Too close for comfort still.
But  Jacoi doing well to keep us up so far.

Good things can happen when Gerald also drives.

Big defensive play by Hutch! 

And brilliant by Caputo going with both PGs and all 3 bigs on defense.

Jacoi!

Other than the last 2 minutes of the first half, a great win by the good guys!!!

Win on the road in league is a good thing. Glad they held on. Jacoi player of the game.

Last edited by Alum1 (2/15/2025 6:11 pm)

A 10-8 A10 record is still within reach. 3 of the final 5 games are at home, and 1 of the road games is against 3-8 Fordham. I still think 9-9 is more likely, but 10-8 is possible.

H&R..71 wrote:

Way to go boys!!!  Toughed it out.
Another nice road win.  3 more W’s to 20!
(2 thumbs down to ESPN minus…no replays, no shot clock, no poss arrow…I want a refund)

Agree on last point.  Worst broadcast of the season (announcers were good but production was terrible).  It was produced by Learfield.  Embarrassing for them.

Great road win! It was good to see GW stem the tide after Davidson punched back in the third quarter of the game.

Gerald made a lot of key plays in the second half. With the game tied, he got to the hoop and finished through contact. The next time it was tied he knocked down a big three. Perhaps the biggest play of the game was his ability to command attention on his drive to the hoop before kicking it out to CJ for the kill shot from deep. Drumgoole's shooting this season has been a bit disappointing, but I also somewhat expected him to be more of a factor as a passer this season which is why that final play stands out to me. Of the players in the rotation earning major minutes, he's the only guy with an assist to turnover ratio under 1 on the team.

It was nice to see CJ make some big shots as well. Looked more like the GMU version who was able to finish at the rim at a high clip. Love to see four assists to just two turnovers from him.

CC was not smart with handling Autry's foul situation. I really like what Tricky brings offensively but if he gets into foul trouble he can't be trusted on defense. He is a bit susceptible when other teams drive into him as he doesn't keep his arms straight up and tends to collide with the opposing player. Appreciate his rebounding as always. A couple times when GW's frontcourt collides trying to come down with a board which is where Autry's extra effort makes a real difference.

Happy to see Sean take advantage of a favorable matchup. Laput trying to guard Hansen for a long stretch of time wasn't a particularly smart decision by Davidson's staff. Sean is very underrated with his ability to back his man down and finish inside. In general, he has great feel for knowing where he is relative to the basket (which sounds like a basic thing, but it's not).

There's not much Rafael can't do, and he clearly won his matchup against Bailey. Defensively, he has the agility to intercept passes and start a fast break. He can set screens and roll to the basket. He can stop midway through and find a player along the perimeter. Most importantly, he made 8/10 FTs which should be celebrated.

There are times where I still find myself wishing Jun could finish some of his shots in traffic, but he did have the right number of shot attempts in the game. Going 3/8 from the line was a bit killer though which led to CC subbing him out for Sean late in the game.

Jacoi seems to like facing Davidson. In last year's game, Hutch came up with the game altering steal that would eventually force overtime. Late in this game, he came up with another late steal and found Rafael for what maybe should have been a clear path foul. Good to see Jacoi also attack the hoop fearlessly and start to finish some of his attempts. He will always get at least one shot blocked (expected at this point) but I'd rather he do that then settle for only threes. Hutch also closed well by going 7/7 from the line.

Ty also got one of his transition layups blocked which ended up unfortunately being a five point swing in Davidson's favor after GW got called for fouling Durkin on a 3. Too many times this season GW seems to have all the momentum and then that kind of play happens that gets the other team right back in it.

Trey Moss didn't force anything, and kind of like the other Trey did a great job on the glass when he was in, going for the defensive boards that were up for grabs.

I also want to shout out the play design coming out of one of CC's called timeouts late in the second half. 5 seconds left on the shot clock, and the ball went right to Rafael who got fouled and earned two FTs from the line. It reminded me a lot of the Luka Brajkovic play Davidson ran at GW back in 2022 with just under a minute to go (GW was so close to knocking off a really good Wildcat squad that year). Brajkovic drove the baseline and finished a layup through contact. It felt like GW got a bit of payback with that play yesterday.

dmvpiranha wrote:

Durkin has made multiple threes in all but two conference games thus far, although interestingly Davidson has lost all their conference games when he attempts 10+ shots from deep (0-4).

Davidson is now 0-5 since Durkin took 10 threes yesterday. This isn't Durkin's fault of course, but I think it points to the lack of options the Wildcats have at key points in the game. They had just 2 bench points. Kochera needed to have a bigger game. He scored Davidson's first two baskets and was then shut out the rest of the game. GW also began sending double teams Bailey's way after the penultimate media timeout (that's not the first time the Revs have thrown that curveball at other teams). Liked that change from the staff.

Hoopsfan23 wrote:

Thank you DMV! Great preview

Thanks so much!!

1.  This team has gone from looking a bit fearful playing on the road (at AU, even at times during the win at ODU) to relishing the challenge of playing on the road.  Raise your hand if you had foreseen wins at URI, SBU, and now at Davidson this season.

2. The win was not without some unfortunate moments.  Two stand out.  The first came on GW's final possession of the first half with the Revs holding an 8 point lead.  I believe three seconds separated the game and shot clocks making this an ideal situation to take the last shot of the half.  Davidson had alre4ady trimmed a 16 point lead down to 8 so the game's momentum was all theirs at this point.  Instead, Christian took it upon himself to try a layup with 7 seconds left, enough time for Bailey to block his shot on one end and Durkin to cut the lead to 5 at the half on the other end.  Christian thinking that he had a clear layup misses the point.  When factoring the time, score, and game's momentum at that moment, Christian has to be smarter than this.

3. The other unfortunate moment was Trey Autry's fourth foul which occurred 13 seconds after his third foul.  ,CC chose to trust his player and you can get on him for this decision if you'd like but in my view, I'm pointing the finger at Tricky.  After staying in the game with three fouls, you absolutely can not put yourself in a situation where the refs can whistle your 4th so quickly.  Everyone ought to know that officiating is far from a perfect science.  Even if Trey did everything right and this was a terrible call, we know that officials get these bang bang calls wrong quite a bit.  Really bad judgment on Trey's part, all the more surprising since he normally knows better.

4.  Nice to see Gerald contribute with some big second half baskets.  That said, he continues to be such a better three point shooter out of the corner than he is from anywhere else outside of the arc.  I love watching him shoot from the corners and despise watching him shoot 3's from anyplace else.

5. The only thing better than Jacoi getting his mojo back is CC acknowledging this.  Unless he's fouled out or injured, I don't ever want to see him on the bench during the late stages of a close game.  On a team that needs steadying influences, Jacoi's influence is the team's steadiest.

6. Speaking of Mojo, this next note is addressed to DC Native who posted "Caputo has got to be the worst coach in the country drawing up plays out of timeouts."  First, am not sure how much GW ball you watched under Mojo and Jamian but unlike those two coaches, GW actually does run in-bound plays out of timeouts under CC.  This contrast is "so night and day" that I can't believe anyone would make this comment about CC by contrast.  Next, I appreciate DMVPiranha bringing this up but allow me to expound upon it.  Late in the game on a critical possession, out of a timeout, GW inbounded the ball to Slim who had his back to the basket and looked like he was going to hand the ball off to a player, something he does maybe 90% of the time in this situation.  Instead, Slim executed a great fake followed by a spin move that gave him a clear path to the basket.  He was fouled on the play and proceeded to make both free throws.    I know DC Native's post was made in real time, maybe an hour before this pivotal play took place.  Just struck me as ironic that after reading this post, arguably the game's most important possession (certainly one of them) was decided on a called in-bounds play.

7.  Earlier in the day, during the SJU-George Mason game, Tim McCormack gave his A10 first team where he included 6 players and then said the one guy it pained him to leave out was Reed Bailey.    Not sure what else he needs to see from Rafael Castro who was not on his first team (or put another way, his top 7 players).  Question..Is Rafael eligible to receive the A10's Most Improved Player award if he came from another conference?

8.  Am wondering how I'd feel if I were a Davidson fan about now?  5-13 last year.  5-7 this year with games at VCU, SLU, SBU, at Fordham, and a pair with Loyola still remaining.  Not quite there yet but a John Thompson/Georgetown-like problem may eventually become a McKillop-Davidson-like problem one day.

9. Happy for Sean.  He did well taking advantage of shorter defenders by exhibiting a polished game down low, something we've not witnessed that often.  After a couple of rolls resulting in baskets, they put Bailey on him for 1 or 2 possessions.  The Wildcats then switched back but we stopped going to this.  They were such easy baskets that I felt you had to continue down this path until the defense stopped it.

10.  Happy for CC and staff with a great game plan defending Reed Bailey with first half double teams, taking the doubles off in the second half (when Bailey feasted a bit at the line) then went back to the doubles late while also denying Durkin the ball.  Over the game's final 3 minutes, GW dared Davidson to find a third scorer to beat them and the gamble paid off.  Very well executed game plan defensively.

Last edited by Gwmayhem (2/17/2025 1:11 pm)