that seasons four and five would kick in higher pay/benefits? Was he pushing for a renegotiation ahead of time? Did (what at GW passes for) a big-time donor and/or sponsor whisper in Vogel´s ear? Was he LeBlanc´s choice and with him gone Vogel could now make the hire she wanted?
I wish we had three, full, COVID-free seasons upon which to judge his tenure (heck, I wish we were just plain old COVID-free). Sending him packing was a surprise, but not a decision that will generate the same amount of passion among the fans as previous coaching changes have.

Now, start sniping at each other until poor Barry has to shut down the thread and threaten to kick people off the board...
 

BGF wrote:

GW Alum Abroad wrote:

Now, start sniping at each other until poor Barry has to shut down the thread and threaten to kick people off the board...
 

I’ve known you longer than anyone on the board, GWAA. Don’t push me or I’ll exile you to Indiana with a bunch of screaming…, no, not cheerleaders…screaming board trolls. 🤣🤣🤣

And that response proves beyond any doubt that BGF knows where it´s at.

Last edited by GW Alum Abroad (5/09/2022 7:55 pm)

#1 - 10%
- JC recruited guys who weren't A10 level (HS and transfers) in year 1. I personally think new coaches should rely on transfers more in year 1, and then start adding HS guys in year 2 when they can recruit them for a year. The late stock risers will still go P6, and when new coaches are hired in March/April, there just aren't many HS seniors left. Despite being the only A10 school to not add anyone yet this offseason (not ideal), I'd rather Caputo be patient than rush into signing guys. Expectations are likely low in year 1.
- While recruiting was better after year 1, the roster was clearly uneven last season and there was a bigger drop-off between the starters and bench than there should be. This was magnified after we lost Ira to injury before the year started. I'm a bit surprised there were no other departures after Caputo was hired. Some continuity is important, but I don't think we needed to keep the entire second half of the roster that barely contributed on a bad team and would likely transfer down otherwise. It reminds me a bit of JC's first year with the number of holdovers.

#2 - 50%
- I don't think we showed enough faith in JNJ, and JC frankly looked like he didn't know how to use him in year 2. Bishop did not need to play the point for 40 minutes.
- Failing to commit to a certain scheme/philosophy was in my opinion one of the biggest if not the biggest issue that I had with JC and made me lose confidence in him. We went through 5/6 different styles of play in three years, and who knows if things would have changed again next season had JC remained as coach. This played a role in players taking a long time to adjust to how to make the right reads as well.
- The way JC recruited the second half of the roster last year seemed to clearly be a result of him being terrified of losing players at the rates that he lost them in the first two years.

#3 - 15%
- So much goes into "X's & O's". I don't think JC was necessarily bad with the play designs, but rather how he was teaching players it. We had the right idea on a number of plays in late-game situations, but were abysmal in executing it. I'm not sure that I can classify that on the design of the play/strategy.
- That's not to say I had no problems with philosophy though. We were far too predictable at times with who would take shots and not pass the ball once they received it (i.e. Jamison). We wouldn't make a lot of passes per possession. Defensively, running players off the three point line was a great start but once the opposition got past the initial level of defense we had no idea what to do. Communicating and rotating over was nonexistent. We ignored rebounding far too much.

#4 - 10%
- There were issues with use of timeouts, but it was far from the biggest issue.
- Use of personnel wasn't always the best (as was lack of bench), but depth is more of a "would be nice to have" than an actual problem.
- Game management late in games towards the end of his tenure (George Mason, Fordham) was horrific. Players took ridiculously bad shots late in games without reason. There was no accountability for that given it happened twice in the final week of the regular season.

#5 - 15%
- I don't think JC was fired because of COVID but if you mean how much did it play a role in his tenure I would definitely put it at ~15% at least. We barely had half a healthy team by the end of year 2 (although some defections prior had a role to play in that). Year 3 was less influenced by COVID, although the lack of true home court advantage (no fans for a bit) was a slight hit as well (not sure we would have won those games anyways).
- I also think our 2022 recruiting in particular was hurt pretty bad by COVID with the lack of evaluations, but that was something that hurt everyone.

#6 - 0%
- Not sure what exactly you mean. I think if anything that would seem to support keeping JC on longer.

Other factors (that don't 100% fall under a category):

1) Freedom of play - I guess perhaps this falls under #4 (game management). Nowadays players don't want to play for a coach who will orchestrate their every move (i.e. ML) but JC was too much in the other direction. Players should have the opportunity to make the right read but not the freedom to do whatever the heck they want. Bamisile was the biggest culprit of this. He was talented enough to make some tough shots but largely took awful shots. He's young, but I'm not sure his shot selection got any better as the year progressed.

2) Scheduling - didn't directly lead to JC's firing but it was clear that his seat was somewhat hot entering year 3. Why on Earth would you schedule trips to both California and Florida in such a short period of time? JC is a nice guy (the CA trip for Ira and the Radford home-and-home were nice gestures), but I think that put specific people before the team. If we were going to California, we didn't also need to go to Florida. This is coming off a year where we were hit real bad by COVID. I liked getting to play different teams, but we needed to be smarter about that. Not sure how doing all that travel would help his cause on the hot seat.

3) Pressure to succeed - the turnaround artist title did JC no favors and seemed to only continue to add pressure each year as JC tried a number of philosophies that didn't work. Falls under #2 "fear of commitment".

4) Wins and Losses - not just the record, but the fact that we never won a game that was considered "a big upset". We had a couple minor upsets against the middle of the league. The highest mark I think we reached in the JC era was the 4 OT win against Davidson in year 1 which was with largely Mojo's players (would make for a good separate thread, but I can't think of a better win at the moment). The OOC disaster was of course glaring as well. 

Free Quebec nailed it. GW was a  good place to play if you want to show off your offensive skills. Only a winning team can draw and keep  good players.

He was more interested in being liked-one of the guys -than being respected.Young coach.It all starts with taking 
the "role"-EVERYTHING starts there.

Last edited by GW69 (5/10/2022 10:01 am)

Excellent points by FQ and DMV at length and everyone else contributing to the thread.
Perhaps it can be summed up this way: the only time we saw the highly-touted
Mayhem on the court was when we were on offense, especially in the closing seconds of a
winnable game. Defensively, it was never there, not even reaching the level of Maybe.