Joel Joseph wrote:

Hearing a lot of descriptions for this season - debacle, shit show, lost team, etc.
CC had 14 wins total last season (nobody counts wins over D-3 (Western Connecticut State) and D-2 (Virginia State) schools). That was primarily with JC's players. We are now at 13 wins (not counting D-2 Bowie State). This team not only lacks talent to win in the A-10 but looks like it has quit the last couple games. I'm not sure we can win another game or 2 even in the play-in game. Maybe we should go back to scheduling more competitive pre-conference games to get us better prepared for the conference season instead of propping up our record for various reasons.

 
I know this much…..donors and season ticket holders will vigorously object to the kind of bullshit OOC lineup CC posted this year. I know (and understand) that this is the philosophy he learned at Miami in the ACC. But it doesn’t compute at GW in the A10. I was willing to suck it up no let him prove me wrong, but the cataclysmic stretch of the last 11 games, with a distinct stench of regression and lack of strategic competence, has made it unsustainable. He is on a knife-edge credibility wise.  If he were to lose Jun and/or Jacoi the red light on the dashboard is going to explode.

It's all quite puzzling. I talked to several people who were at their first GW game in awhile.
One left at the half. Tried to explain we often come back, to get within say 4 points--and then blow it, as I believe LSF accurately predicted last away game nightmare.
   That comeback didn't really happen yesterday, although there were a few feints at chipping away the huge lead.
Tried to explain to others that we had a lot of talent and a coach who certainly seems very smart and experienced basketball wise. While Garrett, a great addition was out, Jun, really the best player on the team, was back in, so the injury bug wasn't an excuse for that margin from the get-g
   It doesn't really add up. And doesn't really matter at this point. Unless we have a miracle run and get to the A-10 final, which given our inability to win 1 out of 10 league games, is unlikely. This season is cooked, otherwise, though would welcome that unlikely scenario.
  One series of plays sums it up. James takes the ball up and dribbles of his legs or his foot and we somehow recover it, lose it again and then recall on the next play Max or Jacoi (the turnovers all run together) lost the ball before we got near the basket. Now, Jacoi is an excellent prospect for the future and Max is a great rebounder who counters our huge weakness at GW.  And James has scored a lot of points for the Colonials/Revs.
    But for some reason, even with Jun and Stretch, who can sometimes be a defensive force, it doesn't work together. We'll see next year if a different dynamic occurs.
    But right now, there seems to be absolutely no sense of urgency. Down say 15, with a few minutes left may not best time to work down the clock with one person dribbling and shooting as the shot clock expires. Even if it is successful, the time element works against us. Movement, passing and looking for the open man seems to be a formula that works for the teams that beat us, so that might even be worth a try. 
     Know we have been told to relax, it's all good, and enjoy the ride.
Don't want to seem critical. But to be honest, while there actually is hope for next year if healthy players remain and we get usable big men, the ride has been shall we say, a tad more bumpy than anyone could expect.

Last edited by jf (2/28/2024 5:07 pm)

GW0509 wrote:

Alum1 wrote:

 
I know this much…..donors and season ticket holders will vigorously object to the kind of bullshit OOC lineup CC posted this year. I know (and understand) that this is the philosophy he learned at Miami in the ACC. But it doesn’t compute at GW in the A10.

Please call CC and offer him your services to help schedule our OOC slate next season. I’m sure you can convince these “tough” schools to play us at home even though we offer nothing to them. Why should a lower tier Big East / ACC team play GW when they can play Mississippi Valley State at home and win by 50? The latter helps their resume more than the former.

CC himself said he could call up schools and just play buy games like the lower D1 schools. How does that benefit season ticket holders if we’re on the road for 2/3 of our OOC slate?

After Dayton, SLU played the hardest OOC schedule in the A-10. Didn’t seem to help them in conference play.  UMass played the 29th easiest OOC and are tied for 5th. 

So let’s say we swap Alcorn State and Navy for East Carolina and Austin Peay (two schools George Mason got to play them at home). You really think that will get season ticket holders packing the Smith Center?

 
Not surprisingly given your typical views, you so narrowly interpreted my point as to miss it completely.  Was I typing too fast for you?

I wasn’t suggesting that they pick up the phone and do the impossible. What I am suggesting is that CC’s philosophy of scheduling “as many buy games as the administration will give him”  against cupcakes is open for debate amd scrutiny. I would much rather have my school hit the road against better competition to actually get better and give recruits more of a vision that is currently being offered.  His view is that OOC doesn’t matter…gimme  as many cupcakes at home as Tanya will pay for. That’s fine if you can tell recruits you’ll also be playing Duke, UNC, NC State, etc etc in the regular season. That’s where In think he’s  gotten it wrong. Because right now it’s - you’ll get to play the Coppin States of the world 10 times at home and the.n you get to step it up and go to ……Olean.

So yeah, I’d rather try to get some home and aways with a better caliber of mid majors and hit the road for games that would actually help us improve.

Now, go grab your Crayolas and sit quietly in the corner and color.

Last edited by Alum1 (2/28/2024 10:01 pm)

I think the criticisms of the OOC schedule are overblown. If you believe that our current NET ranking of 204 adequately reflects where we are, then we played 5 OOC games against higher ranked teams and 7 against lower ranked teams (I'm not counting the D2 game). People remember that we played South Carolina (47), but they seem to forget that we also played Hofstra (122), Ohio (150), UIC (179), and Delaware (155). As I have said in the past, I would love to see us replace the 300+ teams with more mid-major teams (I'm not expecting more than 1 or 2 P6 teams a year), but maybe Caputo knew that we were going to struggle this year and needed to build some confidence. It certainly worked for the first 4 games of A10 play, but then a couple bad games seemed to drain all of this young team's confidence and they have never recovered.
Another way to look at this is that of our 6 "good" wins this year (i.e., wins against higher NET ranked teams), half of them were in the OOC. And despite what we all think and feel, we technically only have one "bad" loss (@ St. Louis, 223). Only three other A10 losses are to sub 108 teams: URI (200), La Salle (194), and Fordham (178). So even if you think we should be significantly better than our current NET ranking, say 150, yes we should have won those 4 games, but we also should have lost @VCU (73), Davidson (108), and Mason (92). So we would be only 1 win better than now in conference if we were a 150 team with no good wins or bad losses.
The unfortunate truth is that we are firmly in the bottom 5 of the A10 right now in terms of talent and experience. Caputo took a gamble by playing such a young team this year. If he is able to keep them around, this gamble could really pay off. If they all bolt, though, then he may end up being our 3rd three year coach in a row...

Last edited by DC Native (2/29/2024 9:32 am)

GWRising wrote:

DC Native wrote:

I think the criticisms of the OOC schedule are overblown. If you believe that our current NET ranking of 204 adequately reflects where we are, then we played 5 OOC games against higher ranked teams and 7 against lower ranked teams (I'm not counting the D2 game). People remember that we played South Carolina (47), but they seem to forget that we also played Hofstra (122), Ohio (150), UIC (179), and Delaware (155). As I have said in the past, I would love to see us replace the 300+ teams with more mid-major teams (I'm not expecting more than 1 or 2 P6 teams a year), but maybe Caputo knew that we were going to struggle this year and needed to build some confidence. It certainly worked for the first 4 games of A10 play, but then a couple bad games seemed to drain all of this young team's confidence and they have never recovered.
Another way to look at this is that of our 6 "good" wins this year (i.e., wins against higher NET ranked teams), half of them were in the OOC. And despite what we all think and feel, we technically only have one "bad" loss (@ St. Louis, 223). Only three other A10 losses are to sub 108 teams: URI (200), La Salle (194), and Fordham (178). So even if you think we should be significantly better than our current NET ranking, say 150, yes we should have won those 4 games, but we also should have lost @VCU (73), Davidson (108), and Mason (92). So we would be only 1 win better than now in conference if we were a 150 team with no good wins or bad losses.
The unfortunate truth is that we are firmly in the bottom 5 of the A10 right now in terms of talent and experience. Caputo took a gamble by playing such a young team this year. If he is able to keep them around, this gamble could really pay off. If they all bolt, though, then he may end up being our 3rd three year coach in a row...

A couple of points to this whole debate ...

1. Largely agree with DC Native about the OOC schedule. Also the idea that the OOC schedule is affecting us now 15 games into the A-10 schedule is nonsense. I continue to ask this question. If the OOC left us so unprepared for Conference play, how was it that we were an OT away from starting A-10 play at 4-0? I'd really like an answer to that. Rather, again, a number of things have worked in combination to conspire against us during this current losing streak be it injuries, illness, youth, size, poor shooting, teams adjusting to our style of play, etc. On the list of problems the OOC schedule is well down the list.

2. I don't thank some of you understand how difficult it is to schedule OOC top 50-100 games these days. First of all, many P5 schools won't even play GW and those that will will only do it at home. I know one B10 head coach who told me he wouldn't play GW, not even at home. He said with an in-state rivalry game against another P5 school, the B10 schedule, a B10 challenge game, and a MTE, he has all the challenging games he needs. What he needs to do is to schedule wins. GW fits into the category, at least historically, of a school that might be able to beat a P5 on a given day. No one is buying GW to lose and you really (recently) don't get any more benefit out of beating GW than you do a bottom 1/3 team.. Better to buy Stonehill or Central Connecticut State. So the options are very limited for CC to begin with. It's not as easy as saying we are going to go out and play X on the road. Times have changed tremendously and GW is in the proverbial no-man's land right now. Ironically, if we can get better we will get better MTE's etc. That may be our only real option right now. I promise Tony Bennett is not coming to Smith Center anymore and neither is CC's mentor Jim Larranaga, despite the relationship. It just doesn't make sense.

3. I get people are frustrated over the streak. But if you can see the forest through the trees a bit we have some good young building blocks (assuming they stay) - Jun, Jacoi and Garrett. Undoubtedly CC needs to add some veterans to this group especially up-front. But it's a start and if the right moves are made this offseason, I expect this team could be vastly better a year from now. No one likes losing and if you think CC is content with it - think again.

4. CC will be here for at least another two seasons barring something unforeseen. He has time to build this, the losing streak notwithstanding. GW is not moving on from him after 3 seasons. After all, there is no longer a renegade CFO out to get him.

5. I can assure you there is probably not a waking moment where CC is not consumed by how to get this right. He will make the changes necessary to get it right whether that be personnel, coaching or both.
 

My only response is that although no reasonable person thinks we can scheduled a bunch more South Carolinas (top 100), I don't see why we can't schedule more teams like Hofstra, Ohio, UIC, and Delaware (100-200). I think the OOC was OK this year, but if we improve and get more experienced, loading the OOC schedule with a bunch of teams like Stonehill, Coppin State, UMES, William & Mary, and Navy (300+) doesn't make much sense to me. I would schedule as many 100-250 teams as I can, as that is what will best prepare the team for A10 play.

GWRising wrote:

3. I get people are frustrated over the streak. But if you can see the forest through the trees a bit we have some good young building blocks (assuming they stay) - Jun, Jacoi and Garrett. Undoubtedly CC needs to add some veterans to this group especially up-front. But it's a start and if the right moves are made this offseason
 

The transfer portal opens March 18 and runs 45 days into May.  We should have most of our answers and reasons for hope or varying degrees of despair after the portal closes.  I remain skeptical that GW can fully compete or meet some of our highest expectations in the new NIL world and college free-agency, but I will reserve judgment until that time.          
 

Last edited by Merrick (2/29/2024 10:59 am)

1) Let's again try to answer this question.  The OOC schedule allowed the team to win games while at the same time, get away with poor habits.  It likely also developed an artificially inflated sense of accomplishment, particularly for a young team.  It's very hard to preach the importance of taking care of the ball, or weak side rebounding, or playing team defense against pick and rolls, when the team is winning despite these flaws.

2) So why were we able to start conference play 3-1?  First, it's not like these flaws went away during these four games.  Second, it was clear that teams were still laser focused on stopping JB and not nearly concerned enough with how to play Jun.  Third, because even the worst teams in a conference tend to win a handful of conference games each season.  We just happened to win ours early.  It would be hard to argue that a 4 game sample size is as reliable as a 15 game sample size.

3) Illness and injuries have certainly played a role in the losing streak.  As for the other factors Rising mentioned, we are the same size and have the same youth as we did when we were 14-3.  It should be crystal clear that these deficiencies simply did not matter when going up against Stonehill and Coppin State.

4) We should definitely be scheduling 3 Top 100 opponents in the OOC annually.  Creeksandzeeks is correct:  suck it up and play on the road.  Give the team opportunities to play against more formidable competition.  The team can learn plenty by losing at South Carolina by 20.  Not going to learn very much by beating sub-300 teams by 20.  For every P6 team who refuses to play GW even at home, I'll bet there are at least 5 who would happily schedule this game.

5) And yes, more emphasis should be placed on scheduling quality midmajors.  This year's MTE was actually a good event for the team.  Winning a close game against Ohio is far more of an accomplishment than winning a close game against Alcorn State.  As for not being able to predict which schools will fall in that 100-225 range, let's take our chances.  Here's a way to look at it.. of Stonehill, William & Mary, New Hampshire, Navy, Coppin State, Bowie State, Alcorn State, and UMES, tell me which of these schools were far more competitive a season or two ago and have badly plummeted since this time?  These programs did not just suddenly get bad.  We knew this when they were scheduled.
 

Gwmayhem wrote:

1) Let's again try to answer this question.  The OOC schedule allowed the team to win games while at the same time, get away with poor habits.  It likely also developed an artificially inflated sense of accomplishment, particularly for a young team.  It's very hard to preach the importance of taking care of the ball, or weak side rebounding, or playing team defense against pick and rolls, when the team is winning despite these flaws.

2) So why were we able to start conference play 3-1?  First, it's not like these flaws went away during these four games.  Second, it was clear that teams were still laser focused on stopping JB and not nearly concerned enough with how to play Jun.  Third, because even the worst teams in a conference tend to win a handful of conference games each season.  We just happened to win ours early.  It would be hard to argue that a 4 game sample size is as reliable as a 15 game sample size.

3) Illness and injuries have certainly played a role in the losing streak.  As for the other factors Rising mentioned, we are the same size and have the same youth as we did when we were 14-3.  It should be crystal clear that these deficiencies simply did not matter when going up against Stonehill and Coppin State.

4) We should definitely be scheduling 3 Top 100 opponents in the OOC annually.  Creeksandzeeks is correct:  suck it up and play on the road.  Give the team opportunities to play against more formidable competition.  The team can learn plenty by losing at South Carolina by 20.  Not going to learn very much by beating sub-300 teams by 20.  For every P6 team who refuses to play GW even at home, I'll bet there are at least 5 who would happily schedule this game.

5) And yes, more emphasis should be placed on scheduling quality midmajors.  This year's MTE was actually a good event for the team.  Winning a close game against Ohio is far more of an accomplishment than winning a close game against Alcorn State.  As for not being able to predict which schools will fall in that 100-225 range, let's take our chances.  Here's a way to look at it.. of Stonehill, William & Mary, New Hampshire, Navy, Coppin State, Bowie State, Alcorn State, and UMES, tell me which of these schools were far more competitive a season or two ago and have badly plummeted since this time?  These programs did not just suddenly get bad.  We knew this when they were scheduled.
 

1. So if the OOC schedule ill-prepared us to play the Conference schedule, wouldn't it stand to reason we would have been worse at the start and better as we gained experience against tougher competition?
2. If playing more teams like South Carolina would have helped us why didn't playing South Carolina help us?
3. How are you able to judge the team demeanor after the OOC?
4. Coaches do watch film of their own games to self-scout. You don't think they knew the deficiencies before this streak and spoke about them with the team and tried to improve them all during the OOC?
5. Show me a case in A-10 history where a team started 3-1 and then proceeded to lose 11 straight. If there are any, I bet in the long history of the A-10 there might less than 2 or 3. 
6. if you know of 5 P6 teams that will play GW at home for everyone that won't please list them here. It should be an easy exercise.

Very hard to engage with you over topics that are impossible to prove.  Of course I can't name specific schools that would have agreed to play GW this year on their home courts.  It's also not my job to make these calls.  The likelihood is that we made very few if any of these calls.  CC has said and others have hinted that we don't want to schedule one-and-dones on the road.  Well, the big boys are certainly not going to give us many home-and homes (unless there is a specific reason for them to travel to DC, like Larranaga did for Chris Lykes) and even two-for-ones are becoming harder to come by.  So, I made by statement because it's common sense.  You just can't convince me that the vast majority of P6 schools would refuse to play GW, on their home court, without a return game.  Meanwhile, I'm still waiting for your answer as to which of those schools I mentioned that we played this year were demonstrably better a year or two ago?  Teams these days are raising or lowering their rankings by 125-150 spots year-to-year?  How many of those are there?  We schedule Hofstra knowing in advance what kind of program they are.  They lose their best player from a year ago and yet they remain a tough out. 

Also, I am not arguing that the OOC schedule was solely responsible for the team's demise (though this appears how you are arguing it because this is what you tend to do).  Of course, there were many other factors that contributed to this.  But you seem to feel that the OOC schedule had nothing to do with it and that's where I disagree.  The point that you are either unwilling to comprehend or accept is that the team would likely have worked much harder on their flaws and could perhaps come out of this a better team if they had played several tougher games against better competition.  Of course this is a speculative statement as there is no way to know with absolute certainty what would have happened under different circumstances. But again, it's merely common sense.  Let's say your child barely studied for an important test in school.  You weren't happy about their laziness.  Now, don't you think your words of discipline would resonate more with your child if they got a C as opposed to if they received an A?  Don't you think your child would be prone to study harder for the next test coming off of a C than an A? 

It's no different here.  In November and December, this team had obvious flaws that needed to be improved upon, but the team was winning.  Did a young team work harder and harder to get better, or maybe it believed Mike DeSourcey when he had GW as one of his first teams out of the tournament?  Maybe the flaws weren't a huge concern due to the record, regardless of the record being borderline fraudulent against a soft schedule. 

3-1 certainly proved to be an anomaly.  Perhaps we caught teams at the right time.  VCU was off of a home loss to SBU and with a new coach and new system, could be considered vulnerable at that point in time.  Davidson and Mason were each off of consecutive losses and neither has been a juggernaut this year. 

I'd also say that South Carolina did help us.  After giving up a barrage of 3's in that game, the team held its next two opponents to a combined 20% shooting from 3. 
 

Come on Rising, stop being an apologist for CC. Of course he spends sleepless nights trying to figure out how to turn this thing around. Like anyone, he wants to keep the job paying him $750,000 a year. He needs to start recruiting, teaching and winning in a hurry.
Don't compare this years schedule to last year because last year was God awful (with a D-3 and D-2 team to go with the bottom feeder D-1 teams).
Fact is we suck, have sucked for the last 7 years and will continue to suck in the foreseeable future while the board "experts" give their opinions on what factors are causing this. News Flash! - it's a combination of all 25-30 factors we have been discussing for years.