I don’t know how much you can take away from the recounting of a casual discussion, but if all of this is true, this dude is really the wrong man for the job if you care at all about athletics at GW.  Vanderbilt going D3 is a truly idiotic hot take.  Sure, they are a bad fit for the SEC since they are a private school.  However, the Big East conference is comprised of a lot of similarly situated urban private schools with good academics that are thriving.  Nobody is saying that Villanova should drop down a level.  In fact, The NIL could help a school like Vanderbilt.  They are the only SEC school located in a prosperous major metropolitan area.  If they were smart, they should be going for some of that Nashville money, like the U does in Miami (another public school).  I’d want someone at GW who sees the new chaos that the NIL created and found ways to exploit it instead of complaining about how it makes things hard.

Every time I think this school can't stoop lower it proceeds to remove its entire vertebrae

Where do we find these Bozo's? Has the University made a right move in years? The Moniker fiasco and saying Vanderbilt should be Division 3? His comment about Vanderbilt should be put in the Nashville paper. The guy is nuts. There is no reason GW should not be better in sports. Lousy choices in administrators and coaches have got us to this level. 

GW0509 wrote:

Wrighton is a clown to think we shouldn't be a D1 school.  

Looking just in the A10, if little Davidson College with a 2,000 person undergraduate enrollment and an endowment half the size of GW can be a perennial contender in basketball then so can we. I just don't understand why our Presidents continually cry poor when schools much smaller than us find a way.

Instead of trying to chase becoming a "research university" like Johns Hopkins or Wash U. St. Louis, which has lead us to drop in the US News rankings, maybe we can find a President who prioritizes being a school that undergrads actually enjoy attending and offers fun and competitive athletics teams to root for?  Something like that would actually build affinity with your alma mater and encourage donations.

 

Well said. He’s a clown and if he doesn’t realize that GW desperately needs a good basketball program to foster the sense of community and school spirit we has when the team was riding high, then we are screwed.  We need leaders who think about college from the perspective of students, not elitist academics/administrators.

Free Quebec wrote:

GW0509 wrote:

Wrighton is a clown to think we shouldn't be a D1 school.  

Looking just in the A10, if little Davidson College with a 2,000 person undergraduate enrollment and an endowment half the size of GW can be a perennial contender in basketball then so can we. I just don't understand why our Presidents continually cry poor when schools much smaller than us find a way.

Instead of trying to chase becoming a "research university" like Johns Hopkins or Wash U. St. Louis, which has lead us to drop in the US News rankings, maybe we can find a President who prioritizes being a school that undergrads actually enjoy attending and offers fun and competitive athletics teams to root for?  Something like that would actually build affinity with your alma mater and encourage donations.

 

Well said. He’s a clown and if he doesn’t realize that GW desperately needs a good basketball program to foster the sense of community and school spirit we has when the team was riding high, then we are screwed. We need leaders who think about college from the perspective of students, not elitist academics/administrators.

Totally agree with this.  I was fortunate enough to attend from 03-07, and the bball team was such a huge source of positive memories for me and my friends and fostered a tremendous sense of community and attachment to GW that we otherwise wouldn't have.  That can't be novel, either.  

Does Wrightson think Georgetown shouldn't be D1 of GW shouldn't?  What business does Gonzaga have being a perennial powerhouse?  Look at where GW is in the ranks - having a great bball team would really make it stand out, otherwise it's just another second tier school in a great location with no sense of community.

Dropping down conferences signals a defeatist attitude.  As others have said, there are plenty of schools with fewer students, lesser endowments, and far less attractiveness to athletes for many reasons than GW. We are here because, historically, the university has never put in the effort and resources to support a successful D1 program. What I fear most is that the school will decide to drop men's basketball altogether because the sport itself is too violent, too militaristic, too competitive, and threatens to oppress the peoples of the world like the dastardly mascot "Colonials" did.

GW69 wrote:

In my practice I often did Couples therapy.Never really loved it.Rancor,bitterness,affairs etc etc.
One thing you look for in their history is-were they ever “in love”.Was there a time,even if it was 25 years 
ago that they can agree was a happy time for them.If they agree that yes we did at one point have a 
good ,loving,functional relationship-then maybe they can reconnect-the prognosis improves.If on the other hand the couple can’t remember a time when they “got along” the prognosis is not good.
Young Therapists work very diligently we these people and try to work “magic”.It never works.
The Therapist works harder than the patient.That’s a sign the therapy is not working.
Now you can say ,I suppose that our “couple “ was doing pretty well at times-Jarvis,Penders,Hobbs,
Lonergan.For me these very transitory,fleeting moments in the history of this program do not qualify 
to the level of a “good prognosis.We seem to be working harder than “our patient”.On rare occasions it’s 
it’s appropriate for the Therapist to terminate.It’s not defeatist-it’s realistic.
 

It’s a quarter of a freakin century, not fleeting times, when we were a relevant basketball program.  And we were there up until Nero and Co screwed it up.  Now you want to give up?  I have a hard time believing any real season ticket holder has this attitude.

Between 1991 and 2014, very recent history before ML was fired and MoJo was given foolishly given time to wreck the program, we went to the ncaa 9 times and the NIT 6 times.  That’s 15 postseason appearances in 24 years.  Maybe it’s a little harder now, but anyone who wants to give up on getting back there has no interest in a thriving GW.

Last edited by Free Quebec (9/05/2022 10:25 am)

We were cutting down the nets at Madison Square Garden six years ago, winning a national
(D1 by the way) tournament and achieved the incredible rarity of ending the season with a win. Not our dream for even that year, but it felt pretty damn good.
   What we did was destroy ourselves for what is still no discernible reason outside of reflexive correctness--and took the wrong side on ugliness that was never fully revealed or accounted for, but covered up with money.
  That's what took us down on this glide path.
JC was supposed to bring us back, but it didn't work out.
CC has the experience in winning programs to do so and appears to have the right frame of
mind.
Fortunately, this defeated attitude--thought the new prez was initially excited to be in D-1, will be 
gone in a year or so. But self-fulfilling prophecies and self-defeating actions seem to be the specialty of the house at GW.
   Given recent experience, does anyone trust the university or the Board of Trustees to do the right thing?

There are two different issues here. One is what GW should do. Of course, I think GW should find the resources to make us relevant again at the D1 level. 

Then there is what is going to happen, with the NIL freight train barreling down the tracks, the super conferences, the resources necessary to compete at a high level, and the lack of vision, planning and execution that plagues GW. Does anyone really think that either a drop down to another conference or D3 isn't inevitable? If you don't good luck to you because you are going to be in for a big surprise.

We are too interested in paying millions of dollars for people not to coach and administrate based on bad decisions, millions to re-brand, millions to pacify the woke demands no matter how outrageous and unwarranted. The good ship GW is taking on water fast. It's a matter of time absent a miracle in Foggy Bottom.

Last edited by GWRising (9/05/2022 12:24 pm)