Mid-tier Virginia schools W&M, GMU and Hampton all rang our bell the last few years so no reason to think Radford is a gimme, much less a win. The memory of beating a ranked UVa. team with NBA talent at the Smith Center grows ever more distant, especially with the school's persistent effort to cancel the former coach's tenure and record.

GW18 wrote:

https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/1405321377343754245

Headed to College Park November 11th

That's HUGE news!! You may need to start a separate thread for this since Maryland current and previous coach didn't seem to like the possibility of facing GW in the BB&T Classic for all those years. Why did Turgeon have a change of heart on facing GW all of a sudden? When you look at the BCS transfers who will be eligible this season, GW could be much improved and a win over Maryland can ignite the season. Remember a similar scenario happened the last time GW played Maryland when it appeared as if Maryland would have a far superior team, but Mo Creek buried the jumper with about a second left to beat Maryland. 

Now that's Raising Higher.
Guess Turgeon thought this was the year to abandon his wariness of playing us.
Good job to whoever landed this.
Next: shame the cowards up the street.
Maybe if they somehow,some way, ever acquire a smidgen of courage, one day we could have a real local tournament challenge like the Big 5 in Philly.

Last edited by jf (6/16/2021 11:00 pm)

How excited are you, Ricky Lindo?

Really good news.  From Turgeon's standpoint, I can't imagine there is a return game at Smith Center (that would be something if there was), he likely perceives today's GW as no real threat to win based on the post-Lonergan era, and he'd likely schedule this game annually as long as the game was played in CP and the Terps did not lose any of the meetings.  Smart on Maryland's part to schedule this very early in the season, perhaps realizing that GW does have some talent that should improve over time.  From a scheduling perspective, about the best GW could hope for would be a 2 for 1 with the GW game taking place at Capital One Arena.

Incidentally, Maryland is expected to be much-improved.  They of course pick up the Gtown center which was a great need a season ago.  The Athletic just ranked Maryland as the 3rd best team in the Big 10, behind Michigan and Purdue.
 

GWRising, aside from Maryland, is it known whether this year's away opponents will be playing at Smith Center in 2022-23?

 

GWRising wrote:

No return game at home but the possibility of future games exists either at College Park or at neutral site.

Without mentioning names because the schedule hasn't been finalized right now and to the best of my recollection here are at least 10 of 13 games...

Home with a Big South Team - Radford
Home with a MEAC team
Home with a NEC team
Away with a WCC team
Away with a B10 team - Maryland
MTE in Naples, FL (2 games)
Home with a Patriot team
Away with a CUSA team
Away with a Big West Team
Home with ????
Home with ????
Home with ????

As I said, not the strongest schedule but not the weakest schedule we have seen from GW in the last 10-15 years.

Just gonna guess the CUSA team is rather Old Dominion (if we are gonna play a future road game at Radford for recruiting purposes, I'd imagine we'd do the same with another VA school), Charlotte (as a return for Charlotte coming to DC last season), or either of the Florida Schools around the time of the Naples tournament. Could be completely wrong but just my guess. 

Naples Invitational Update: This article yesterday from the Springfield (MO) News-Leader says that Missouri State has agreed to play in the event, which is slated to include eight teams, meaning three more slots are still open (scroll down after the football news). 

Missouri State football: Bears to play at Mizzou in 2033 (news-leader.com)

Good News!  Full houses hopefully for all fall sports (as far as I can tell - not sure why the link says baseball). https://gwsports.com/news/2021/6/30/baseball-gw-athletics-to-host-events-with-full-capacity-in-fall-2021.aspx

Does anyone know what JC’s scheduling philosophy is? 

It’s looking a bit like Hobbs - play really bad teams you know you can beat (Umass Lowell, etc) and then play like 2 or 3 road games vs teams you probably can’t and use the couple of good teams to say your schedule is challenging, while trying to build a W-L record that appeals only to those who don’t understand SOS. 

It could be that he will upgrade the schedule as the team gets better, but this year’s schedule is not that or a confident program. 

Anyone know what his ideal approach to scheduling is?  Or at least how he’d schedule when or if he gets this thing turned around?

It might be a bit premature to assign Christian a "scheduling phillosophy" since at this point actually making and keeping a schedule is an exercise in extreme uncertainty. It does not appear that he is going out of his way to schedule empty calories or leaving games on the table if a pushover cannot be scheduled (ahem, Mr Hobbs), but the 2021-22 Colonials may end up with that type of a schedule anyways. Television is not hectoring GW for marquee matchups in prime time, budgets are being slashed the way coeds were in 80´s horror movies and transfermania makes sizing up any opponent (or even GW) based on last year about as predictable as 8th race at Pimlico.
For this year, I´d like a couple of peer/equal opponents, a couple of creampuffs (at the start and for the first game after finals) and a few games where GW will have to punch above its weight to win. But I will settle for a schedule against teams that won´t postpone because of virus outbreaks and let the SOS cards fall where they may.