6-24

We’ve been a beat too slow on D and to loose balls all afternoon 

Settling for 3s

New coach, same humiliation…

Not playing smart at all

DC Native wrote:

New coach, same humiliation…

What’s the common denominator?

Next year’s roster turnover can’t come fast enough.  This team has too much baggage.

Cold day from range for GW
Monster game for Lindo 18 points 9 boards 3 blocks 2 steals on 7-9 shooting and a thunder  left handed jam 

7 assists and 14 pts for Bishop

 

Tough loss. The highlight of the game was the dog halftime show. I was surprised to see GW open as a 5-6 point favorite given most local rivalries come down to the final minute whether we are playing American, Maryland, GMU, etc. Credit American for playing hard, but honestly I didn't think they played particularly well. O'Neil was certainly clutch when AU needed a bucket. They were trying to give us the game late by turning the ball over multiple times but we continued to miss everything. It's not even that AU made it tough on us when we were on offense - we were getting countless open shots that rimmed out. Literally no shots were going down offensively for GW. If we played American in a seven game series, I still think that we win that series. We had a clear strength advantage - outside of Knotek and Lincoln the other guys didn't look like they would be recruited at the A10 level. I'm happy for Lincoln that he had a good game - he made a number of winning plays for AU on both sides of the ball. At the very least, hopefully this game gives us good prep for our conference game against Richmond.

I guess we were due for a cold shooting night at some point. We need to start getting into the offense a lot quicker and have more movement off the ball to get easy 2's when the 3's aren't falling. The open shots are there, but maybe we are still settling at times. 

This game was a prime example that we simply need to upgrade the talent on the team significantly. Given we left a scholarship spot open this offseason with both Daniel and Hunter sidelined and Jabari now in the transfer portal we are down to just 9 scholarship players all of whom played yesterday. I'm with GW0509 that I'm ready to move on from the JC era of players. Not sure about baggage, but the team just doesn't have the tools to be consistent, and that was known during the offseason.

I thought we played with energy on defense. It was ridiculous how many shots AU made at the shot clock buzzer. We would close out on the shooter but they would still make the shot. I continue to not understand how we are so terrible at securing a rebound or loose ball, notably that one moment where Ricky took his eye off the ball and the ball slipped out of his hands and went out of bounds. That also happened to Hunter earlier in the year. We are not good at turning teams over, although I wish we would be a bit more aggressive in playing passing lanes at times (even if the depth is not there). It certainly felt like AU should have had like 5 additional turnovers due to sloppy passing but every time the ball seemed to bounce their way and they would make a shot with 1 on the shot clock. At this point, I'm not sure if it's something we are doing something wrong or the Basketball Gods just hate us.

I appreciate JB for being more unselfish this season, but he needs to be taking 15 shots a game given the way this roster is constructed. At times, it looked like he was just going through the motions on offense.

I hope we aren't seeing a regression to the mean when it comes to BA's three point shooting. I realize there aren't many options on this team, but when shots aren't falling an extra pass needs to be made. BA had 0 assists. He also had poor game clock management in the final minute of the game when we got a steal and he immediately hoisted up a three. We had enough time for a pass or two to get a better shot, unlike the UCSD game. It might have just been a bad shooting day, as he was missing most of his shots during shootaround as well.

Ricky had a great game overall. The guy is clearly playing through a number of injuries and his effort rebounding/playing strong defense down low kept us in the game in the second half. He felt like the only guy giving it his all.

I have liked EJ's energy and what he brings to the team all season, but the fact that he started yesterday sums up how little we have on the team right now.

Noel had some nice moments defensively, but with Hunter out he will need to find a way to play more minutes without fouling out. His fourth foul in particular was just not necessary - away from the basket. You could argue his fifth foul was a necessity as someone needed to commit a foul to extend the game, but still he fouled out in 14 minutes.

I only just noticed that Keegan weirdly leans forward a little bit when he shoots. He had a number of threes that were good shots that just missed (sums up the team). I thought he held his own defensively, but overall like much of our bench if he isn't making shots he isn't necessarily contributing so much elsewhere that will impact winning. Just 2 rebounds in 17 minutes. Most players on our bench have one primary strength and that's it.

The same holds true for Qwanzi. A nice moment driving the baseline and finishing with a dunk, but two more open threes today that just rimmed out. Have to think that eventually those shots will fall at some point, but otherwise he didn't do too much in 10 minutes of action.

Amir gave us really good minutes yesterday - perhaps the best of the season. I'm happy for whatever success he can have in his final year. Great defense as usual - he generated four steals including a couple of important ones late, but he's painfully limited on offense. There's a reason AU left him open from 3 in the corner despite him making one earlier. It was tough to see an undershot airball at a critical point in the game. He also stole the ball off an inbounds pass late in the game only to miss a layup. Given what's left on the team, we could do worse than play him 15 minutes but it feels like it will always be 4 on 5 on offense.

A big reason we haven't had the performances we hoped for against American and Radford is the disappearance of Max, who has hit the freshman wall a bit sooner than I expected. CC won't call players out (and he shouldn't) but there's a reason he didn't start. Edwards is just showing poor body language both on the court and when he's on the bench. Not clapping/showing support when we make a good play and just playing with no energy on the court. Shots haven't been falling the way I'm sure he'd like (a made three from the corner to cut the deficit to 2 late may be what he needs to get going) but this team cannot have success if the guys at the top of the depth chart aren't contributing in some way. Max is in many ways the connecting piece - while defenses are honing in on JB/BA, that is where he needs to be a positive factor to keep us afloat. Hopefully better days are on the horizon because Max is our foundational piece going into next year.

Next up is a game against Coppin. Can only hope we are able to put it together on both sides of the ball for this one. It's just simply going to be very tough for the team to have any easy W with the way the roster is constructed and especially with Hunter out. We couldn't afford to lose any starter to injury, but it was inevitable at some point. Still think we will have enough games where we play well enough in conference play to avoid the absolute basement of the league but a 10th or 11th place finish in the A10 feels like the ceiling for this squad. There just isn't any margin for error for the starters and the consistency will be lacking all year.
 

No Dean. Bishop and Adams 7-25. Nuff said

Great writeup as always, DMV.  I thought I detected some poor body languare from Max a couple of games back but wasn't certainl  I defihitely noticed it again vs. America.  Nothwithstanding the obvious holes in our game, I can't help feeling that we are losing teams that are less talented but more fundamentally sound.  The stretches of sloppy play each game and is unacceptable and needs to be corrected.