The ending was tough to see, but our play in the second half was encouraging. We did a lot better taking care of the ball, which was a good place to start after a troubling first half. In some ways, a loss is beneficial to some of the young guys because it builds motivation to the next contest, and some of our weaknesses this game won't get pushed under the rug. I thought JC took timeouts at the right intervals, but our execution out of a timeout versus American's was like night and day. Also, as others have stated, the choice not to foul at the end of the game when we had one to give was VERY baffling. We forced a tough shot, but still.

Offense: We are getting the three point attempts, but I'm not sure that's such a good thing on this team. We simply do not have the shooters to make JC's system work at this time, and I also want to say that JC's three point happy offense doesn't strike me as a winning formula long term. Sure, that might work in a lower league, but there needs to be a balance on offense, including taking it to the hoop and drawing fouls which will actually open things up from behind the arc instead of just gunning from deep all the time. As it stands, the system limits our ability to get to the line, and while we might not be amazing from the charity stripe, it's a good way to put up points when our offense struggles. I was critical of Mojo for this when he was head coach (before he did eventually abandon the three somewhat which was the right move at the time), and I'll say the same for JC. I was stunned how infrequently we took it to the hoop, especially when things weren't falling in the first half. Take out AT, and we would have attempted FOUR three throws all game, which is astonishing considering AU was being charged for fouls at a pretty good rate in the second half. Also, the big lineup with Javier and Arnaldo is terrible for floor spacing. Mezie not having a developed three point jumper also removes one more option to pull off JC's scheme. I get that being able to make the three is a game-changer, especially being in the A10, but at this time we could use a bit more balance. I will say getting rid of the midrange is a nice improvement though.

Defense: At this point, I'm not sure we'll see a true 'Mayhem' system this year. Our defense looks truly lackadaisical, and whenever it looks like we are going to press in the backcourt we concede almost immediately. There is just no intensity to our defense so far. It is truly soft. Truthfully, I saw more energy from our defense in the second half of last season. Yet another game where the opposition generates more steals than us. I know we were sloppy with our turnovers in the first half, but it almost always seems like the opposition is better at running our Mayhem scheme than we are. We let American knife through the lane way too frequently, and although the blocks early on were nice to see, it wasn't going to be sustainable throughout the game. We celebrated each time we got up in the game, and American calmly came the other way and scored. Also, the number of times Arnaldo and Javier were switched to defending an AU guard on defense was maddening, which resulted in them either getting picked apart on drives to the rim, or a wide open three that was hardly contested. We probably should have gone smaller at times. I will say that us taking away the three pointer and forcing quite a few midrange shots was nice. Heading into A10 season though I would almost prefer we pack the paint and allow teams to gun from three. The league is awful at shooting threes outside of maybe Davidson.

Tempo: A disappointment. I thought after the Howard game we would have learned that pushing the pace a bit more is what this team needs. There were simply too many late shot clock possessions in the halfcourt on offense, and predictably, we struggled. We should look to push off a miss, which might help things out in terms of scoring the ball.

Game Ball: Has to go to AT again, who was basically our offense for long stretches of the game. He was simply dominant in tonight's game, and I can't imagine how this game would have gone without him.
 
Player Breakdown:
Arnaldo - was simply fantastic again tonight. Seems to be slowly regaining his touch on his free throws although he was just 4-7 today. He might have a chance to set a GW season record in rebounds the way we are constantly throwing up bricks. His presence in the paint is key for us to space the floor out more, but as mentioned, our floor spacing is currently very poor. Was pretty solid on defense, minus those defensive switches, but that wasn't necessarily his fault. If we were winning, he is playing at a POY level right now.

Jameer - it was nice to see him come alive in the second half. Started to take over the game late, and I think it was a good sign that I was thinking his play at the end was going to win the game for us despite how poorly we played for a lot of the game. That spin move was pretty to tie the game, and *surprise* he looked good when he took it to the hoop. He was careless with turnovers, but he had the right idea on a lot of them. I thought he still had a pretty good game despite giving the ball away quite a bit. A bit unfortunate on the threes as many were good looks. Had some true defensive highlights, and he has crazy vertical hops - three blocks is very impressive.

Jamison - quietly had a nice game. He plays within himself and doesn't force the issue which I appreciate. Even on his threes, he works hard to make sure they are as open as he can make them. Defensively, he is growing as well. He is a tad slow trying to guard some of the quicker players, but he by no means a liability. He has great awareness - he called for the ball out of an inbounds play where he was open from the corner, and calmly knocked down the three. That fired me up for sure.

Justin - I can't believe I'm saying this, but if we were going to take more threes, I wish he had more attempts tonight. Sometimes, you just ride the hot hand, and clearly Justin had a great night shooting the ball making all four of his attempts. He has a great track record against American. Mazzulla was one of the few players to actually take the ball to the rim, and he had good outcomes as a result. Overall, a very nice game from him. He was secure with the ball, and also made some nice passes.

Mezie - has a pretty nice touch near the rim, but his ball handling needs a ton of improving. He is way too loose dribbling the ball, and I get more anxious the more times he dribbles the ball, especially into traffic. He was pretty disruptive on defense which was nice though. I said this last year, and still feel we should find opportunities for him to just spot up without him having to do too much to create for himself. Unfortunately, his range is probably limited to the midrange, but I'd rather his attempts are more assisted at this point. I think that would take some pressure off him right now.

Maceo - here's a crazy stat: nearly a quarter of Maceo's assists in his GW career have come in two games against American. He had 5 last year, and 4 tonight. I will say it was nice to see him pass on his shot in order to find others (usually Jamison) instead, which shows good awareness realizing it wasn't his night shooting the ball and trust in his teammates. However, his defense wasn't too good tonight, he had a really careless turnover, and unfortunately, he doesn't give us much if his shots aren't falling like tonight. Still, he will give us some floor spacing which this team needs. Just an off night shooting the ball.

Javier - he is a very good defender at times which he doesn't get a lot of credit for. Did a pretty good job on the glass and protecting the rim. However, he is still very raw offensively, and has simply never been good on that end. Even last year he was inefficient on his shot attempts. I still think if he can spend a lot of practice on his shooting, that can really do wonders for this team, but it's hard to believe until I see something.

Juice - it feels like he barely played. He had a nice block but that was it. Only seven minutes? Going back to the "tempo" section, I wish we would push the pace more and play more guys more minutes. There are no expectations to win this year, so this is the time to try different things out. We may foul and gamble a bit on steals, but play more uptempo and go deeper into the bench. As I will continue to say, Adam can see some minutes as a shooter, and Armel can too as a guy who can get to the hoop at will, but realistically, neither is likely to happen at this point. JC has said several times "we have got a lot of talented pieces", but I feel like we aren't maximizing the strengths of each guy on the team.

Ace - pulled down an offensive board, but didn't show much otherwise in limited time. Still looked bouncy out there though.

Next up is a tilt against another MEAC squad, Morgan State. Depending on how things shake out in the Bahamas, we could even end up playing them twice this season. The Bears actually have some talent on their team this year, and could push for a top half of league finish if not higher. I hope the team comes with a better plan on offense, and more of an effort on defense.
 

Last edited by dmvpiranha (11/12/2019 11:17 pm)

would love to hear the coach's explanation as to why we didn't foul with about 4 seconds left in the game.  Very baffling.   There also needs to be a "plan b" for games in which the 3s aren't falling and/or we have a substantial size advantage inside.  We also need to solve the point guard problem.   Jameer looks like he can be a great player someday, but we can't have a PG with 1 assist and 9 turnovers.  Further, he doesn't run the offense particularly well.   Why not play him at the 2, and have Mazzula play the point.   For all of his deficiencies, Mazzula doesn't turn the ball over and seems to have good court vision.   As for Javy, he is now 6-48 shooting the 3 over his career.  That is 12.5%.  Javy does some good things, and I am sure he is deadly from the 3 during practice, but this is not a small sample size.   He should not be shooting three point shots during the game.  Thats all I have for now.

After three games with a new coach, new system, and a freshman point guard running the show, it's way, way too early to say we're years away. We don't have any graduating seniors contributing major minutes right now, and if Toro comes back (he'll presumably be able to be a grad transfer for his final year of eligibility), next year is already looking pretty darn good.

But if we're going to win some games this year, I agree with LSF that the PG situation has to be figured out. JNJ obviously has the most talent and will be a great player, but right now he's doing more bad than good. Really sloppy with the ball, gets lazy on defense (JC ripped into him yesterday and sat him for a chunk of the first half), and doesn't seem to run the offense well, as LSF said. At this moment, purely thinking about the team's chance to win, I would trust both Mazzulla and Armel (still don't agree with his DNPs) to provide steadiness at the point. With that said, letting JNJ take his growing pains early in his freshman year can pay very big dividends in the long run (even later this season), similar to how Joe Mac was used his freshman year.

All in all, the rotation last night was a little curious from my perspective. Don't really understand the thinking behind Javi's extended minutes over Juice and/or Mazzulla. Battle's 35 minutes is also curious to me. He can obviously shoot the ball but really can't do anything else yet, and he got easily blown by on defense about four or five times. However, from what I've read the staff is very deliberate their thinking about how they allocate minutes, and they know a lot more about basketball than I do, so I'll trust that they have good reasons for the rotations they use.

This is not the season for hand-wringing over W´s and L´s, I view 2019-20 almost as a season of nothing but exhibition games. I am keeping an eye on development and situational decision making, and three games in is waaaaaay to early to come to any conclusions on either. That said, the last 25 seconds of last night are a precautionary tale as are the stat lines from last night (3pt%, turnovers, Toro´s montster numbers).

It is very hard to defend the game's final play with a foul to give.  It is possible that the coaching staff did instruct the team to foul during the final timeout and they just failed to do it.  Or, perhaps JC was concerned that the ball would be in (AU's) Nelson's hands (which it was) and an experienced player like that would find a way to anticipate the foul and turn it into a shooting foul.  No matter the case, it seems we are all in agreement that the foul must be given with 2-4 seconds left.

Very much agree with MG14 regarding the unusual defensive assignments. It seemed like our taller players were constantly being beaten off of the dribble by smaller AU players.  JC obviously wanted to go "big" last night by playing AT, Javier and Mezie together but why stick with this the entire game when it clearly wasn't working?  GW trailed most of the night so it's not as if it was working during any part of the game.  In the second half, Mezie and Javier combined to play 27 minutes, scored 4 points, and grabbed 2 rebounds while consistently getting beat defensively. And why was Mezie assigned to stop Nelson on the final play?  That too was a head-scratcher.

If the playing time for each player is largely pre-determined, then some allowance must be made for how players are performing.  1-4 from the floor Justin Mazzulla should not play 31 minutes against Towson and 4-4 from the floor Justin Mazzulla should not play only 14 minutes against American.

Another monster game by Arnaldo.  When GW missed a shot, AU grabbed the rebound 19 times and AT did so 13 times.  That is remarkable.  I hate the phrase "wasted performance" because I feel it inadvertently undermines how well someone plays, but it was a shame to lose a game where Arnaldo was as dominant as he was.

Finally, is JNJ a point guard?  Of course he is a point guard.  Despite the turnovers (I'll get to that in a minute), this is THE guy you want running the show.  If a point guard with a scorer's mentality does not fit your definition of what a point guard should be, then you'll just need to get used to this new normal.  JNJ is a legitimate threat to shoot, drive and shoot, and drive and pass.  This keeps defenses guessing throughout the game.  He also has a flair for making the type of plays that can bring a home crowd back into a game.  This in turn energizes the whole team.

As was previously mentioned, Joe McDonald and Kethan Savage were panned in the past during their freshman seasons for turning the ball over too much.  Carl Elliott was practically a turnover machine during his freshman year.  In the case of JNJ, it's likely that a few factors are in play.  First, he does have a tendency to attempt plays that are a bit too high on the degree of difficulty scale.  The coaching staff has to encourage some balance here.  You don't want to stifle JNJ's creativity but at the same time, you need to emphasize the importance of taking care of the ball.  Next, the jump from high school to college is tremendous.  JNJ needs to realize that much like a running back with fumbling issues, he is going to be a target.  Defenses are going to attempt steals and bait him into making passes that they will be ready for.  With more experience and greater awareness, JNJ will be just fine as a point guard.

IMO, JNJ is GW's most daring and precocious freshman since SirValient Brown.  Val received all kinds of complaints from fans ranging from shot selection to getting his teammates more involved.  All while scoring 25 a game as a freshman.  His teams weren't successful but he was a wonder to watch.  In a season where the chances to play in the postseason are slim to none, watching what JNJ will do with the ball is both inspiring and entertaining.  Along with AT's impressive play and Jamison Battle's three point stroke, there has not been much else to get genuinely excited about through these first three games.
 

BM wrote:

That was the worst performance by a point guard I've seen in one half in all my years watching GW basketball.  Mostly due to the fact that any other coach would've yanked him way earlier than the last three minutes of the half and sent him to the end of the bench.

And in that performance, he still managed to grab 5 rebounds and block 3 shots in just 10 minutes.  And, if you were to have buried him at the end of the bench for the rest of the game based on that performance (am not saying that this is what you meant), you would have lost out on his 11 second half points including the late game-tying basket.

Let him develop now with no real W-L expectations.  Taking the bad with the good is part of the process.  An apparent rite of passage for GW freshmen point guards (Shawnta being the exception).

Most coaches would've done the sensible thing.  Bench him after say, the fourth TO, bring in your two upperclassmen point guards and maybe give him a chance in the second half.  
 

I believe Dare had a line of 24 pts, 20 rebounds in a OT win over Rutgers that he won with a layup at the buzzer his sophomore year.

Free Quebec wrote:

11) Jameer got fouled on his game tying bucket.  Replay showed a clear hip check to try to throw him off the shot and the refs missed it.  Ultimately it didn't matter, but if AU was down, instead of tied, maybe the added pressure means the shot misses. 
 

I think this does matter, because if down they likely go earlier than they did to have a chance at a rebound, etc.  Looked like he was fouled to me too.

One last word about the American game.   The fact that a freshman, playing in the third game of the season, not only had the courage (balls) enough to take the last shot with less than 20 seconds left in the game but he also made it...that is something very special that cannot be coached.  The other problems will be fixed, hopefully sooner rather than later.