I expected the worse. What a fun night.

We just absolutely smoked an SEC team with a lottery pick and we are nitpicking?  Can we enjoy an impressive victory for once or will we continue this defeatist, victim attitude forever?

GWAlum2001 wrote:

We just absolutely smoked an SEC team with a lottery pick and we are nitpicking? Can we enjoy an impressive victory for once or will we continue this defeatist, victim attitude forever?

Look, I enjoyed it and was impressed. It was basically rated a toss-up going in and we blew them out. It might've been the best performance by a GW team in 5 years regardless of the opponent. But USC is the worst team in the SEC, and it's not even close! In KenPom right now, they're surrounded by the likes of Wright St., San Diego, Penn, and Gardner Webb.

Impressive performance? Yes. Feeling more optimistic about the program than I've felt in years? Yes. Miracle on 22nd Street? No.

 

As much fun as we had as fans, it was great to see how much fun the team had playing, no one more so than James Bishop

He had more smiles tonight than I've seen in 3 years here, a tough burden he's had, forced to carry the offensive load, his first half both as a playmaker and scorer was outstanding.  A lot of guys can pass a lot, a lo of guy can score, doing both seamlessly, something he pulls off on occassion is a high art.

He earned the smiles, they all did tonight.   

Ok explain to me why, unlike this game, they NEVER run or fast break? Is SC really that awful?

Fred, we’ve been running a lot more this years.  Caputo clearly wants them to get in transition whenever we can.

Jersey Guy, South Carolina is not as bad as they looked last night. Remember. They’ve already beaten a solid Clemson team this year.

It was a bit of a perfect storm for us.  USC was off their game last night - but I also think some of the credit is just how focused and energetic we were.  We forced them to take some tough shots early and they weren’t hitting them, which I think took them out of their game.  And on the other end, we ran our offense with so much energy that we made them look slow and clueless.  It was their first road game, and they almost looked shell shocked at the way we came out so strong and didn’t let up.  They’ll obviously struggle in the SEC, but they will pull off some upsets this year. 

The best is that how many times have we been on the other end of this?  Going on the road and facing a team (usually a BCS team) that comes out aggressive and sharp, and we find ourselves down 20+ in the first half.  It’s hard to get out of your head when that happens and USC just never really got anything going except a couple stretches where we missed open 3s against their 1-3-1.

WRGW Sports[/url] [url=https://twitter.com/WRGWSports]@WRGWSports·9h 
Overheard on the street: "I've never been to a GW basketball game before. That was so fun" "I've been going since 2019. That was the most fun one" GW basketball is back!


Winning is fun and the vast majority of students don't know that South Carolina's KenPom is equivalent to a mid-level A10 team.  They just see the name South Carolina and assume it was a big upset.

We have a looooooong way to go to get back to 2006 when students were lined up hours before the game to get in, but I'm hopeful that last night attracts more casual fans to show up to games this season.

Free Quebec wrote:

 but I also think some of the credit is just how focused and energetic we were....  ...we ran our offense with so much energy that we made them look slow and clueless.... ...they almost looked shell shocked

A lot of credit for our high energy and their discombobulation goes to the tremendous crowd.  GG was yelling something at the blue seats (!) after he made the shot that he was fouled on in the first half.  The ref had to talk to him before he took the free throw.
 

Observations:

1) Yes, a great deal of fun.

2) I wrote yesterday that I was interested in seeing how we opened up the game.  Would we sufficiently motivated or maybe we're just not a decent team?  We obviously opened great.  It's one of the great mysteries of the sport but I suppose human nature suggests that it's unrealistic to expect this same level of intensity and effort against a UCSD team who defeated GW by 20 points last season, solely because they are "just" UCSD and not South Carolina.  In my mind, this is one of the toughest coaching challenges out there...how do you get your team to play with energy and passion, game after game?

3) Ricky deserves a significant amount of credit for playing hard on both ends, sifling GG in the process.  Objectively, I would also add that GG missed a number of makeable shots.

4) 21 assists, 12 turnovers.  Better ratio.

5) Maybe 4 of these turnovers were the result of errant lob passes into the low post that were either overthrown or did not have enough on them.  These are the turnovers I can live with because they are more "miscalculated" than they are "careless."  

6) The nearly packed student section makes a huge difference.  As for non-students, GW will have to do  a far better job at proactively promoting the game to non-students.  That said, I don't think this is the year for that (aside from free PR opportunities).  

7) GG came out two minutes earlier than the rest of the team during halftime to take some shots.  It was one of those curious moments that had the look of there being one set of rules for GG and one set for everyone else.  I hope Lamont Paris, a very good man, realizes that his team is not going very far with or without GG and puts an end to any special rules.  Rarely does this ever work. 

8) It may very well have been a perfect night if not for the very obvious struggles GW had against the 1-3-1 defense.  SC broke it out towards the end of the first half and then inexcusably moved away from it at the start of the second half before bringing it back.  GW settled for a number of very long shots and showed zero competence insofar as how to attack it.  This flaw has now been exposed for all future opponents to see so I hope and trust that the team will be working to rectify this.

9) With the help of Lamont again somehow moving away from the 1-3-1 at the start of the second half, GW sealed the win at the start of the second half.  Within the first 6 minutes, GW went on a 20-5 run.  You don't have to be a GW basketball historian to ask yourself this:  SC hits a 3 at the buzzer to trim GW's 23 point lead to 20 at the half, so how will GW respond when SC begins the second half on a 10-3 run to cut the lead to 13?  Are we really about to blow this entire huge lead on our home court?    Have I seen this movie before?  Instead, a 20-5 run as CC has his guys go for the jugular early.  Absolutely great to see.

I am in the camp that we were court off guard by the 1-3-1 zone and did not attack it particularly well.