Oh, and nice nod to David Crosby on the post title.

Maybe I have been conditioned after watching 30+ years of GW basketball that there is always another shoe to drop. Maybe because I have a coaching background, I am acutely aware of how fragile success is in this game and how quickly it can go away. But I am not just ready yet to have fun with this season. As someone much smarter than me once said ... there is a lot of basketball left to be played.

Now none of that should be taken as I don't think things have been surprisingly better this season, that the win over Dayton wasn't great or that I don't think we are headed in the right direction. I didn't get too overly worked up over the OOC losses, so in fairness, I'm not going to get too high on the Conference victories as impressive as they might be. There are a few reasons for that. First, if this were a younger team, there would be some hope for continuity. Unfortunately, we are likely to have very little carry-over from this season to next. In essence, the real rebuild starts in 2023-24 and while we have 3 impressive signings, we are going to need a whole lot more in the form of freshmen and transfers. Second, while we are winning and CC is doing a great job with a short bench, we are an unfortunate injury away from disaster. If we were to lose any of James, Brendan, Max or Ricky for a couple of weeks or the season we would likely fall towards the bottom of the league quickly. Third, even if we remain completely healthy, you begin to worry about the minutes toll being taken on James and Brendan. Close to 37 minutes per night will take its toll over time. CC has no choice here because he literally doesn't have any options but it would be a minor miracle if James and Brendan didn't start to show some fatigue at some point. So it's hard to have fun in the middle when you are acutely aware of all the things that can still go wrong.

But yes, this season is generally more enjoyable than those since ML was forced out. However, we are still a long way from that point.

Last edited by GWRising (1/23/2023 3:26 pm)

Good and valid points all.  Can make a strong argument for the "glass half empty" view.  It is true that we are one injury away from disaster, and players such as Ricky and Hunter have a history of injury.  Not to mention Amir, who is a major piece of the puzzle these days.  Further, in terms of wearing down, I probably worry most about Max due to this being his first year as opposed to Bishop and Adams, who both appear to be in top flight condition.   Still, I also reflect on some of the great Temple teams under Chaney, that only went 6 players deep.) Then there is next year, with the losses of  Ricky and Brandon, the likely loss of Bishop, and who knows about Hunter.   As Rising said (and I agree), that the real rebuild starts next season.  Still, and somewhat uncharacteristically for me, I am in the glass half full camp.  Not only do we appear to be on the way to a super frosh class, but the entire portal thing means we no longer have to wait for frosh to develop or for transfers to have to sit for a season before they become eligible.  We can go out and get developed and accomplished players, which I would think would be somewhat easier coming off of what appears at this point to be a very successful season.    This means we can sell the success of the team itself to potential transfers as opposed to the opportunity for immediate playing time.   But by far the biggest reason for optimism is the coaching staff.  It may be a bit premature, but Caputo is showing that he can coach, he can teach (look at the significant improvement of every one of the the returning players), he can develop a game plan, he can adjust during the game, he can recruit (Max, the 3 committed frosh and even Clark and he has set the bar high, not only for incoming players but for those already on the team.   All that, and donuts too.    We should all be indepted to Coach Christian for bringing to GW one of the best backcourts in the nation, along with solid players such as Lindo and Dean, and Caputo certainly inherited a far better team than Christian did, but as Wisconsin Colonial and I were recently discussing, during the post game interviews, Christian would talk about everybody on the team loving each other while Caputo would discuss how he is teaching the intracacies of rebounding or how playing defense  allows the team to run more.    So yes, I am very upbeat about the program so long as this current coaching staff is on board.  Looking forward to some fun years ahead, and it has been a long time since I could say that.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (1/23/2023 5:21 pm)