1 of 1- Gwmayhem
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First Year At GW
This century, I don't believe any GW coach did a better job in his first year than Chris Caputo.
Caputo went 16-16 overall, 10-8 in conference play. He inherited a team that was 12-18, 8-9 a season ago. His only newcomer of consequence was Max Edwards. He managed to keep the majority of JC's core together, including JB, Brendan, Ricky and Hunter.
Jamion went 12-20 overall, 6-12 in conference play, in his first season. He inherited a team that had gone 9-24, 4-14 under MoJo. JC kept MoJo recruit Jamison Battle and added Jameer Nelson Jr. His key returnees included Armel Potter, Maceo Jack, Arnaldo Toro, and Justin Mazzulla who would leave the team mid-season.
MoJo went 20-15 overall, 10-8 in conference play, after being named head coach weeks before the start of practice. He inherited the NIT Championship team which went 28-10, 11-7 in conference play. Tyler, Yuta and to a lesser extent, Jordan Roland were his key returnees. He also inherited Lonergan's next big freshman class which included Jair, Marfo, C. Smith, and Toro, along with transfers Sina and Steeves.
ML went 10-21 overall and 5-11 in conference play during his initial season. He inherited a team that had gone 17-14 overall and 10-6 in conference play. While CC earns much credit for adapting his coaching to fit the personnel he had, ML was just not adaptable at asking KH recruits to play his style. By year 3, ML's team would be 24-9/11-5, but the first two years were trying. John Kopriva was the sole recruit of consequence and inherited players included Tony Taylor, Lasan Kromah, David Pellom, Dwayne Smith and Nemanja Mikic.
Karl Hobbs went 12-16/5-11 in year 1, with the Pops/Mike/Omar class being a year away. Tom Penders left him a mess both on-court (14-18/6-10 in his final season) and off. KH retained Penders recruit TJ Thompson and Tamal Forchion to join holdovers Chris Monroe, Greg Collucci and Jason Smith among others.
The common denominator for the most part is an understandable inability to attract a robust recruiting class largely due to the timing involved when the school made its coaching changes. The exception here is MoJo who retained a full freshman class because he was not promoted until September in which case it was too late for anyone to leave the program.
I would say Chris and staff accomplished the most given what they had to work with than anyone else on this list.
- DC Native
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Re: First Year At GW
I agree, although I don’t think it really shows in the win-loss records you show above. What gives him the edge to me is the dramatic improvement I saw throughout the year. To go 10-8 in A10 play, including big wins @ George Mason and vs. Dayton, was pretty remarkable after going 6-7 in a weak OOC schedule, including dreadful losses at home to UC San Diego and American. I’m looking forward to seeing what he can do when he is able to work with his own recruits.
- GW Alum Abroad
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Re: First Year At GW
If you manipulate the sample size to just 5 people (two of who took over after complete shitstorms), you might reach that conclusion. Deservered or not, Penders took GW to the NCAA´s his first season and Jarvis took GW to its first-ever NIT in his debut as Colonials coach. Those would be better baseline metrics.
Of course, both of those things happened before Y2K was a punchline, so not "this century" (for any of you too young to remember, Y2K was a misguided belief that the end of the century-- not to be confused with The Ramones album "End of the Century"-- would cause computers to collapse and destroy human civilization; it was a wack-a-doodle idea amost as crackpot as 5G towers spreading COVID and machines "stealing" the 2020 election, but was taken much more seriously).
- Gwmayhem
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Re: First Year At GW
Yes GWAA, I limited my post to this century. Don't think of it as manipulating sample size as much as you can think of it as I am only familiar with 5 other GW head coaches and had I taken the time to write up these five, I could bet that you or someone else would have pointed out how I missed someone from the 1930's.
To address the two you mentioned, I would agree that Mike Jarvis tops the list, adding a couple of his recruits to an under .500 team and earning a spot in the NIT in year 1. No GW coach hit the ground running, given their starting point, any better than MJ. As for Penders, this exercise is not nearly as cut and dried as where did the team finish in year 1. If it were, wouldn't Penders with an NCAA berth eclipse Jarvis with an NIT berth? TP inherited a 24 win team that was nationally ranked as high as #17 and who lost in the first round of the NCAA's. He led them to a 20 win season along with a first round loss in the NCAA's. Whereas Caputo and Jarvis clearly improved their teams in year 1, the same can not be said of Penders.
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