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1 of 1- Gwmayhem
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GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Pleasant surprises are the equivalent of never seeing something coming. If we looked at this from the context of a team, the discussion would like start and end with the Sweet 16 (for you glass half full types; the glass half empty types might point to the 1-27 campaign which only took place several seasons earlier). So for this thread, let's do a top 5 ranking of GW players who turned out to be the most pleasant of surprises.
To each his own but for me, I would be hesitant to include guys like Zeke Armwood nor Tyler Cavanaugh, guys who averaged 17 and 21 minutes per game in their final seasons at larger programs, but who stood to flourish with even more playing time at GW. There is an exception to this rule on my list but for a good reason. Yuta came close to making my list but the reality is that he showed steady improvement during each of his 4 seasons at GW, so not exactly a surprise. One guy who made my list did not put up scintillating numbers but his overall effect on a team was enough for me to consider him. Without further ado, let's start with this player first:
5) Carl Elliott, Senior Season. Playing with Pops, Mike, JR, Omar and Mo, Carl had already experienced his share of triumphs during his first three GW seasons. Unfortunately for him, Carl's final season carried very little by way of expectation for the 2006-07 Colonials. Carl still ran the point but was also expected to take on more of the scoring load alongside Maureece Rice. The results included career highs in scoring, offense and defensive rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks. It also included a dismal 27% shooting percentage from 3. Nevertheless, it was Carl seemingly willing his less experienced team to victories, including a second A10 Championship, that lands Carl's senior season on this list.
4) Rafael Castro, Junior Season. Unlike Armwood and Cavanaugh, Slim was essentially an afterthought while playing at Providence, averaging single digits in minutes played each of his first two seasons. You may recall that around this time last year, the prevailing thought was that Sean Hansen would be the dependable big man who could hit a 3 while Castro might likely serve as his backup. Chris Caputo essentially changed his offense mid-season to better accommodate Castro's strengths. After shooting 66% from the floor during his limited sophomore season, Slim actually improved upon that number in 2024-25. As for the rest of his numbers, let's just say that Slim scored more than three times as many points, grabbed more than twice as many rebounds, stole the ball more than twice as many times, and blocked nearly twice as many shots, as his freshman and sophomore seasons combined.
3) Shawnta Rogers, Freshman Season. Some will argue that Shawnta does not belong on this list because most knew how good a player he was coming in. Well, at 5' 4", count me as one who needed to see it first at the D1 level. Shawnta's A10 Player of the Year senior season was unquestionably his finest, but as pleasant surprises go, sign me up for Year 1. After joining the team late due to an academic issue, Shawnta went on to average 10.5 points per game, 4.7 rebounds per game, 6.5 assists per game and 2 steals (his senior year, assists and rebounds were close to the same but the scoring averaged nearly doubled and the steals total blossomed to 3.6 per game). The natural comparisons are Muggsy Bogues who played sparingly at Wake Forest during his freshman year, and Spud Webb who had comparable numbers to Shawnta's freshman year but as a Juco transfer, was already a Junior by the time he suited up for NC State.
2) SirValient Brown, Freshman Season. Val came so close to finishing #1 on this list but at least we'll safe a very happy ending for that distinction. As for the first Tom Penders recruit, SirVal was a local product who planned on playing for TP at Texas and then reversed course when TP was dismissed in Austin and landed in DC. We all had a strong inkling that he could ball prior to his arrival, and the fact that he was determined to play for the "run and gun" style that TP became popular for was also indicative of how Val chose to play. What could not have been forecast was that a freshman at GW would be battling to lead the nation in scoring (he would finish in second place to Courtney Alexander). Everything else about this was mediocre at best; a 15-15 team, 33.2% shooting from the floor, 26.4% shooting from 3, and just 2.1 assists per game (assists, as we know, gets in the way of one's scoring). We also know that Val turned out to be a chronic class-cutter who essentially copped to this on Nightline. His two seasons playing for GW were his only seasons playing college ball. Still, this gets a high ranking as a pleasant surprise because simply put, Val's exploits were a national story, finishing the year averaging 24.6 points per game. No, that was very tough to see coming.
1) Maurice Creek, Senior Season. What separates Creek from Zeke, or Tyler, is obviously his injury history. Mo was a sensational freshman at Indiana, averaging 16.4 points per game highlighted by an astronomical 44.8% clip from 3 before having his season cut short to a season-ending injury. As a sophomore, a stress fracture in his knee ended that season prematurely. Then, days before the start of his third season, a freak accident resulted in a torn left achilles. No basketball that season. Mo would play one more season at Indiana but after three injuries within a span of 22 months and having lost his role to Victor Oladipo, he was a fraction of the player he had been, averaging less than 8 minutes of playing time while shooting less than 30% from the floor. When Mike Lonergan brought him to GW for one final season of eligibility, there we absolutely no guarantees as to which Mo Creek to expect. The answer was the one who beat the Terps at the buzzer, helped pave the way to wins over Miami and Creighton, and participated in GW's most recent NCAA tournament appearance in 2014. Mo Creek was the most pleasant of pleasant GW surprises.
- Mike K
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
What a great stroll down memory lane!
- GWRising
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
I guess it depends on what your definition of a "surprise" is. But I would say that neither Rogers or Brown were surprises if you saw them play in HS. Both were highly touted incoming freshmen.
I can go with Castro, Creek (based on IU), and Elliott (based on little fanfare). Other worthy contenders but there are many more depending how far you want to go back ...
Cavanaugh
Mike King
Kevin Larsen
Kwame Evans
- GWAlum2001
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Deeper cut...Dokun Akingbade. Walk on to key contributor on 2007 A10 winning squad
- Mike K
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
How about Mike K(ing)'s first game!!
- creeksandzeeks
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Dokun was my first instinct, for sure. Alex Mitola would also be on my list.
- dmvpiranha
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
They didn't play on particularly good teams, but I'd add Armel Potter's second year and BA's senior season with CC. I guess you could make the argument that both had more opportunity those years compared to before (and Armel perhaps benefitted from Mazzulla leaving after the first few games).
Under Mojo, Potter was a bench option on what was one of GW's worst teams in several decades, so expecting him to play a key role on a better team (albeit only marginally better) was a surprise. BA's progression as a shooter was a pleasant surprise given his career averages.
Funnily enough, it was Mike Jarvis who told Armel to stick it out with JC as coach:
- Hugh
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
I would include Yuta here. If my memory serves me correctly he was a bit of an afterthought of what seemed like talented recruiting class coming in (Paul Jorgensen, Matt Cimino, Anthony Swan were all more highly touted). But it was clear even just after the exhibition game of his freshman year that he was the best of the bunch. And I wouldn't have expected him to go on to be DPOY and stick in the NBA for several years in part because of his defense.
Last edited by Hugh (4/30/2025 4:59 pm)
- ppeck56
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Antione Hart's senior season was a surprise.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
My comments on your comments:
1) Not suggesting that Shawnta or Val weren't very gifted high school players. Despite this, did we know that a 5' 4" player could be so impactful during his freshman year, especially after seeing Muggsy receive limited minutes as a freshman or Spud start out in junior college? Or that as gifted as he was, that SirValient would almost win the nation's scoring title as a freshman? No matter how they were regarded coming out of high school, these sure were surprises to me.
2) Cavanaugh accomplished too much at Wake to be considered a real surprise. King is a good choice. I could not put a Larsen or Garino on my list because they came from such great high school programs. Even if they weren't the primary or secondary options in high school, you knew they were well coached. Which season would you use for Kwame? He played sparingly as a freshman so maybe his sophomore season?
3) Dokun? Excellent choice. Walk-on to scholarship players are generally pleasant surprises. Being a key component of a team's success is icing on the cake.
4) Mitola? Not close on my list. He was a pretty dominant Ivy League player (at a time when the Ivy was less competitive than it is today) and his skills translated to being a useful but by no means stellar player at GW. I will give him one of the biggest baskets in the school's history, but not this.
5) Potter? YES! That's what this list is about. Nobody could have possibly seen Armel's second GW season after witnessing his first. My only rationale for mentally blocking him from an All Pleasant Surprise Team is that he played on such unpleasant GW teams.
6) Yuta? I like Hugh's rationale. I was looking at his season-to-season growth without factoring that the only two schools that were battling for him were GW and Fordham. This may have had much to do with language barriers coupled with not knowing how to truly evaluate him (Japan's best high school player means what exactly in the US?) but placed in the context of where he finished relative to where he started, Yuta was indeed one of the school's most pleasant surprises.
7) Hart? I'll put Antoine in the same boat as Jason Smith. Guys who did not do all that much until their senior seasons. Both were nice success stories and pleasant surprises, but neither would crack my top 5.
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Thread Starter- GW Alum Abroad
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
#1) Joe McKeown-- yeah GWmayhem said "players". So sue me. Hired in mid-August after his predecessor quit a few weeks earlier after one season, McKeown arrived at F St from NMSU (where he had amassed a nice W-L record in a very minor conference) and quickly announced that the Colonials were going to run-and-gun despite the squad having been built by a Vivian Stringer defense-oriented protegé. Few observers thought he would last more than two or three years in the big city in a powerhouse conference featuring St Joe´s, WVU and Rutgers. One glance at the Smith Center rafters shows how wrong that presumption was.
#2) Gerald Jackson-- GW and JuCo transfers are paired about as commonly as Beyoncé and Iron Maiden, but in this case it worked out very well for both. Without Jackson, the 1-27 season may very well have come a year or two earlier. With Max Blank´s knees never recovering, Jackson´s hustle and range saved the team from what would quickly become its fate. And I am very much aware that naming him means that to tell me my age you might need to use Carbon 14.
#3) Mike Jarvis-- hired from BU, the reaction on campus to his hiring was "well, he can´t be any worse than John Keuster, right. Right?". Soon, GW hoops went from being unknown even on campus to the social darling of DC-- even the President of the United States was calling the school to get tickets. Sigh, those were the days.
#4) Yegor Mescheriakov-- Jarvis made the "international pipeline" a thing, but when he began there was lots of skepticism and no one generated more than Yegor (OK, Alberto Roma did, too, but that was justified). A hit-and-miss frosh season did not help, but then in his soph campaign in 96-97 Yegor became a mainstay scoring 16.6ppg with 6+ rebounds per game... and the rest is history,
#5) Mary K Nordling-- GW knew they were getting the tallest player in the conference when she arrived, but her frosh year was a total bust as she was quickly exposed as being soft inside on defense and unsure with the ball. Her refusal to ever get mad didn´t help and she seemed more a liability than an asset, barely seeing court time. Two years later, after coaches made her switch from a My Little Pony mouthguard to an all black one that made her look like Darth Vader, she anchored the paint in the team´s run to GW basketball´s first ever NCAA tournment win, men´s or women´s, leading the A10 in blocked shots for three years in a row.
Castro´s emergence during A10 play this season and KevLar being so dominant his final season are good honourable mentions. Also, would be remiss not to give a shout out to Rodney Patterson for not just playing at all but playing well after his cancer diagnosis (and Garrett Johnson can join him on the "all inspirational" next season).
- Free Quebec
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
ppeck56 wrote:
Antione Hart's senior season was a surprise.
Love this call. Personally, there’s no one who really surprised me beyond their first year - but Hart would be the closest. He always showed flashes his first three years, but the explosion his senior year was definitely not expected (right off the net with a huge game in an upset at top 25 Syracuse).
Also wasn’t surprised by Shawnta because of his recruiting rankings or Castro (other than his passing) because his providence numbers weren’t far off what he did for us.
I would say:
1) Lasan Kromah - he was a late recruit and a local guy with no hype at all. Don’t think anyone on the board even speculated on him being part of the rotation - and then he comes out as a freshman and is our best guard (and eventually is 6th man for a national champion). I think he’s a clear #1 on this list.
2) Mike King - his arrival was highly anticipated so he had some hype, but his first extended minutes in the Xavier game were the stuff of legend.
3) Yegor - yeah, we heard we had a PF from Belarus coming in, but the first time he touched the ball in the preseason, he spun his man and dunked it on him. I thought, woah, so it’s gonna be like that! Big surprise that he was that athletic and that skilled.
4) SirValient Brown - we knew we had a guy who went to a bunch of high schools, but I don’t think anyone on the old Herve board knew he was going to be the kind of player that could almost lead the nation in scoring as a freshman.
5) JR Pinnock - this is a stretch because one recruiting service had him ranked in the top 70 recruits, but all the hype and excitement was about Ricky Lucas (also a top 70 recruit by other services) and some on the board openly questioned the point of signing Pinnock when we had Lucas. Little did we know he’d be that exciting.
6) Christian Jones - I don’t think any of us thought he would be good enough to take over for Jacoi or to completely transform our perimeter defense after years of guards being awful defensively.
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Definitely put me in for Dokun. More recently, I thought both Brendan Adams and Hunter Dean were both very pleasant surprises. If you want to go back to more ancient times (not Joe Hollup ancient, but still old), I would suggest both Dr. Mike Zagardo and Dr. Steve Frick.
- H&R..71
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Agree with many above.
After seeing Yinka (r.i.p.) play in high school with that NBA body and little else, it was amazing to see him improve his skills all the way to the NBA.
My other is Joe McDonald who had the heart of a lion. He steadily improved his offensive skills but it was the 110% effort he brought everyday. He played through the hip pain and after his surgery came back stronger. His passion rubbed off on his teammates and it was a pleasure watching him play that lockdown D.
- DC Native
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
The one that comes to mind for me is the senior year of John Kopriva. Dr. John was a complete non-factor his first three years at GW, but became a solid contributor and fan favorite his senior year, which I did not see coming...
- porter71
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Not much of a stat stuffer, but I would go with Matt Hart. Dude was a key contributor on one very good team, and one team that should have been good but underachieved due to not great coaching. This guy came to us from the D3 ranks, but you wouldn't know it.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Some additional comments on your comments:
1) After my last post, I gave some thought to who I may have missed and the name that popped into my mind was Lasan Kromah, so I am glad that FQ mentioned him. I believe that his was a class of 6 freshmen and Lasan was rated 5th out of the 6, well behind guys like Tim Johnson and Brian Bynes. Lasan's freshman year was terrific. Who knows how great a player he would have been had he stayed completely healthy.
2) I have a tough time recalling what the buzz was surrounding Yegor. Clearly Koul was the headliner who received more fanfare a season earlier. Maybe Yegor's sophomore season when he received more playing time and made the most of it?
3) I do recall being very excited about landing Pinnock (Lucas did get more positive vibes but that may have been due to his being from the area). JR was great and I thought he'd be good, so yes to a pleasant surprise but for me, no to being a top 5 pleasant surprise.
4) Christian Jones makes the rare leap from redshirt to all-rookie team. Good choice.
5) Brendan Adams's final season is a great choice. So much better than his first GW season.
6) No to Hunter Dean. Improved yes, but just not solid enough.
7) Mike Zagardo was already a solid big man by the time I got to GW. He did make a statistical leap starting with his sophomore season.
8) Steve Frick's junior season. Pleasant surprise, not Top 5 IMO.
9) Joe McDonald was an absolute stud for Landon. He makes many great lists but not a pleasant surprise list IMO.
10) Improved senior season for Dr. John, not a Top 5 IMO.
11) Matt Hart was an insane outside shooter who went from D3 to NIT Championship contributor. Great story but again, not a Top 5 IMO.
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Thread Starter- Longing For Oscar-Real1
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Re: GW's All Time Pleasant Surprise Team
Yuta, significant improvement every year and had a great first year, even if underutilized.
Mike King. Like Yuta, came to the program with little fanfare and far exceeded expectations.
Patricio. Maybe it was just me, but it became clearer and clearer to me that he was a special player as he progressed through his first season. Didn't expect it.
Christian Jones. Other than CC and maybe Jones himself, I don't think many expected the kind of season he had.
I hadn't thought about SirValient, but I should have.