The Dude wrote:

Makes perfect sense the experts pick the team about 13th, but the "worst case scenario" is 9th says one fan

So transparent

The word experts is plural.  In the use of the above sentence, it would mean that at least two people who are experts picked the team to finish in 13th place.  Am not aware of another 13th place prediction.

As for this writer from the Dayton Daily News, he readily acknowledges that aside from picking Fordham to finish in 14th place, ranking the rest of the league is often a shot in the dark.  Those aren't my words; they belong to your so-called expert.

In the dude's defense - Few is a pretty damn good coach, then again I live in the state of Washington.  Do you think we'll have to rename the state?

Butthurt Mason fans are all in Rothstein’s comments for ranking them 13th.

“ Mason 13th with our new coach and transfers!?!? What? I’ll put money on them finishing higher than that!”

jf wrote:

Hoping for a surprise this year since we don't know what we'll get.
But also tiring of the lowered expectations. We've been beaten down too long,team and fans.
Time to begin getting back to being a team that makes some noise and gets some respect.

I also am tired of lowered expectations, but while we all can lament and make fun of Dayton Daily News predictor who had us 13th, it isn't all that encouraging to see Rothstein rank us 12th.  No way that we should accept a 10,11, 12, 13 or 14. So in the spirit of not accepting lowered expectations, I would like to hear Vogel and JC say that a 10,11, 12, 13 or 14 place finish is not acceptable. Let's set the expectations and the standard higher for GW basketball. No hype. Higher expectations.

Dr. Mike, I believe that where one needs to draw a line on this subject has to do with motives.  I'd say that The Dude is ascribing a motive that is a false narrative.

Sports fans of teams who've been struggling, in general, tend to desperately want to see the glass as half full.  As a NY Jet fan, I prefer right now to envision C.J. Mosley returning to lead the defense and Zach Wilson perform at a substantially higher level than Sam Darnold.  I am not lamenting over how the team could have been 2-14 last season.  Every team is 0-0 right now and there's almost always reasons for optimism before the games begin.  In the case of GW, we witnessed James Bishop's significant production relative to his freshman year at LSU and have little choice but to ask ourselves whether this year's transfers can make similar leaps.  We look at the struggles that last year's team had at the point guard position, with Bishop arguably playing out of position out of necessity, and ask ourselves whether  a heralded recruit like Brayon Freeman can step in right away and help improve our PG play.  We've seen enough glimpses of Amir Harris to realistically wonder whether he will  become a major contributor assuming sustained good health.  After a few glimpses, we are fairly certain that Ricky Lindo should thrive in a Colonial uniform.  This doesn't even mention a certain player from New Zealand, a potentially an NBA-level talent, who will likely not play this upcoming season but...what if he did?

Of all years,. this is not the one to look at last year's results and conclude that we should expect similar results.  For all intents and purposes, last year's team has been "blown up" and replaced with almost an entirely new team.  If the 2021-22 team underperforms, it will be hard not to point a finger at the coaching staff.  The 2019-20 team suffered from a grave lack of talent; the same can not be said for this year's squad.

Which brings me to this false narrative that The Dude continues to attempt to sell here, the one that artificially and unfairly raises our expectations so we will have ammunition to come down hard on JC and staff if results fall short.  Since he's picking on both GWRising and myself with this (perhaps others), let's address this.  In the case of GWRising, could there possibly be a bigger supporter in JC's corner than GWRising?  Why on earth would GWRising look to set GW up to fail when he backs JC at every conceivable turn.  If it's possible for something to make less than no sense, this would qualify.

As for myself, The Dude would have you believe that I am a coach-killer who has wanted every GW coach to lose his job.  As is so much that he has to say, The Dude's words are that of a troll who has nothing better to do than antagonize people here.  For the record, starting with Mike Jarvis, here is an honest assessment of my takes on GW's head men's basketball coaches:

Mike Jarvis:  Put the program on the map and maintained as consistently high level of team performance as any coach in the school's history.  To be sure, there were some x and o/coaching decision quibbles (his failure to use timeouts properly against Iowa was the most egregious) but none that ever rose to the level of "get rid of this guy."  Towards the end, it became clear that MJ had outgrown Foggy Bottom.  It was disheartening yet understandable to watch him throw his hat in the ring concerning several higher paying jobs.  Jarvis eventually left GW because he had to, and even those who may have been upset with his decision to become St. John's new coach had little trouble comprehending it.

Tom Penders.  I would never, ever hope to watch GW lose games in order to terminate the contract of a coach but if anyone came closest to driving me to this point, Penders was the guy.  His hiring was the most imperfect of storms.  He had left Texas in disgrace amidst an ugly scandal that involved leaking a player's grades on the radio and then ordering his assistant to take the fall for it.  He was in questionable health which impacted his job performance.  His son, who was hired as an assistant, was directly involved in a long distance calling card violation (an NCAA violation) under Tom Sr's watch.  His top recruit essentially did not go to class for two years and was exposed on ABC''s Nightline for this.  Incited may be too strong a word but he didn't exactly hold back his players from fighting with the University of Tennessee players during a game in Hawaii.  Oh, and did I mention that a GW alum named Mike Brey wanted the job?  No, I was never a Penders fan, not for a moment.

Karl Hobbs: Please, I'll beg anyone to point out exactly when I wanted to see KH get fired.  I was alone on an island on this one as practically every regular poster on the board wanted to see a change while I was lobbying that: a) his final two years were not nearly as bad as the two which preceded those and b) this was the coach that led his team to the program's only two conference tournament championships not to mention it's lone undefeated conference regular season and a national ranking as high as #6.  I was pleased with the initial hire (successful assistant/recruiter at  a major program who had Mike Jarvis's backing).

Mike Lonergan:  I was against this hire initially.  Did not know much about him aside from a D3 national championship, one season assisting a major program, and that he was running a nice program at Vermont.  It seemed like an uninspired choice particularly with another alum in Joe Dooley being a viable alternative.  Many of the Year 1 Lonergan discussions had to do with attempts putting a square peg into a round hole.  Mike did not have any of his recruits yet, aside from John Kopriva, and he was forcing Hobbs recruits to play a style that did not fit very well.  Still smarting over the Hobbs firing, I sided with his former players.  This changed after I observed Mike a bit more.  I ran into him at a couple of high school games and it became clear in very little time that this was a basketball junkie.  (The first time, I sat a few rows behind him wearing GW gear.  He turned around and struck up a conversation.  He told me a bit about what he was looking for, what he liked about the player he was there to see, etc.)  From there, I could tell that this was someone whose coaching skills were going to help his teams win games.  I was sold.  Again, not thrilled about the initial hire but there was never a day where I wanted to see him gone.  I also loved the fact that he considered GW his dream job and was not just blowing smoke when he said this.

Maurice Joseph:  MoJo is an incredibly nice man who was thrust into an opportunity which he never should have been offered.  The program was in shambles and it's doubtful that the spirit of John Wooden could have done much with these teams.  However, every minute that MoJo was the head coach was time that would stall the future development of this program.  Most fans seemed to know this but that didn't prevent the school from inexplicably extending his contract.  This wasn't even a matter of hoping that MoJo would win enough to work out because that appeared to be so unrealistic in my mind.  There was no reason here to invent any narratives, false or otherwise.  MoJo would be gone and it would just be a matter of how long it would take the school to take action.

Jamion Christian:  At the time of his hiring, I expressed concern that GW did not appear to conduct a national search, and that JC was hired extremely quickly without due diligence being properly paid.  GWRising convinced me that this was not the case.  JC has an infectious personality, fit GW's budget (not a small issue), and continues to have the look of an up and comer.  I have not spent a single day wanting to see him fired.  I would love to see him raise this program back to the heights it once enjoyed, and refuse to hold either of his first two seasons against him.  Given an influx of talent and the fact that the entire team is now comprised of his recruits, more is expected of him and this program in Year 3.  That's not an ultimatum or anything along those lines.  I am fairly certain that JC would place the same expectations on himself and his staff.      

So again, maybe there is a tendency to get overexcited during off-seasons because when you support a struggling team, hope is about the best you can do until more tangible proof presents itself.  That said, to suggest that this is all a ruse to create overly lofty expectations in the hope that a coach can be tore down should those expectations fail to be met is beyond ridiculous.  We are all fans of this program; I would sincerely doubt that we'd visit this site if we weren't.  I understand that the vast majority here completely understand this but to a troll who is looking to do nothing more than stir up trouble here, this may take a little extra reminding.

Of course, Gwmayhem. That the Dude would think I am trying to inflate expectations to seal JC's demise is downright laughable. Amazing really if you had spent just five minutes reading this board over the past few years.

Joel, you know that Kinko's is no more? They were bought out by Fed Ex and I think they no longer exist even though our VP seems to think so. Hopefully, the Dude kept his job after the merger.

Rising, he still has the "Kinko's" sign hanging on the wall of momma's basement. His Kinko's branch consists of 1 Epson printer with the old style paper rolls!

Paulie Jorgs told me and said to pass on his regards to dudette.

Me thinks the Mailvan Doth Protest too Much

 

GW0509 wrote:

Butthurt Mason fans are all in Rothstein’s comments for ranking them 13th.

“ Mason 13th with our new coach and transfers!?!? What? I’ll put money on them finishing higher than that!”

Down below is a link to Rothstein's preview. He doesn't do a write-up/summary of each team but he does provide the projected starters, newcomers and key players lost. He picks GW to finish 12th, just ahead of George Mason. GW's Projected Starting 5 is: G James Bishop  G Joe Bamisile  G Brendan Adams  F Ricky Lindo  C Ira Lee. 

On St.Bonaventure, Rothstein list that they have 2 BCS transfers coming in, Karim Coulibaly(Pitt) and Quadry Adams(Wake Forest), in addition to bringing everyone back from last year's team that won the A-10 and earned an 8 or 9 seed in the NCAA tournament.

Rothstein lists Javonte Perkins as the Preseason Player of the Year and St.Joe's as his sleeper team. He picked them to finish 8th


https://collegehoopstoday.com/index.php/rothstein-files/atlantic-10-offseason-breakdown-2/

It would be huge if Freeman, a natural point guard, earned a starting spot.  This would shift James to the 2 and Joe would presumably start as an undersized 3.  If Brayon is as advertised or projected, this would be a much improved starting lineup (along with Ricky and Ira).