I fully understand GW73, however we already beat Fordham once and manhandled GMU for a half before running out of gas.  It is doable, especially if Moyers can play.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (3/01/2021 3:13 pm)

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

I fully understand GW73, however we already beat Fordham once and manhandled GMU for a half before running out of gas.  It is doable, especially if Moyers can play.

I thought Moyers was out for the season. Do you know if he healthy to play Wednesday?
 

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

GW73 wrote:

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

I fully understand GW73, however we already beat Fordham once and manhandled GMU for a half before running out of gas.  It is doable, especially if Moyers can play.

I thought Moyers was out for the season. Do you know if he healthy to play Wednesday?
 

I have no information as to Moyer's availability, but at the last chalk talk, his return wasn't ruled out, so there is hope.  I suspect that GWRising would have information as to Matt's status.

To Be Determined. Personally, I would not count on it but let's hope.

GW may have lucked out losing the George Mason game and finishing 11th(GW's 3-5 conference record beat out 12th place La Salle's 6-11 record) because they draw last place Fordham and then 6th seeded George Mason again if they win. George Mason has won 5 or 6 in a row but they did struggle to beat GW. I'm guessing GW will be a lot more confident facing Fordham and George Mason, as opposed to finishing 9th or 10th and facing Richmond or Dayton. St.Joe's  won at Richmond tonight and has now won 3 straight since they got Ryan Daley back from injury. I believe he got hurt in early December and missed every conference game except these last 3 that they won.  

We dodged a bullet not drawing St Joe’s in the first round. Because we are bad defensively, we match up best with teams that don’t shoot well because it’s harder from them to exploit our weakness. Shootingis SJU’s big strength (plus with Daly now back, they’ve beaten Dayton and Richmond back to back).

Fordham we know we can beat, though we also know their coach understands how to defend our offense, though that’s clearly the best draw for us.  They are one of the 10 worst offenses in college basketball, so as long as we commit to defense, we should get by them.

If our legs don’t give out on Day 2, George Mason is the best draw we could have gotten. They aren’t a very good offensive team and rely on offensive rebounds (which is how they beat us last time).  We have to be more confident against them than any of the others we could have drawn.

Even into the quarters, our section of the draw is weakest.  Bona, vcu, and SLU are all better than Davidson - though we’d have no shot to beat Davidson, a good shooting team, in our 3rd game in three days. 

But imagine being the Bonnies and earning the 1 seed, knowing your path to the finals could be Richmond and St Louis.  VCU could have a tough QF opponent in Dayton. 

My pick right now to win the tourney is SLU.   First, I think they are better than their record (as their #42 ken Pom rating suggests). . They dropped a couple surprise games in conference (a season disrupted by covid almost as much as ours), but beat LSU and NC St OOC. 

Second, the draw worked out nicely for them.  They get UMASS, who they just pounded yesterday (or a 12/13 seed if Umass gets upset). If they win that, they could face the Bonnies, though the A10 has a long history of  1 seeds losing their first game. But even if they play the Bonnies, I think they can beat them, and if they play Richmond, that’s a team they just beat (in an very high quality game).

Third, they have the depth to survive this kind of a tourney.  They can deal with foul issues or tired legs better than most.

VCU and Davidson have easier paths to the finals, but without Bones Hyland it’s hard to see VCU winning and Davidson is not a top 50 club, and benefited from a relatively easy 11
Game conference slate (they went 6-0 against sub-100 teams and 3-1 vs top 100 with the one win being vs a Bones-less VCU.  If Bones is back, I think VCU gets to the finals).

I second or third the notion that SLU is probably the team to beat followed by Bonnies.
If we can win two games, I think all things considered that would be a step in the right direction to end the season. I believe that we haven't WON two games in the A-10 tourney since 2007.

GW Alum Abroad wrote:

So, after two games in two nights, will the reduced roster be able to go four OT´s with Davidson in the quarterfinals?

I think everyone would agree that it would be a good problem to have.

Is it just on espn plus? Already used up my free week lol but if I need to pay I'll pay to watch a game since tv games are so scarce now a days

The 4 top seeds, St. Bonaventure, VCU, Davidson and St. Louis have all advanced to the semifinals, and all 4 had pretty convincing wins, Dayton made things a little interesting with VCU in the final minutes after being down by 20 in the 2nd half. Hopefully, this improves the chances of the A10 getting 3 teams in the NCAA tournament since none of the teams who have a chance at an at-large bid got upset.