No team in the A-10 has a top three as great as ours: Bishop, Lindo, Adams. I challenge anyone to come up with a better trio.

Let's address this most recent comment by Alum '04 first.  It never ceases to amaze me how some posters here seemingly choose to pretend that the rest of the A10 lacks talent.  All our guys should win the major year-end awards.  We have the best big 3 in the conference.  To be fair, our guys should be candidates for the awards but let's not forget that some other very talented players and coaches play and work in the A10.  SLU:  Collins, Jimerson, Perkins.  Dayton:  Holmes, Camara and a healthy M. Smith.  There's two threesomes right there that I would guess many who follow the conference would prefer to have.  It's OK to be enthusiastic about our guys but let's not pretend that our talent outshines the rest of the conference.

As for last night, another great experience for this team.  We've talked about how good teams pull out victories without necessarily bringing their "A" game but last night was about something else.  It had everything to do with how do you respond when you throw "the first punch" (27-11 lead) and the opponent punches back even harder?  GW seemingly lost this game on several different occasions but managed to rally when it had to.  Lots of college teams would have been shell-shocked by blowing a big lead (particularly as the favorite to win the game) and never fully recovered.  

It wasn't always pretty and it was far from perfect.  I hate that we have to take a career performance by BA, who practically kept GW in this game by himself at times, and point out two major gaffes down the stretch (a turnover in the backcourt and then fouling up 5 with under 30 seconds left) which almost cost the team the game.  As has been mentioned, to turn the ball over while trapped in the backcourt, twice, with multiple timeouts remaining, is borderline inexcusable.  That said, the guys need to learn from all of this.   

Big shout-out for Amir.  I was so happy for him.  His best game of the season.

On a personal note, Lynn Greer III.  Sounds like a horror movie to any longstanding GW fan.  He played great but then again, it was against GW.  So of course he did.

Last point...again, so we don't take it for granted.  What a weapon JBIV is.  When the ball is in his hands with 10 seconds left in OT, there is just no question in my mind that he's going to score or get fouled.  It's more than a luxury.
 

DC Native wrote:

Tough game on referring because of all the stoppages, but at least they were trying to get the calls right. But I have a question about one of them. JBIV drove to the basket late and it was blocked. The refs blew the whistle and called goaltending, before anyone had possessed the rebound. They then looked at the replay and found that it was a legitimate block, which I think was the right call. But then they gave the ball to St. Joes. Why would they give them the ball when they had not secured the rebound?

They blew the whistle because they thought it was or might be goaltending.  They checked the monitor and ruled that it wasn't.  (Thought JB may have been bumped from behind but that was missed.)  Am pretty sure they have to go to the possession arrow whenever a whistle is inadvertently blown.

I know it probably has been said before but since I just watched the post game commentary I will say it again.  Very refreshing to hear a coach give quality post game recaps.  Gives compliments but also gives some insight into his thoughts and strategy

For whatever reason this game felt like a loss despite GW coming out on top. It's definitely one of those games where you take the win and move on.

The Hawks did not come out ready to play at the beginning of the game somewhat like UMass and Dayton in previous contests. I thought Lange made a good adjustment after Joe's got down by 15 to trap after JB crossed halfcourt. To Bishop's credit, he didn't really turn it over despite that pressure but the trap was effective in that it took 10-15 seconds of the shot clock before we had the ability to begin running the offense. As a result, we often had to hoist jumpers that were not in rhythm - moreso JB than BA, whose shots I thought were for the most part the right ones to take.

Credit the team for not panicking when going down four in OT - in the Richmond game we probably took more jumpers than CC would like down the stretch, but yesterday we were continuing to attack the rim. I honestly thought that was key the last 10 minutes of the second half into overtime. We were in the double bonus for a long stretch at the end and I think we did a reasonably good job of taking advantage of it.

This game felt really similar to the Senior day game against Duquesne last year. That one went to more overtimes, but it felt like neither team had the ability to stop the other from scoring. Replace Greer with Jackie Johnson and it's pretty much the same game. It became a layup line late, but I'm glad we didn't move to zone and give Joe's a chance to torch us from deep. We did decently along the perimeter, but needed to adjust when Klaczek was getting it going from 3.

The other similarity between that game and this one was a big play by a freshman. Last year, it was Bray who made a huge three from the wing to tie the game in double overtime. Max's three from the top of the key was a massive shot - one that is tough for a freshman to make. Yeah I know he redshirted and all but this is his first year playing. Fleming's shot for St. Joe's at the end of the game is what I'd expect to be the result of most freshmen when they have to make a big shot in crunch time. How about Max's rebounding efforts as well - he's perhaps the best rebounder we've had for a guy that's only 6'5" in a long time. He created some critical extra possessions in the game, finishing with 10 rebounds total.

Shout out to both BA and Hunter for what got Max that shot to begin with. BA saved the ball from going out of bounds and Hunter corralled it to keep possession. I think an empty trip on that play would make things really tough for GW to have a chance at winning.

Actually there is one other similarity between the Duquesne and St. Joe's game. The game probably shouldn't have lasted as long as it did. In the case of the Duquesne game, we were up three in the first overtime with 12 seconds left. Every coach is different, but you have to foul there. We ended up giving up a three and the game lasted two more overtimes. Obviously the end of yesterday's game has been mentioned here, but a veteran team should never relinquish a 5 point lead with the shot clock turned off. There were 26 seconds left in the second half. At that point, there was a good chance of us even covering. For the most part in overtime, we gave up a layup without fouling which I can live with. But you should never foul late - one of BA's few mistakes yesterday.

Gwmayhem wrote:

As has been mentioned, to turn the ball over while trapped in the backcourt, twice, with multiple timeouts remaining, is borderline inexcusable.  That said, the guys need to learn from all of this.   
 

I'll say it's just inexcusable, not borderline because JB and BA are both seniors and should know better. I feel bad that they have to play major minutes, but those plays have to be executed properly. I'd even be willing to excuse that mistake during OOC play. It's like we didn't learn from the Maryland Eastern Shore game. Call a timeout. CC put too much trust in JB/BA there, especially with it happening twice. Both MBB and WBB have struggled with presses. All I'll say is I'm not looking forward to that VCU game.

Having said that, I have to give CC props for his handling of the last 37 seconds of overtime. I think we saw in the UC San Diego contest that if you extend the game, this GW team has a chance to make up a deficit. Fouling Fleming was the right play, especially since the guy was having a rough overtime. If I remember correctly, Qwanzi and Noel subbed in after JB's free throws since they had more fouls to give. JB ended up committing the foul, but it reminded me a bit of the ML days where he would bring in Swan to commit a foul so it would appear the fouls were pretty even and we wouldn't have to waste clock time trying to put the other team in the bonus if we were trailing.

GW could have easily played that possession out and had seven seconds to win it but if I'm being honest I'm not confident that we would have been able to stop the Hawks in that scenario. Think Caputo 100% made the right decision.

Some final player observations:
- Maybe I'm just paying more attention, but it feels like JB is faster in transition compared to previous years. It's probably a crazy comparison, but he looked like John Wall out there when we had the chance to get out and run with his speed and ability to change hands when going up for a layup.

James continues to make good decisions. His game winning layup was an example of that. Truthfully, I think Ricky or Hunter could have made themselves open for that final possession but in that situation James has to take it himself. You never want to put yourself in a situation where the exchange is fumbled or broken up by St. Joe's and we're forced to extend the game even more by fouling.

- I get that Noel had some not so great defensive possessions at times during the game, but Hunter was clearly getting gassed towards the end and we probably could have given him a bit more of a breather. Noel did a really good job of rebounding earlier in the game and creating extra possessions. He needs to be given more confidence to go up strong with it instead of always passing it back out. We were very fortunate to get that Noel foul changed in the first half from an offensive foul to a defensive one. Not sure I've seen that before. At the very least, it definitely looked like a 3 second violation.

- Ricky was solid, most importantly not picking up that fifth foul. He had some important defensive possessions late.

- It's already been mentioned here, but Amir was fantastic yesterday and it hurts to see him go down with an ankle injury when it finally started to look like he was starting to find a rhythm offensively. His release on the three looked a lot better than it has in the past and it's clear he believes he can be more of a factor on offense so it's not always 4 on 5. He's always had the length and activity to be disruptive defensively, but was happy to see him have that kind of game yesterday. Hope the injury isn't too serious, otherwise Qwanzi will need to step up. It sounds crazy, but we may need the walk-ons to play minutes at some point if the injuries continue to mount.

The next game at Rose Hill will be tough. What makes yesterday's win so important is that a loss Saturday won't feel as bad. If we look really fatigued I wouldn't blame the starters.