I am convinced more than ever that JC was the right hire at the right time. But like anything else he will need time to get this right. We were in a huge hole talent-wise and program-wise so it's going to take some time to get out. But you can see JC has a plan and it's unfolding. I suspect we have not seen the last of the personnel changes. Therefore, expect this off-season to continue to be one of transition. But for the first time since probably the day of the NIT championship, hope is alive and well in Foggy Bottom.

Agree with the above posts. Luke wasn't actually an ML recruit - I believe he came to the team the following year from Charlotte and elected to burn a year of eligibility as a walk-on since he saw no action for the 49ers in his first year.

I always thought the GW moving down in competition talk to be silly (D3 in particular seems like real hyperbole). My thoughts on that even being a remote possibility had more to do with the commitment from the administration to compete at a high level (I believe our investment was either second to last or last in the league from numbers published earlier). Considering UMass and us are basically the flagship schools of the conference, I doubted we were going to leave the conference, especially since a school like La Salle who is financially in more trouble is still in the league. I am optimistic that this is changing - the renovations to the Smith Center being a good start. Having gone to some games, the arena certainly looks a lot better and brighter overall than previous years.

JC definitely talked a big game in his introductory press conference (always wanting to be at GW is something that I want to believe more than I actually believe) and the comments he made like the Jarvis ones definitely sounded good but I wanted to see what would actually happen over the course of the season on the court.

From November to now, I've been very impressed to see the team's growth. This season was never going to be about wins or losses, but the progression to actually looking like a team that could compete was important to me. JC has preached "connectiveness" many times, and I think the team has shown just that over the course of the year. Looking at just last season, the guys on the team were never on the same page. Each game it had looked like they were taking the court together for the first time. You just had to look at the way we were passing the ball. The number of passes thrown away out of bounds was maddening. I've seen almost no cases of that this season, and the staff deserves a lot of credit for that. This is before getting into the actual play on both sides of the ball.

That is partly why I was more positive coming out of the Fordham game. No, I never want to lose to a team like Fordham, but it's hard to win when you shoot the ball as poorly as we did Wednesday night. Unlike the previous year where we had very poor floor spacing and were chucking the ball towards the hoop, I saw some good set up plays that weren't always finished well. That's a difference to me. It's easy to be more forgiving when you see well designed plays with limited offensive talent that couldn't finish them than having no set plays and seeing guys not knowing what to do on the floor - in that case, it's hard to point fingers as to whether the talent is bad or the coaching is, and that's a bigger problem.

Defensively, I thought we had one of our best performances if not best. Fordham made an unreal number of deep threes and bad midrange shots, but I'm not faulting our defense for that. We didn't give them exactly easy shots, they just made tough ones and even with that only just managed to reach their season average. I know Fordham doesn't have strong bigs, but still. The metrics probably have the UMass game as the best defensive performance, but they mayhem was the best I've seen all season on Wednesday. We had 11 steals, which I know is a season high without even looking into the numbers. Fordham ranked top 25 nationally last year in fewest turnovers committed last season, and although they aren't quite there this year, having 11 steals in any game is impressive. Our defense helped keep us in the game when shots just refused to fall. The bigger picture in all of this is that I've seen continued progression literally every game this season, and credit goes to the staff again for that.

One other thing I want to mention is the contributions from everyone on the team this year. The GMU game definitely sticks out with guys like Mezie and Shawn contributing. Ace has given us good minutes all season. Mezie and Shawn haven't had consistent playing time, but have stepped up big of late when their number is called. This speaks to good coaching for me. I know some here are probably not very high on Shawn, but he has played within himself all season and limited terrible mistakes. He has shown great poise at the point at times as well. The rotations have been a bit random at times, but the other side to it is that it has kept almost everyone happy. I believe 11 different guys have started at least one game this season. JC rewards guys for putting in good practices, and you have to earn your way into the starting lineup from game to game. I like that.

I similarly feel that we can still steal some games this season (not in the Dayton/VCU tier), and had the same thoughts about the Davidson game, although we haven't been quite as strong defending the three recently as earlier in the year (especially when a screen is set - we tend to get stuck underneath at times). Overall, I feel like the future is bright.
 

Team never gave up against Fordham, which was really good.
Digging such a hole against a bad team that desperately tried to give us the game was very bad.
As was sticking with the idea of jocking up 3s when they were clearly not falling.
 A lot of more complex things going into the equation of whether this is a sign
of growth or we are just losing games. Feels better than it should at this record, but the last game
really laid an egg.
  Need to see where we are today at home--and how we finish the season--before we can determine whether our hopes are just glimmers or actually portend the future we all would like to see.

Fred...I believe Battle and Paar were Mojo recruits, not JC.  Still credit for the administration in convincing them to stay after Mojo was fired.   And therein lies the key to our future.   We seem to have a system in place (although I am not always certain what our offensive system is other than dribble penetration by Potter and Nelson and 3 point bombs by Jack and Battle).  The question is whether Christian can recruit quality recruits for his system that will elevate the program to where we want to be (IMO top 4 in the conference and an at large contender).    It is one thing for a new coach to rapidly turn around a struggling program and make a 20 plus loss team a 500 team by implementing a smart system (no play on words intended) and coaching up the players...it is quite another to turn that team into a contender after 2 or 3 seasons, and in the end, you are not going to do that simply by coaching up an average roster...you are going to need the horses, and only time will tell if JC is going to be able to bring in the quality recruits to come to GW ala Jarvis, Hobbs, Lonergan and even Penders (who indeed brought some excellent talent to GW)  But yes, I am pleased with the progress so far.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (1/25/2020 10:50 am)

I’m glad we don’t totally suck like last year. Tempering my Kool Aid consumption is wondering how good next years class is?
I’m very interested if a first year difference maker emerges.

GWRising wrote:

Next year's class contains four players so far if you count Hunter Dean. I think Dean will make the most immediate impact followed by Ball who will be solid but not spectacular. Brown is going to be good but will need to develop. Brelsford is the wild card. 

Also Sloan Seymour.  Probably the most immediate impact new face.  MAAC all-freshman team shooting 37% from three.