- squid
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
Ralphie wrote:
. I'm with Poog in that I enthusiastically support OOC home and homes with ANY of the Military Academies, whom I feel are unusually good draws here at the Smitty - a stone's throw from the Pentagon and in a town with lots of Military presence. I also think we should more aggressively pursue some of the top Ivies for OOC home and homes.
100% agree. Would also be good to do with other local ish schools - W&M, UMBC, etc.
Also Dayan Nessah got some (brief) time, good to see. Hopefully the shirt time was just him getting back into the swing of things.
- dmvpiranha
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
I have no problems scheduling a home and home with Army. Iconic institution with Bobby Knight and Coach K in their pedigree. The trip to West Point alone is a worthy destination for the players to absorb and appreciate. College is about learning. Attend an Army-Navy football game or visit one of the academy campuses and it's an experience and memory that lasts a lifetime. I've gotten over the return of ROTC to campus after we kicked them out during my student years. Good on GW and Caputo for this scheduling.
I appreciate this sentiment (as well as the thoughts of others on this), and don't disagree at all with the overall experience of playing at West Point. However, being in a conference like the A10 means that there's not much margin for error in terms of maximizing bids.
Heading into year 4 under CC, GW should start to care about their NET rankings not only for their own postseason aspirations, but also to help the top teams get more quality opportunities. I'm sure we'll have a fair number of Q4 opportunities at home. It's tough to win on the road regardless of opponent, so why potentially tank your NET by risking playing a Q4 game on the road? Without Rucker, it seems unlikely that Army will be Q3 even facing them on the road. At least the AU game snuck into Q3 since AU is top 240 in the NET (I probably should have been more critical of playing at ODU this year in the original post). The fact that American is local also makes it a somewhat different conversation. CC has 13 OOC games to work with. Most will likely be easier games at home. Outside of the MTE, that leaves 2 or maybe 3 chances to somewhat challenge yourself. The home and home is a great opportunity to do so.
If the next wave of realignment makes the A10 a guaranteed one-bid league, then all this becomes moot and who GW plays and where becomes irrelevant.
It's a lot more palatable if it works both ways. Arrange another home and home with UVA, South Carolina, Seton Hall, Penn State or Rutgers (or even DePaul right now), and I'd feel a whole lot better about agreeing to a similar arrangement with Army. Otherwise, I'd be all for discontinuing these one and ones if we're not going to reach similar deals with P5 schools.
Exactly, although I'm not holding my breath with the P5 schools (even for a 2 for 1). All I'm saying is maybe go up against a team from a comparable conference/quality of team in a home and home. James Madison would be a good example.
This is better than scheduling an in-season home-and-home with Appy St.
Perhaps historically, however Appalachian State has become a decent mid-major under Dustin Kerns (top 200 in both KenPom and NET). They beat Auburn last year. Attendance is a separate topic, but they would certainly be a tougher test from a talent perspective.
I also think we should more aggressively pursue some of the top Ivies for OOC home and homes.
I can definitely get behind this. Many A10 schools are doing this. It's unlikely to be Princeton until Garrett graduates.
Would also be good to do with other local ish schools - W&M, UMBC, etc.
Under the previous regime, it would have been a no to W&M. However, their new coach who coached Sean at Cornell seems promising so that might change things in the future. Like above, we probably don't face them until Trey Moss graduates though. A hard no to UMBC. Towson would be a good one.
- dmvpiranha
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
Anyways, back to the game. Honestly, there's not too much to say. It feels like I've watched the same game 11 times now. Sleepwalking to start, then turn it on in the last ten minutes or so of the game. If I were to hand out player grades for just the first ten minutes, everyone not named Trey Moss and Dayan Nessah would have been given an F (Sean did try to drive once so maybe a slightly higher grade for him).
CC has said GW is a "good shooting team, but not a great one" yet nearly 60% of our attempts come from there? Army is the third shortest team in the country and came into the game 341st on defense. The fact that GW struggled to break their zone at all and instead just passed the ball around the perimeter before jacking up a three was mind-boggling and in general, terrible offense. Trey Moss making threes was nice, but it's specifically his penetration ability that this team really needs (and why I haven't really been as down on him as others). It also makes him a threat as a passer, where he nearly eclipsed his assist total for the season in just one game. Jacoi and Autry don't do that nearly as much (although Autry will occasionally cut off ball, which earned him 2 FTs yesterday). That's the thing - there's too much standing around by others in the halfcourt who don't have the ball. I really liked Dayan's minutes (good to see him back!), partly because he actually looked to drive to the basket. His field goal attempt spun out but it was a good look and he made both his FTs.
Every game, it takes activity on defense late for GW to finally get out in transition when they are at their best. Unsurprisingly, even the threes taken after halftime were better quality looks. CC has not yet found a solution for the slow starts.
I'm glad Abe mentioned Jun in the postgame. CC seems to understand that DBJ needs to be given the ball at different parts of the court, yet that hasn't happened the past several games. Buchanan spent way too much time along the perimeter before halftime, and since everyone knows he's going to try to barrel his way to the rim from the top of the key that's been taken away. More of his shots need to be assisted than simply created by him. Again, his shot attempts are way too predictable and he shouldn't be taking four threes when he's under 20% for the season.
It wasn't too much of a surprise that GW was largely kept off the line as Army is very disciplined defensively (although GW hoisting jumpers contributed to that as well). Still, this is what four games in a row now under 70%? For once, Jun wasn't the culprit either (5/6). The guards can't all be splitting their FTs. I want to believe this is just a bad stretch but it's starting to become a trend.
Defensively, I think we did as well as we could, minus the rebounding issues mentioned by others. The Black Knights have no bench, but their starters are pretty good. I think surrendering the twos to Scovens/Allenspach instead of clean looks at threes to Rucker/Curry/Barker was a good decision. Late in the game, GW also went back to that "delayed double team" which threw off Army's timing along the interior. Given Army doesn't turn the ball over a lot, ten steals is very impressive.
All in all, like GW0509 said it's hard to be too upset with the final box score - specifically assist to turnover ratio, and shooting percentages. Yet, I can't help but feel GW played terribly for more than half the game. Lafayette is better on defense, so hopefully we see more movement off the ball and not more lazy play in the first half of Wednesday's contest. It was also admirable to see Patsos provide commentary for the game. I send my condolences to him and his family on what has to have been a tough week.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
1. It was very gratifying to see that the two players who I felt needed to come up, Moss and Castro, did exactly that.
2. I don't know who gets to decide who the GW player of the game is after home wins, but they got it wrong this time. Castro received the honor and without question, it should have been Moss. Without his first half efforts, GW could easily have been down by double digits at halftime, and then who knows how the game plays out. Trey played with great confidence though he seemed to hardly sit in the first half while sitting quite a bit in the second half.
3. The rebounding woes were apparent but perhaps not as pronounced as it might have seemed. Army got a huge number of long offensive rebounds off of three point shots, which is often a function of the guards and wings not boxing out. This should be worked on. And sure, there were a few hustle/desire plays that clearly went to Army. Nevertheless, one of the keys to victory was GW vastly improving its defensive rebounding over the past 12 minutes or so.
4. Anyone who walked away feeling like Jun had an off game was not paying close attention. Army's Jalen Rucker averages over 18 points per game and scored 8 points over the game's first 7 minutes. It was then that GW made the defensive change of asking the 6'7" Buchanan to guard the 5'10" Rucker. Rucker shot 2-11 the rest of the way, not scoring another basket until GW had extended its lead to 17 with around 4 minutes left in the game. It was clear that Rucker could not shot over Jun, at one point taking what looked like a 27 foot attempt. Army hung in there for a while largely because several of their players did step up offensively, most notably Scovens and Allenspach. Jun's defense was arguably the single most important reason why GW won this game going away. (That, and the fact that Army uncharacteristically fell apart during the stretch when the game was broken open. Not only did they stop shooting and rebounding but they also were very careless with the ball during this 6 minute or so period.
5. I enjoyed DMVPiranha's line about having seen this game 11 times. There really has been a pattern of playing down to the team's level of opposition for a while, only to break a game open or generate a comeback that may or may not fall short. It remains to be seen whether this is a bad habit (having the belief that you can turn it on against inferior competition when you have to) or whether the team will realize that A10 play represents a major step up in competition and will be prepared when the time comes. The fascinating somewhat similar case study in the NFL involves the KC Chiefs who seemingly do just enough and hardly anything more to win week in and week out. Will this be the case in the playoffs where every game will presumably be against a good if not great team? Will their level of play rise to the occasion when it needs to?
I think it's fair to say that if many of GW's OOC first halves are replicated during conference play, they will have their work cut out for them.
- PKGW
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
I think 2 things can both be true.
1. CC and coaching staff do a great job with halftime adjustments and schemes (a huge improvement over our last 2 coaches where it seemed to me like we did not use the break to change anything). Know that is not the case but it always felt under Jamion that we came out of half and immediately the opposition went on a 10-0 run.
2. CC and staff need to do a bettter job with scouting and come up with a much better plan to start the game and/or have a way to change strategy without waiting for half.
Agree with Mayhem - against the stronger teams, if we wait until half to make the changes it may be too late.
- H&R..71
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
Nice win and nice energy. Lots of good things and 2 glaring deficiencies.
1) When you get outrebounded 45-31 and out offensive rebounded 17-7, you have a problem. Team rebounding i.e. like FAU did going to final four with 1 big and 4 wings 6'4" and under, had a scheme. Individual rebounding is physical effort, position, and instinct i.e Mike Hall, Ricky Lindo, and even Max. They say that the guy on the floor who knows where the rebound is going is the shooter. So how bout starting by boxing him out after the shot. If the coaches freeze frame some of these botched rotations it becomes obvious. Yes 10 steals is wonderful but comes with a price. It's risk reward. You either jump the ball handler with a double team, reach in one on one, or jump the passing lane. If you don't foul or get back doored you get the steal. If they beat the double, they get an open look or a layup or a second chance rebound. Since we don't have any devoted rebounders it has to be by committee. Castro seems to get moved off his spot and Jun is usually elsewhere. I'd rather see those two not doubling 28 feet away. I'm sure CC is aware and will work on improving the rebounding difficulties.
2) With 19 assists and 8 turnovers (hallelujah) it's tough to be critical of the offense. But there have been way too many wasted possessions where nothing good happens. Most frustrating is how many points come off the dribble and how few come off of a good cut, or a catch and shoot. We have enough guards up top to run some stuff. Jun should be cutting to the hoop from the wing or post instead of dribbling from top of key. Set a pick on his man to free him up. I've seen footage of him taking a 6 foot shot in the lane..it looked great. And Castro (who played really well) needs to break out some of his low post repertoire. Finish with some touch when the 2 handed slam isn't there.
If everyone starts the game with the same energy as Moss and Castro we could avoid the sleepy first 7 minutes.
My 2 cents
Go REVS
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: GW vs Army Game Thread
On its face, I should be happy with the 15 point win over Army. We exceeded oddsmakers expectations and 15 points is a hefty margin of victory. We figured how to score 75 points when our best scorer was uneffective; we had a remarkable 19 to 8 assist to turnover ration to go with solid field goal percentages, especially the 39.4 from the three, Moss had his best night as a Rev, Christian Jones is looking more and more A-10 ready with each game and Slim had a double/double, There is probably more to like.
Still, we just don't look quite where I was hoping they would be by now. Army is a low ranked team playing on the road at the raucous Smith Center. (Well, maybe a Smith Center with a constant low din). As in the previous two games, we were physically and athletically stronger at probably every position. Yet we allowed Army to hang with us well into the second half, when I was hoping by now that we would have been able to take control of the game much earlier. Outrebounded again, this time by 45-31 This after being outrebounded 40-36 by smaller Old Dominion and American teams in the 2 prior games. Disappointing play by several players who appear to have been underperforming much of the season was also a concern for me.
It was nice to see Neseh get 3 minutes in the game. Hopefully he is being worked in to play a larger role. Even in tvery brief time he has played this season. you can see glimpses of his game, even if is a bit rusty.
Finally, nice to see James Bishop at the game. And how about that frisbee catching Border Collie. Now that was athleticism.