JB has definitely been a bright spot despite the lack of team success. Obviously he does have his shortcomings, such as his defense and streaky three point shooting.

Like you said though, the pieces around him haven't been enough to hide those shortcomings.

The first point on defense has been mentioned several times throughout his career here. Perhaps fewer minutes and usage will lead to JB giving a greater effort on the defensive end being more fresh, but the other four players on the floor with him have to step up. There needs to be more resistance along the perimeter so that the opposition doesn't just blow pass the guards, and of course there needs to be better ability when it comes to contesting at the rim. Greater depth goes a long way here compared to last year.

That definitely makes Akingbola perhaps the most important piece in the short-term, especially with nothing behind him.

The second point on three point shooting might get overlooked. I'm sure most non-GW fans look at JB's stats and say "well he's getting his production by just chucking a lot of shots" given he scored over 20 a game but shot under 30% from 3. Part of this is again not having enough around him so he felt the need to take lower-quality shots than I'm sure he'd like. To JB's credit, he's been able to find driving lanes despite questionable spacing and kept defenses honest last year by finishing better driving right instead of always going left.

That being said, barring a BA-like improvement in three point shooting others around JB have to step up. GW has been a below average three point shooting team all three years JB has been on the team (in year 2 the team approached national average, but that's still a disappointment given GW has clearly been a guard-oriented team for the past 5+ years).

Getting perimeter shooting at the 5 is a luxury, but you cannot get away with a lack of shooting at the 4 nowadays. Looking at who JB has played with at the forward position in general since he arrived at GW, the team has had:

Jamison Battle (good shooter, but I think he played more at the 2 in his second year when JB arrived than the 4 which was more his freshman year)
Ricky Lindo (one year shooting well which seems like an anomaly, otherwise was never consistent from 3)
Matthew Moyer (not a floor-stretcher when on the court)
Chase Paar (almost entirely a paint-bound presence)
Sloan Seymour (abysmal on defense preventing him from getting on the floor)
Hunter Dean (rarely adventured out to the three point line)
Qwanzi Samuels (had a good stretch but not someone I would consider a consistent threat over his two year career at GW)
Keegan Harvey (looks to be a good shooter but played minimally last year and I don't get the sense his minutes are going up a ton this year)

The addition of Smith is key if his defense is good enough to play enough minutes, but he's not the future given his graduate student status.

If Akingbola is the most important short-term addition, I think the Garrett Johnson-Darren Buchanan duo development is perhaps the biggest factor in terms of how GW will look in the next few seasons. Buchanan seems a bit spottier from three right now, so hopefully GJ will be a long-term solution if his defense can hold up/shake off rust getting back to CBB.

Back to your question though, I get the sense that JB is a team-first guy despite what his numbers say. I'm sure he is willing to reduce his usage/minutes to showcase better defense to scouts as well as potentially a better three point shot by being fresher. In any case, others are going to have to step up like BA did last year. The OOC schedule and makeup of team in general suggests this is a year to figure out who will play a key role in the next era of GW MBB rather than focusing on success. JB will likely still have the ball in his hands many times, and especially down the stretch of close games (which again we are very fortunate to have) but it would be a major disappointment if the season ends with us only feeling good about a JB who will be moving on afterwards.

I wasn't a fan necessarily of having four freshmen coming into the program given the chance that at least one or maybe two will transfer after the year is up but hopefully more opportunity will convince them to stay. That's why I'm pretty low on UMass despite liking Cohen + some of the freshmen coming in. I'm not sure what Martin was thinking bringing in seven true freshman. They don't have Kentucky level talent, and it feels like a situation where there will be a major roster rebuild again next year.
 

James has greatly grown and matured his game, especially under CC. And it certainly has and hopefully will be shown in a way that benefits both him and the team. 
 Like any player with his impressive abilities, if James continues to improve his shot selection, percentage and defense, of course, that is best for his pro future. Pato Garino, for example, added to his great defense by going from a hair under 30 pct from 3 to 43 percent in senior year. And that ultimately led him to the
NBA, the Olympics and nice foreign contracts.
 For James, continuing his growth in distributing the ball can only help, as well. For one thing, he is not a real big guard, so showing off his ability to not only score, but distribute the ball can allow him to be viewed by pro scouts at both guard positions.
    He also may be playing this year with players who can better handle his sometimes amazing pro-style passes. That can also help his future.
     Actually playing reduced minutes, which hopefully he can, should be better for James. Defenses will key on him, so he could use to be fresher to get open shots. And we've all seen times in which James and other players we overrelied on, don't have the legs and tiredness affects their shot selection and ability on defense at crucial times.
     It is a great opportunity for James to end his GW career profitably by making the most of this year for himself and his team. Both are intertwined with more potential for success this year than before.
    

Bishop interview from  A-10 Vault



 

Definitely agree that JB has been underappreciated.  The 3 Bid League podcast did a ranking of the top players in the A10 and JB slotted in around the 5-7 mark.  Again, this is a guy who will very likely lead the A10 in scoring again this year.  Unless we do the impossible and make a postseason tournament, I will remember JB like Taylor/Kromah as a very good guard who helped us bridge eras.  Some of the other names Mayhem listed were before my time.  

One player comp the podcast hosts had for JB was Fatts Russell from URI.  I thought that was fair as they both are high volume scorers for mid-tier teams, although JB has a much better career FG% than Fatts.  The one thing Fatts has over JB is that URI went to the NCAA tournament his freshman year.  

Last edited by GW0509 (10/10/2023 2:48 pm)

 In terms of the interview, I thought it took a lot of maturity for James to say that one of the things he was working on in the off season was taking better shots   
As for underappreciated, Mike Brown?   We loved the guy.   He was on the cover of the media guide leaning on the Washington Monument as "The New Washington Monument".  He was marketed by the University (a good argument today in favor of NIL)    Games were better attended in the early 80s than most other eras.  I think he was very much appreciated.  I also thought SirVal was appreciated.   He came within a whisker of being the first frosh ever to lead the country in scoring.  Everyone knew SirVal.   And we all knew his issues, but I think most of us still appreciated his being on the team.  Also cannot understand how  you could think that Monroe was underappreciated.       As far as who was appreciated, the only one I may have a bit of an issue with is Omar Williams.   I loved him.   IHowever, I seem to recall that many had bad vibes about Omar, thinking his overall play was disappointng.      Then there was that embarassing NY Times article.  Glad he graduated.

The race for Player of The Year and the career record for points is on. 

JBIV :  32 points, 5 dimes 5 boards,  15 for 16 from the line.

 

If we play 2 games in the A10 tourney and no postseason, he’d need to average about 22.5 ppg to catch Monroe (and that’s only if you include games against non-D1 teams).

Somewhat related to BM's point, what's also very special about this is that JB will either break or come close to breaking the scoring record while playing for four seasons at GW.  It seems inevitable that someone will come along who will play here for five seasons, become the new record-holder, only to have an asterisk next to his record.

As long as DaRon Holmes is playing for Dayton and Dayton is successful, it's probably inaccurate to refer to James as the leading POY candidate though he is most definitely in the conversation.  As we learned as recently as last season, the guy with the best numbers does not necessarily win the award.  And since a clear case could have been made that Holmes should have won it last year, he will undoubtedly receive a number of "we owe you" type votes.

Record or no record, we should all enjoy and appreciate what JB is doing out on the court.  He's the interesting case of a player who may be just as skilled today as when he first arrived at GW but through hard work and better coaching has turned out to be a far better player.
 

errr... Bishop averaged 22.2 in conference games last season.

GWRising wrote:

While it would be a great accomplishment for Bishop to become GW's all-time leading scorer, I am not sure that is what we want from a team perspective heading into A-10 play. The more balanced our scoring, the better team we will likely be. The concept being coaches can limit one guy so we don't want to become too one dimensional. A-10 play is different than non-conference due to familiarity. James is an exceptional scorer but it will be hard for James to maintain 22 ppg through A-10 play. Very few players have averaged that many points in A-10 play - just 20 times in the history of A-10 and only one - Jack Gibbs (who did it twice) - since 2003-04. This may be a situation where he will come close but not quite get there. Regardless of what happens, he will have a great GW career statistically.

Exactly.   As the newcomers develop, it would be expected that they will carry more of the scoring load.  In fact, one thing that bothered me a bit during this past tournament was at times, the team looked like previous teams in which we were over reliant on JVIV and that if he didn't score, we didn't score.