Jamion needs to turn it around very quickly. There is very little rhyme or reason to his game planning as far as I can tell. The team just heads out on the court as if it’s five guys he just pulled off the playground an hour ago. Zero chemistry too, by the looks of it. He’s a good talker but it’s time to start delivering something other than Mojo-esque performances. They just look completely disorganized.

Last edited by Alum1 (11/14/2021 8:04 am)

Bad lighting-nets too high-injuries-travel- COVID -new line-up-noisy home crowd-nets too low-and the main 
reason we lost is every time my Uncle Morris watches a game we lose.

Just when you think we might be turning the corner with the game against UMD, we slip right back to where we were.  

I wanted to heap praise after the UMD game, and probably should have for the sake of the payers, but I didn't.  Something told me the coaching may not be there, especially after the UMD "halftime adjustments" or lack thereof...  

Slowly dawning for me that this great new young coach may not be the answer. I imagine that some other folks are feeling the same way.I said -may not.I’m willing to take into account many variables that are 
contributing to our lackluster record since he has been here.But-for me ,at least,the clock is ticking -starting now.

UCSD pounded Cal and GW. Conclusion: UCSD is a really good small program team.

GW almost beat Maryland on the road, but then got pounded by UCSD.  Conclusion:  really hard to discern what GW is and probably going to have inconsistent, up and down results all year.  

 

Our offense was as well organized as the pre-game "tailgate" and logistics from there to the game.  I rushed out of the gathering 30 minutes before the game started, and was still in the Will Call line (with dozens of other GW fans) when the game started.  Joe picked up two fouls before most of us even entered the arena.  Ask LSF about his experience of the entire situation.

An embarrassing performance, and travel isn't an excuse for having a poor game plan and no set offense to take advantage of a perceived advantage in athleticism.  Coach might be a great guy, talk a good game, and recruit better than the last guy, but, as a game coach he brought less than zero last night, beyond some "emotion".

Alum1 wrote:

Jamion needs to turn it around very quickly. There is very little rhyme or reason to his game planning as far as I can tell. The team just heads out on the court as if it’s five guys he just pulled off the playground an hour ago. Zero chemistry too, by the looks of it. He’s a good talker but it’s time to start delivering something other than Mojo-esque performances. They just look completely disorganized.

This pretty much sums it up. There may be better transfer talent on paper. It looks like it. But that doesn't matter when you struggle to beat the worst St. Francis of the NEC by the luck of a missed layup and get totally blown out by a school in its second D1 year.
   They have to play together against teams not named Hood College.
 Last year, we had one guy playing to prove that he was better than his Power 5 record. Now, we have pretty much of a starting Five doing it--and it isn't pretty in terms of teamwork. There are moments of cohesion, but many more moments of players trying to do it alone with ill-advised shots, while teammates stand by idly or fruitlessly. Meanwhile, to mix sports, we punt on offensive rebounds.

Here’s something I don’t understand:

In JC’s first two years, high ball screens for the point guard were virtually our entire offense.  Fist for Potter, then for Bishop. We became very predictable and easy to guard because everyone knew what was coming out perimeter guys were standing still watching, not moving to get open when Bishop penetrated.

This year, I was very excited to see that we no longer were running that offense - we were attacking from different angles with different players, which should in theory make us harder to guard.

But yesterday it wasn’t working at all.  Those attacks were basically just guys trying to go one on one, while everyone else just stood and watched.

I remember one possession where we ran a ball screen to get Bishop going downhill, and it resulted him finding the roll man for an easy basket (Qwanzi I think).  Maybe there was one other that got Bishop to the basket, where he missed. 

But what I don’t understand is why we’ve gone from running that practically every time down there floor to running it almost never. I’m not sure if we tried it when we had that stretch of 14 empty possessions in the first half, but I know we didn’t use it when our offense only produced 10 points in 20 possessions to start the second half.  Why not run it occasionally when nothing else is working, especially since Bishop is really struggling in his new role?

It’s actually a little like last year’s zone.  Two years ago, some (not me) criticized JC for not using a zone at all even though our man D stunk.  Then we open last year, playing exclusively zone - and it was probably the worst, softest zone I’ve ever seen. We played that almost exclusively for several games before JC finally abandoned it.    This feels like the same - he responses to criticism that we rely too much on ball screens for bishop, then barely ever uses it. 

Perhaps related, I hope JC realizes that this is not like being in a one bud league where the OOC is for experimentation and figuring out what will work in conference play.  The expectation at GW is that every game counts and our coach needs to figure things out before the season, and be flexible enough to adjust in game of Plan A isn’t worming.

So I got excited when we started bringing in players form the big programs, LSU, UCONN, VT, AZ (Lee hasn't played) etc. I also realize that they need to play together to get to know each other during games and real-game situations. 

BUT, as many in the recent college hoop era have noted, there is less of a talent difference between players on the big programs vs. the mid majors.  So maybe my/our expectations could or should be dampened.  However, coaching would make a bigger difference.  This is where the difference may lie.

Bottom line, my expectations were high based on emotion and first glance, but as I look deeper, maybe they should not be so high.  

The Other MG wrote:

Our offense was as well organized as the pre-game "tailgate" and logistics from there to the game.  I rushed out of the gathering 30 minutes before the game started, and was still in the Will Call line (with dozens of other GW fans) when the game started.  Joe picked up two fouls before most of us even entered the arena.  Ask LSF about his experience of the entire situation.

An embarrassing performance, and travel isn't an excuse for having a poor game plan and no set offense to take advantage of a perceived advantage in athleticism.  Coach might be a great guy, talk a good game, and recruit better than the last guy, but, as a game coach he brought less than zero last night, beyond some "emotion".

Nice meeting you on Saturday Night Other MG.  i want to echo what a disaster the overall evening was.  No need to talk much more about the game...you all saw for yourself.  It was just embarrassing.   On offense, we faced mostly a basic zone and could do nothing with it other than either miss a long 3 point shot or have the ball handler put his head down and barrel into the middle of the zone, only to (1) turn it over;  (2) commit an offensive foul; or (3) miss a low percentage shot.  No crisp ball movement, little passing into the middle of the zone, few ball rotations to keep their defense moving, etc.   The reverse was true on defense, where UCSC rapidly passed the ball and got it into our soft interior underbelly repeatedly.    And once again one team seemed more ready coming out at half time. We have 5 players who played high level division one and they are in their second year of D-I and we were not competitive.  Blown out in the first half.  Inexcusable.  They were a well coached unit and we looked like a pickup squad.   Squarely on the coach for not instructing them property and/or not having them ready for the game.  
But I would be remiss if I didn't talk about the disaster that was the pregame reception.   It was located  on a very large USCS campus and was very difficult to find.  The arena was also on campus but a good distance from the reception. Not enough seating and only chicken wings, chicken tenders and tater tots to eat. The food was so lousy that Wisconsin Colonial and his  purchased dinner separately.   About 6:40 or so, the event broke up for the 7 pm game, however there was nobody to show us how to get to the arena   Arrive at the arena at 7:05 for the 7 pm tipoff and already heard the game going on.  We had to show proof of vaccination, which we were not told in advance.  We had to pick up our tickets at will call, but there was a huge line...a good 30-45 minutes.  I landed up having to buy new seats rather than wait on that massive line to get my tickets.  Nobody that I could find from the university was there to assist us.    Poorly done, GW.   
      I thought that it could not get worse that watching South Carolina take a 48-7 lead over us at Mohegan Sun a couple of years back, but this may have topped it   At least in Connecticut, we were blown out by a decent team (and the reception was very nice).  Although we lost by less to UCSD, given the level of the competition and the pregame reception disaster, this may have been worse.    What may have hurt the most was the realization that we are  not a very good team.  What I saw was a team again heading to 20 losses, and a coach who does not seem to know how to fix it.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (11/15/2021 2:23 am)