It feels like we lead the NCAA in missed layups.

MG14 wrote:

Free Quebec wrote:

Love the way the half is starting. We’re getting to the line.

I suspect this is an unpopular opinion, but I want Drumgoole to keep shooting. He’s too good not to come out of this slump in a big way.

Normally I'd agree, but 2 for your last 30 is hard to look past. Combine that with some careless TOs and some slow D and it's hard to let him keep letting it fly.

Not much choice. We need his shooting too much. 

Regardless, 44 points on 50 possessions against UMASS is just nowhere near good enough.  We’re missing so many good, open threes and not making any contested layups.

Refs investing a lot of time trying to.placate Martin.
Got a no call on next possession.

No kidding about the layups- miss a ton

Ugh. ...Bummer.

I think this is our worst game of the year.  Definitely biggest margin of defeat. We’ve fought hard in most of our losses. Today, our defense wasn’t bad. But we just  didn’t really fight hard enough to get through their physicality inside, and shot just 5-21 from three despite nearly all being good, open shots.  Just really poor execution.

Like I said, our D was ok - UMass did hit like 5 or 6 shots that shouldn’t have gone in (and I can’t remember a single one from us).

We’ve got to get Gerald and Darren going again, and need to be able to convert layups in traffic.

On to the next one.

Also, I believe we scored just .88 points per possession against a team giving up 1.07.  That’s pretty rough statistical evidence of our terrible offensive display.

Thanks for the nice comments on the preview everyone!

dmvpiranha wrote:

The team will want to keep a watchful eye on Diggins, who accounts for over 40% of the team's total attempts from 3

Honestly, just tip your cap to Diggins. He made a number of deep shots and some were even contested. GW needs to learn not to foul three point shooters (happened multiple times in this game, and other games before).

dmvpiranha wrote:

Don't give Curry the midrange shots he's looking for. Defending penetration has been a challenge at times for GW and it is important that Castro/Hansen don't find themselves in foul trouble against another physical frontcourt.

Unfortunately, much like the La Salle game Curry was feeling it on his runners in the first half. UMass also had a relatively easy go of it getting to the rim.

dmvpiranha wrote:

The backcourt is going to have to step up and come close to the production from Diggins/Curry to pull out a win.

This is probably the big issue with this team. The guards are simply not good enough. I'm not sure that many would consider Diggins/Curry to be a top tier backcourt in the A10 but it's better than anything GW has. On top of that, the Rev guards are mostly young and inexperienced.

CJ is great defensively and can penetrate a bit, but then you realize he's a freshman when his driving lane gets cutoff he tries to play off one foot and throws the ball to the other team trying to find help.

Trey has improved for sure, but he is simply not an overly athletic/dynamic guard (which is okay, I think he does have a well-suited, defined role on the team). Unfortunately, he is spotty defensively.

Then there's Jacoi, who enters the game in the first half and then throws away an inbounds pass. He's left alone in the corner, and bricks a 3. He has an open runner, and he rims it out. Again, Hutch was never a great shooter in HS but you almost have to try to miss shots as often as he has this year. I feel for him because I'm sure this year has been tough for him mentally. He did have a steal at the end, but he's certainly not a dynamic option offensively. Jacoi has simply not grown his game offensively and GW needed him to break out this year.

I like what Ty has been bringing the team, but again he's just a freshman.

Finally you have Gerald. If you're physical with him, he's likely to struggle. Against A10 and better competition, he didn't have a great track record on a consistent basis prior to GW. The equation is different with Garrett available, but Drumgoole is just not a guy you want to be the #1 option in a backcourt. He's simply too streaky and subpar defensively.

There's no getting around it. CC has to get more dynamic guards from the portal (and probably more shooting as well). Some of the ingrown talent has some ability, but the lack of dynamism/inability to create shots is glaring on this team. The missed layups (unnecessarily acrobatic) and blocked attempts in transition are getting tough to watch but thankfully other teams aren't as good at blocking shots as UMass.

dmvpiranha wrote:

Perhaps the biggest key is controlling tempo. I thought this might be an issue in the Rhody game, but GW managed to play with the Rams tempo-wise on the road. UMass plays the fastest tempo in the league. At times, they can be lazy to get back on defense and La Salle capitalized on that a few times during their second half run. It's another question whether GW can actually execute properly in transition though. The Revs want to play fast, but perhaps not with their head on fire like the Minutemen.

At the start of the game, I was surprised by how much the two teams were playing in the halfcourt. Unfortunately, that did not last. After GW took a 19-12 lead, UMass outscored the Revs by 20 the rest of the way. The biggest difference? When GW had their chances in transition they couldn't convert. Compounding that inability was the fact that they often did not get back on defense which is not what you want against the Minutemen, Honestly, they should rename themselves the Secondmen because it felt off a GW miss they already had a dunk or layup on the other end a second later. Sean's driving dunk was probably the highlight of the game.

Not looking forward to the SLU game. They have improved defensively and Boisvert already knows what GW is going to run. Hopefully the team doesn't try acrobatic reverse layups that miss all game like today and pray a few threes fall. Until that happens, teams will pack the paint and Jun will have a hard time in traffic. It's crazy to me to see the criticism of Buchanan. He's even started making his FTs at a good clip. Rafael is a good complement. But everyone else along the perimeter is letting him down.
 

What was Zeke Armwood doing last night?  They certainly could have used him.

You have to know what you're getting yourself into when going up against a Frank Martin coached team.  The game by definition will almost always be anything but a thing of beauty.  They will overplay passing lanes and often aggressively go for steals.  They will be beasts along the boards.  They will block shots and try to intimidate you whenever you go inside.  GW needed to be ready for all of this and from the looks of things, they weren't.

When a shot from GW went up, it was rebounded 27 times by UMASS and 14 times by GW so nearly a 2 to 1 ratio.  On UMASS shots, these were rebounded 19 times by GW and 15 times by UMASS so closer to a 1 to 1 ratio.  One could point to both the numbers of offense rebounds and the number of second chance points being nearly even but this misses the point.  It demoralizes a team when an opponent outworks them on the boards.  UMASS is bigger and stronger but these are not excuses to fail to box out or be more committed to rebounding the ball.  I give a lot of credit to a guy like Trey Autry who makes it a point to go after boards hard.  At the same time, someone Sean Hansen's size simply can't play 20 minutes and fail to grab a single defensive rebound.  Maybe this can be overlooked on a more physical team but this GW team can ill afford this.

Next, a few words about shot selection which DMVPiranha perfectly described as "unnecessarily acrobatic."  Seriously, did college basketball start awarding more points per basket based on degree of difficulty and I missed the announcement?  Some of the shots I witnessed last night were absurd.  There is much to love about CJ's game but it looked like he was channeling his inner-Dr J with some of his attempts (maybe it was due to playing in Amherst).  The difference was that CJ's attempts were barely making it to the rim.  There were also a number of occasions, as has been the case over these past three losses, where a better, easier shot attempt was passed over for an extra pass or play that resulted in a more difficult shot, or no shot at all (a turnover).  This leads to an inconsistent ability to make layups or score on otherwise easy chances.  Not much to say here except if we're having a discussion on why the team isn't better at making layups, then we've got major problems.

Kudos again to Rafael for playing his ass off yet again.  The lack of support though has been glaring.  Take away his numbers yesterday and the team shot 25.5% for the game.  That's not from 3, that's from 3 and 2.

The team has certainly gotten away from putting the ball in Jun's hands and letting him work.  Despite the short-lived success the team may have had without his services, I am convinced that this team needs to get back to this, not to a full extent but to a larger one.  The offense often involves someone with the ball, someone setting a high pick, and three others standing around.   It's one thing if Jun is still injured and not up to the challenge but short of this, let him work one-on-one and score (or get fouled), or draw double teams and trust that he'll make the right pass.  Drumgoole for one could use some wide open looks from 3 rather than the contested ones he's often forcing at this point.
 

GWRising wrote:

There are several points that need repeating:

1. Our guards are not playing at an A-10 level for the most part save Christian.
2. Darren is either hurt and not 100% or he has regressed. I hope it is the former.
3. No one can make an outside shot consistently right now. Gerald's 1-32 from three isn't just a shooting slump, it's mind boggling.
4. I know Gwmayhem and I previously went back and forth on this over what he meant but putting that aside, there was a reason I said what I said ... because of #1-3, predicting any kind of winning streak with this team is a giant leap of faith. I had hoped to be wrong but we just don't shoot it well enough to win consistently, we are getting punished on the boards, our guard play is for the most part not up to the challenge, and our defense while much improved from a year ago still isn't good enough to overcome the shooting and rebounding woes. In essence, what I was saying was that while on the days when the shots fall (out-perform our averages), we can win games, we likely won't have enough of those days to consistently win games as in going 5-2 over any 7-game stretch. Until that changes along with better rebounding, expect inconsistency in performance.

Rising, I'm just not going to let you put words in my mouth.  I never predicted a winning streak.  There were no predictions made, period.  The point of my post was to suggest that the team was embarking upon a softer part of the conference schedule, and it would do well to take advantage of this.  The HOPE was to perhaps go 5-2 over this stretch of games.  I am sure you can see that this statement is not a prediction.  It was never intended to reflect what I thought would happen.

As life in the A10 can be, Duquesne had won 3 in a row before losing this week to Dayton, Mason has won 5 in a row, and UMASS has won 3 in a row and 4 out of 5.  So what looked like a soft portion of a schedule a few weeks back can change pretty quickly.  Three losses in a row to three pretty hot teams right now.