@david_korn4
Darren Buchanan Jr. and Makayla Andrews will be joining head coaches Chris Caputo and Caroline McCombs at A-10 Media Day in Washington, D.C. on Monday, Oct 7.

Buchanan and Caputo are scheduled to speak at 3:35 p.m. ET, followed by McCombs and Andrews and 3:45.

Rhode Island picked 11th? Get ready to wish Arch well in his next stop.

dmvpiranha wrote:

Seeing McCombs and WBB picked 12th in the preseason is tough to see though. The first year was hurt greatly by COVID and can be excused but last year in particular was such a disappointment. I feel like she relied on Rizzotti recruits too much, the returners did not grow at all, the offensive scheme/dribble handoffs seemingly went nowhere, and player availability has continued to be a question mark. Hopefully the guards on this year's team can shoot a bit more consistently. The departures might be overvalued in the preseason projection given they did not contribute to winning. GW has a lot of new pieces this year but if a player or two cannot make all conference by the end of the year that would be a bad sign. Times have changed in CBB but I just don't see why the Revs can't be more competitive on the WBB side at least.
 

I was also disappointed in the 12th place ranking, but not totally surprised given the general lack of appreciation for transfers throughout the conference. It sets a low bar for expectations, but hopefully it provides motivation for the team, and especially the coaching staff, who would be hard pressed to ask for another year of patience after a 12th place finish (or worse). After the top two teams, Richmond and St. Joes (who both have outstanding front court talent), the talent of the preseason all-conference selections drops off, and it looks like GW has a pathway to improve on last year’s performance and finish better than 12th place this year. The Revs appear to have the talent to do it, but chemistry is another matter. This season is a big test for the coaching staff, in what may be their last chance.

 

Poog wrote:

xAC: Have the impression that chemistry will not be an issue for the women’s team this year. Lot of new elements to blend together, on the court and on the coaching staff, but there’s also a greater depth of talent on both. Looks like a make or break year for a couple of GW teams with Michael Lipitz in as the new AD. WBB is probably one of those. I’m expecting a safely passing grade when all is said and done.

You can't be great at everything, but right now it seems that only Volleyball and the Swimming/Diving programs are getting better than a safely passing grade, and others are barely passing if at all. I'm rooting for every coach to survive, but we also need more programs that thrive.

The Dude wrote:

creeksandzeeks wrote:

Poog wrote:

xAC: Have the impression that chemistry will not be an issue for the women’s team this year. Lot of new elements to blend together, on the court and on the coaching staff, but there’s also a greater depth of talent on both. Looks like a make or break year for a couple of GW teams with Michael Lipitz in as the new AD. WBB is probably one of those. I’m expecting a safely passing grade when all is said and done.

You can't be great at everything, but right now it seems that only Volleyball and the Swimming/Diving programs are getting better than a safely passing grade, and others are barely passing if at all. I'm rooting for every coach to survive, but we also need more programs that thrive.

Or we could actually wait for programs to rebuild, instead of using this site as a never ending whine fest. GW is picked 13th out of 15, but of course no one knows anything except a few constantly evolving anonymous new names on a niche fan site.   
A registration that actually matches an an actual GWU.edu email address to a new name would go a long way to give 1 fan 1 name 1 opinion.  I've been connected to GW for 30 years and I know about 4 people who genuinely care about not just hoops but all the sports programs, and they dont use a niche basketball site to whine but gee the constantly evolving new names and parade of ML worshipping 1971s sure do a lot of that! I wonder what could explain that

We know Chris was brought in to get the program rebuilt and its underway, but its an obvi work in progress. He's been here 2 seasons and a lot of good has been done already.   Losing your best player to a season ending injury and navigating the new world of NIL with no $$$ coming in from the fans to pay for the NIL is rather tricky

Here's an idea, instead of whining on this site, donate some $$$ to the GW NIL to support your fav college team and the players on the team.

Want the program to win? support the team, whining non stop has both ruined the site and suppressed alumni involvement and now we literally need it to field a winning team, this isn't 1993 and it sure isn't 1969-1973

Dude, follow your own advice. Still waiting on that six-figure donation.

I think there's a happy medium between saying it's not helpful to call for the firing of a coach after 1 bad season while also aspiring to have successful (or at a minimum not cellar-dwelling) athletics.

Outside of the basketball programs, I'm inclined to give a longer leash to our coaches.  Unless one of our programs starts bubbling up to consistently compete for A10 titles (like maybe our Swimming and Diving), it's not really helpful to spend money churning through coaching changes.  I'd rather use extra money for our basketball teams.  

One thing I am looking out for is how much the AD relies on search firms for his hires.  It's been discussed here, but it's an open secret that ADs will often use search firms because it increases the chances that the same search firms will recommend the AD for their next job.  If and when our basketball jobs open, I would much rather the AD convene a brain trust to run the search as opposed to deferring to whomever Parker Executive Search says we should interview.  For example, I think within 1 day of our MBB job opening, multiple people were throwing out CC's name as a target.  If the AD is doing their job well, there simply is no reason to spend 6 figures to a search firm to tell you who may be good fits for GW.

Last edited by GW0509 (10/08/2024 1:20 pm)

Gwmayhem wrote:

Pay CC at a higher salary than Jamion, pay Jamion 2 full years not to coach, AND pay a search firm?  Hard to believe that GW athletics are so underfunded, isn't it?

That's the thing.  I don't think our basketball team is underfunded by the university. At least that's not what the AD said at the open practice.  He said there is money to buy the games we want to buy and travel the way we want to travel. I guess you could say we are "underfunded" in that CC can't retain his better ACs, but I suspect that's not what's being argued.

The reality is MBB has become pay for play.  As I've said in the past, I don't think it's productive to comment on anyone's finances on this site.  But I think it would be denying the obvious to not say that in order to retain the players we recruit and attract veteran transfers, there is a certain minimum level of NIL.  Or we need to hope Cooper Handelsman becomes the second coming of Billy Beane.

A couple of things I'll be looking at this season:

1) Can GW get back to winning the close games?  You may recall CC winning his first 5 or 6 games that went into overtime.  Looking at A10 play only, GW was 5-1 in games decided by 6 or fewer points, a notable stat for a team that went 10-8 in conference games and 16-16 overall.  A year prior, Jamion's record was 4-2 in such games.  However, last season, the team with better depth than the prior two seasons sunk to 2-6 in these games.  Injuries were of course a significant factor, but there is something to be said for being able to pull together and win the close ones.  Playing a top-heavy conference schedule at home, I'd anticipate a number of matchups where the outcome will not be decided until inside of the game's final two minutes.

2) The somewhat opposite stat has not been pleasant to GW in recent seasons.  The team was 1-7 last year in conference games decided by double figures, 2-7 in 2022-23, and 2-7 the year before that.  This translates to almost half of the team's conference games being decided by 10+ points with GW winning less than 1/4 of these contests during this time.  Given the team's overall record, winning so few of these games is far less surprising than noting that so many A10 games have been noncompetitive (and yes, I realize you can lose by 10-12 and still play cpmpetitively but the line needs to be drawn somewhere so I am using double figures as the barometer).  So let's see if GW is better equipped to keep more A10 games close, even if it's not necessarily ready to win a number of these games against the superior opponents.