I think that even playing without Ira Lee, there's no reason why we should not be able to escape bottom 4 territory.  I think their predicted bottom 4 will be the bottom 4.  UMASS has not come close to reloading properly and should be headed for a major fall.  Maybe McCall can do it again but he's back to square one.  Duquesne has also lost a lot but Dambrot is a damn good coach so that should scare us a bit.  It's hard to believe that so many have jumped ship under his watch.  First, he lost his best inherited players but that happens a lot.  Lately though, he's been losing his own recruits.  It's one thing if this is happening so that the team is getting better (which is presumably what's happening at GW).  However, when you lose your own recruits and you don't appear to be improving as  a result, that's problematic.

I think the team that Lindy's might be sleeping on a bit is Dayton.  It's very common to undervalue programs who lose key players because the so-called experts are not as familiar with the newcomers or the guys who will be taking on expanded roles.  Dayton has reloaded as well as anyone in the conference and I will be very surprised if they don't receive a double bye.  Richmond has the talent and the experience but there's a lack of a killer instinct about them that would have me concerned.  And, the one key guy they lost, Blake Francis, personified that killer instinct as much as anyone on that team.

I do see GW in that pack of teams along with URI, Davidson, Mason and St. Joe's, all jockeying for position.   
 

JF, Dan Geriot was another of those Richmond bigs who presumably stayed for 10 years.  Santos-Silva, Alie-Cox and Sanders were all VCU guys, but your point is well taken.

I’ve watched DeShawn Schwartz a lot.  I think Mason fans are going to be disappointed with all these expectations of him being transformative.  Schwartz never showed the ability to be the main man at Colorado.  He was a very nice glue guy for them.  But he was a role player who didn’t handle the ball much, didn’t command really any defensive attention (it was all PG McKinley Wriight and a couple of bigs and two years ago they also had Tyler Bey who is in the NBA).  He shot well from three but usually only when wide open, and played good defensive (though didn’t produce steals or blocks).

Maybe Schwartz is actually a star who never got his chance to shine, but I’ll be surprised if he really is a transformative star, rather than a great glue guy. 

Without the injury, Ira Lee would have had a much bigger impact, in my opinion.

More reasons to "love" the new transfer rule. (As just as it is especially since the last thing the NCAA wants to do is enforce rules), Bona saw all the guys who weren't slated to be starters transfer. But yes Dude Schmidt is right up there with McKillop. His program has a strong identity and he develops guys into stars and he LOVES the school he is at. And the school and town love him back. But, yes I'm gonna be watching the Top 6 in the A-10 this year.

As for GW my question is, "Is my team ever going to be hard to play against?"

Schmidt was passed over by his own alma mater (BC) this spring so I think the feeling out there is he's pretty lackluster. His success stems largely from the trainwreck wrought by the welding certificate scandal that tanked the program. There was literally no one else who would take that job. Schmidt was conveniently located already on the Bonnies bench, and there would be no itch to oust him whatever the reason as long as the program stayed out of the news (which pretty much describes GW Basketball post-Nero).
In fact, the Bonnies (nee "Brown Indians") have had much more D1 basketball success throughout their history than they have with Schmidt thus far (and much more than GW, it turns out), with an NCAA Final Four (1970) to go along with an NIT championship (1977), as well as deep NIT runs to the semifinals when it was the national championship (1952, 57), compared with Schmidt, who's had 1 NCAA win in 3 tournaments over 14 years.
(One could argue their welding scandal involving Jamil Terrell was MUCH less outrageous than Omar, Carl and Maureece not having high school diplomas, and right around the same time. Yet SBU lost their coach and university president to resignations and a trustee to suicide over it, and the program cratered -- with routine 12th to 14th place finishes in the conference -- for the better part of a decade.)
I think Schmidt is a decent coach who has prospered because of great tradition, perseverance, and few other options. Where most new coaches have a 3-year window, his was more like 10, and he needed all of them to get 1 NCAA win.
Where he gets the most credit is for having to "do things the right way." Most of us (including me) erroneously believe GW -- with its high self-perceived academnc standards and lack of donors, student or administrative support, or high local profile -- doesn't have the luxury of that. Although SBU learned its recruiting scandal lesson the hard way, they at least have a blueprint for sustained success moving forward. Whereas GW is now in the equivalent of Schmidt Year 3.
One thing is for sure: Looking up in the A-10 at St. Bonaventure is a hard damn pill to swallow.

Last edited by Mentzinger (9/21/2021 1:37 pm)

Here's every parent and prospective college students dilemma - 

Do I choose University of Maryland, ranked #59 by USNWR, with a tuition of $11,000 per year, with everything else to offer, including big time college athletics,
or
GWU, ranked #63 (tied with stellar academic institutions like Penn State, Rutgers and UCONN), with a tuition of $60,000 and sub-par sports?

What a tough decision.

Mentzinger, a few points about Schmidt.  Am not sure what you mean by he was already on the SBU bench.  He arrived after a successful stint as the head coach at Robert Morris.  I don't believe he was ever an assistant for SBU.  Also, it was Anthony Solomon who really bore the brunt of the scandal as it was his teams that received NCAA sanctions.  Am pretty sure the sanctions were gone by the time Schmidt started even though there was some major rebuilding to do.

As for BC passing him over, I mean, come on.  They hired Earl Grant who had less success at a less regarded program (College of Charlston) in a lower conference (CAA).  They also did not want to wait very long to interview Schmidt, whose team was winning the A10 and subsequently playing in the NCAA Tournament.  Other factors...they just fired Jim Christian who came to BC as an accomplished coach (like Schmidt is) and was more interested in a younger guy who can breathe energy into the program.  Some reports indicated that they were also interested in hiring a minority candidate.  Add all of this up and it certainly sounds like BC was looking to save some money on this hire, fair or unfair.

I will amend an earlier statement.  When I mentioned that Richmond has had a more consistently successful program than SBU, I was not referring to overall but rather over the span of each school's four preceding coaches prior to their current ones.  In other words, it should have been much easier for Mooney to maintain success at Richmond than it was for Schmidt to build success in Olean.  

I heard Schmidt made clear to BC he wasn’t interested.   That place is even tougher to win right now than Bona.

Blue Ribbon and betting line.

Bet The Hoops@betthehoops 
A-10 Winner Odds:
-St. Bonnies (-134)
-Richmond (+300)
-VCU
(+600)
-Saint Louis (+1600)
-Dayton (+2000)
-Rhode Island (+2000)
-Davidson (+3300)
-UMass (+3300)
-Duquesne (+10000)
-George Mason (+10000)
-Fordham (+15000)
-GW (+15000)
-La Salle (+15000)
-St. Joes (+15000)
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 1:49pm · 27 Sep 2021 · Twitter for iPhone

Last edited by BM (9/28/2021 8:44 am)