1 of 1- creeksandzeeks
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2022-23 Post-Mortem
Earlier in the year, I said that Caputo's chief goals for this program and his own career would be to go .500 or better with the team he inherited, and I thought that would come chiefly from non-conference wins. Never in my life did I expect us to get to .500 because of a winning record in conference. There were some real stinkers (see UCSD, Pepperdine, American, SJU), but some real pleasant surprises as well.
My season highlights:
- Five conference road wins, the most since (EDIT: 2015-16) 2010-11, when the team had five and only the third season since then to have five road wins or more in the full season. You have to go back to 2005-06 to have more than five conference road wins.
- The consistent emergence of Bishop and Adams, who flourished this year in better-defined roles. Much as I really loved Brayon and Bamisile, it might have been some addition by subtraction.
- The highest-scoring team in the Atlantic 10 (thanks to Bishop and Freeman finishing #1 and #5 in scoring average, respectively).
- Max Edwards arriving as the best rebounding guard since Joe McDonald.
- A vastly improved student attendance this season, and the best, most consistent student turnout since 2015-16.
My wish list:
- Better post play
- No longer doing the wave in the Smith Center
- Not having the conference's worst defense to go with our best offense.
All in all, I think the Caputo staff deserves an A- for their performance this year. There's more optimism among the fan base than I've seen since spring 2016, players' roles seemed better defined than in years' past, and the team got better and better as the year went on. I just can't help but think that this team could have had 18 or 19 wins if they'd taken care of business against teams like AU, UCSD and Pepperdine.
Last edited by creeksandzeeks (3/10/2023 11:00 am)
- The Dude
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Nice summary, largely agree, although not sure I'd say Bray and JoeBam were addition by subtraction, would have liked to see two full seasons with them JB and BA all together
Good post though I think you captured the season very well
- Skittles
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Just an ammendum, we had 5 conference road wins in 15-16 as well. Great analysis and summary of a promising season!
- creeksandzeeks
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Skittles wrote:
Just an ammendum, we had 5 conference road wins in 15-16 as well. Great analysis and summary of a promising season!
Always happy to be corrected, but per GWsports, the 7 road wins that year were USF, UCF, UMASS*, Mason*, VCU*, Duquesne*, Monmouth (NIT).
- •
Thread Starter- DC Native
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Just an ammendum, we had 5 conference road wins in 15-16 as well. Great analysis and summary of a promising season!
Always happy to be corrected, but per GWsports, the 7 road wins that year were USF, UCF, UMASS*, Mason*, VCU*, Duquesne*, Monmouth (NIT).
According to ESPN.com, they also win at Richmond on Feb 24. But this does not diminish this year’s accomplishment!
- creeksandzeeks
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Just an ammendum, we had 5 conference road wins in 15-16 as well. Great analysis and summary of a promising season!
Always happy to be corrected, but per GWsports, the 7 road wins that year were USF, UCF, UMASS*, Mason*, VCU*, Duquesne*, Monmouth (NIT).
According to ESPN.com, they also win at Richmond on Feb 24. But this does not diminish this year’s accomplishment!
How utterly bizarre. GW has the same score listed for both sides of the home and home on GWsports.com that year. Richmond’s site confirms y’all are correct. My (their?) bad.
- •
Thread Starter- DC Native
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Always happy to be corrected, but per GWsports, the 7 road wins that year were USF, UCF, UMASS*, Mason*, VCU*, Duquesne*, Monmouth (NIT).According to ESPN.com, they also win at Richmond on Feb 24. But this does not diminish this year’s accomplishment!
How utterly bizarre. GW has the same score listed for both sides of the home and home on GWsports.com that year. Richmond’s site confirms y’all are correct. My (their?) bad.
It is strange. The box score on the GWSports site is wrong, but the recap is correct.
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
My wish for next season is that we become quicker and more athletic. That would go a long way to curing the defensive woes. . In terms of what to lose, I generally enjoy everything about the Smith Center in terms of their putting on an event, but please in the name of everything holy lose the damn wave. To me, the wave is a spontanious, genuine expression of boredom with the game. It is even worse when it is a staged event. Besides, it is so 1990s.
Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (3/10/2023 11:17 am)
- GWRising
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Clearly 2022-23 exceeded expectations. This is especially true when you realize that CC had a very limited roster in terms of numbers that made it difficult to practice and to sub. We can get into all the pros and cons of the season but as I've told you this year is a one off and as far as personnel, it will likely have little influence on the future. The lack of roster continuity will mean that CC will be really building his own program personnel-wise this off season. He did a great job coaching up someone else's players. Now he gets to build the program in the manner he wants. I think we saw enough out of CC to know that the coaching will be fine. The next task will be to attract and/or retain talent. The next 6 weeks will be critical in that regard.
My sense is CC is going to build a roster with the type of players he knows can compete short and long term in the A-10 and that will be a combination of freshmen and transfers. I also think he is going to be judicious in using all of his scholarships for 2023-24. I'd imagine he might use 10-11 and retain a few for the future rather than just fill spots with guys who will be in next year's transfer portal. I would expect him to also build his walk-on pool so that he can have full practices even with injuries or absences especially if he does not use all available scholarships. We've seen a little of the types of players CC will recruit to GW in the three freshmen guards, I suspect the next 6 weeks will give you more insight and I am more interested to see how it plays out rather than discussing the pros and cons of the 2022-23 season.
That all said, congratulations to Brendan, Ricky, Qwanzi, EJ and Amir on their senior seasons and best of luck to all of them in the future. I hope that James and Hunter return and we will have to see what is in store for Noel, Keegan, Jabari and Daniel. Right now, it appears that only Max is a lock to return.
Last edited by GWRising (3/10/2023 12:19 pm)
- BC
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
LSF, who doesn't want faster more athletic kids? And don't forget height, and smarts and good looks! 
- Skittles
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
LSF, who doesn't want faster more athletic kids? And don't forget height, and smarts and good looks!
The good looks is vital to the winning formula
- Alum '04
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
Earlier in the year, I said that Caputo's chief goals for this program and his own career would be to go .500 or better with the team he inherited, and I thought that would come chiefly from non-conference wins. Never in my life did I expect us to get to .500 because of a winning record in conference. There were some real stinkers (see UCSD, Pepperdine, American, SJU), but some real pleasant surprises as well.
My season highlights:
- Five conference road wins, the most since (EDIT: 2015-16) 2010-11, when the team had five and only the third season since then to have five road wins or more in the full season. You have to go back to 2005-06 to have more than five conference road wins.
- The consistent emergence of Bishop and Adams, who flourished this year in better-defined roles. Much as I really loved Brayon and Bamisile, it might have been some addition by subtraction.
- The highest-scoring team in the Atlantic 10 (thanks to Bishop and Freeman finishing #1 and #5 in scoring average, respectively).
- Max Edwards arriving as the best rebounding guard since Joe McDonald.
- A vastly improved student attendance this season, and the best, most consistent student turnout since 2015-16.
My wish list:
- Better post play
- No longer doing the wave in the Smith Center
- Not having the conference's worst defense to go with our best offense.
All in all, I think the Caputo staff deserves an A- for their performance this year. There's more optimism among the fan base than I've seen since spring 2016, players' roles seemed better defined than in years' past, and the team got better and better as the year went on. I just can't help but think that this team could have had 18 or 19 wins if they'd taken care of business against teams like AU, UCSD and Pepperdine.
Wow, well said. Improved rebounding really stuck out. JC's teams were the worst rebounders and that always drove me nuts. CC's are much much better rebounders, both guards and forwards.
Was so refreshing to see them get better in the second half of the year. When is the last time that happened?
Seeing improved student attendance was great as well. The VCU game was electric. Too bad it only happens every few years or so.
- Ralphie
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
All in all, a positive year. No one regressed - everyone seemed to improve. For me, the nadir was the Hawaii tournament. We finished dead last to a rather motley collection of mostly low mid-major West Coast flotsam. This should really help our SOCAL recruiting, eh ? Ouch ! I was frankly hoping we'd blow through the Tournament looking good and inspiring a boost to our West Coast reputation as a tough, gritty East Coast option with a good looking uniform and some interesting all-around cachet (academics, international players, Red Auerbach, Jarvis years, short walk to the White House, etc.). Loved the Dayton and Mason wins, and a winning Conference record was the biggest of surprises. I actually felt we could/might win every game after Dayton. I'll admit it - for the previous 2-3 years it was a rarity for me to watch an entire TV game that we lost, and my attendance at the Smitty had dropped precipitously. Too painfully predictable and sad. Not so this year as we at least always kept competing. Gotta give our new Coach a ton of credit for the turnaround. There was real evidence of halftime adjustments and mixing up schemes and trying to figure out how to rebound and get some stops once in a while, etc. Big change from the last few post-ML years. For the first time in a good while, I'm looking forward to next season with some degree of excitement.
- moneybox
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Re: 2022-23 Post-Mortem
A terrific season, particularly if you take into account that Caputo may have had the least productive bench in all of college basketball.