The only thing that this team does consistently is shoot itself in the foot.  By not valuing each and every possession with the level of importance necessary for winning, you get plays like a Luke backboard breaking brick (say that 3 times fast lol) or a 12th row hook bullet pass from Slim on a key possession.  Not sure how you coach in more discipline but it sure is needed.  

Imo another necessary fix are the rotations.  How many times does a sub take a 3 on their first trip down the floor before getting loose.  Some coaches prohibit that!  The only substitution that would've made sense last night would've been to put in the bench players early.  There are ways to light a fire and get a teams attention when they clearly are not interested in competing.  It also sometimes appears to be total chaos when CC starts waving his arms to sub in and the players look totally confused.  And they looked like a confused rudderless group last night!!  

Considering the point spread, could this have been our worst loss ever at the Smith Center? In my 60 years of following the team, this just might be. We never showed up.

Just thought of another possibility. Ralph Sampson and Virginia at the Smithy. Not sure.

Painful game to watch.

Looking forward to an addition on the bench next year.

So help me out, analytics folks.  Was this a Quad 7 loss?  Or am I overreacting and it's really just a Quad 6?  More on that in a few minutes.

The constant here is us.  You and I.  It's not the coaching staff or the players or even the school's athletic director or administration.  We've seen results like this from CC (UC San Diego, AU), Jamion (Morgan State, Hampton, BU, AU, William & Mary), MoJo (Stony Brook, Siena, Rider), ML (Mount St Mary's, Youngstown State, Loyola-MD), KH (Coppin State, UMBC, ODU), Penders (Detroit Mercy, Siena two more times), and from Mike Jarvis (New Orleans, ODU again, Loyola-MD again).

The question is why doesn't the team who clearly should win end up losing?  As fans, we're conditioned to think that GW needs to take everyone seriously, not take any team for granted.  We ask ourselves, "when will this team finally learn it's lesson?"

And then we realize that this hasn't happened to Tre Dinkins in a GW uniform before last night.  (Sorry but not putting Murray State or McNeese in last night's category.)  Or that Rafael Castro had nothing to do with any of those losses to Siena.  While WE have seen situations like last night unfold time and time again, the fact is that this is all new to THIS particular team.  

You must have a great team to overcome this.  The 26-1 team in 2005-06 should have fallen to a 12 win Marshall team but miraculously escaped with an overtime win.  At 5-0 with one high quality neutral court win, some here (myself included) began to wonder if 2025-26 had the makings of a great team.  The realists knew that before this could be confirmed, the team would have to start putting away better competition.  The dreamers began fixating on our NET and KenPom rankings.  (I will amend this by saying that I see nothing wrong with using these tools to either: a) help illustrate how far the program has come in a short time or b) analyzing any school's at-large chances say in mid-to-late February.  Am not accusing but anyone who was thinking along the lines of 'GW's at-large chances in November and December" can only be perceived by me as a dreamer.)

I will assume that the team was looking ahead to Florida because: a) it's by far the biggest game on their OOC schedule with the chance to earn national headlines with an upset and b) they had undoubtedly just watched them play the night before.  Totally understandable but not at the expense of taking the court against an inferior opponent and essentially taking them for granted.  Rising should realize that every team in the country has massive turnover and likely needs time to become a cohesive group.  This may lead to a lesser level of play but it should not necessarily give any one team an advantage over another.

No, what happened last night was proof that so much of basketball pertains to confidence.  Justyn Fernandez was mentioned here several times and yet he was left alone for three early baskets.  I'd like to know when are we ever going to see a defense where one of our defenders sticks to the opponent's best scorer no matter what, even if this means that other players have to step up to beat us?  From there, the defense tightened (though both Dinkins and Aranguren were challenged to keep up with him) but by then, Fernandez had all the confidence in the world.  He had 16 points before the First Ladies or Cheerleaders were introduced to the audience.  

To their credit, GW played hard once it realized that it had to in order to have any shot at winning this game.  Unfortunately, they did so many little things wrong like missing short shots and free throws to again trapping without generating enough turnovers (Delaware had 15 for the game which is low given the fact that GW applied some form of pressing and traps throughout the entire game) while Delaware executed exceptionally well down the stretch. 

Even at halftime, you couldn't help but think that GW was back in the game and that the home team would turn things on exactly as they had 4 nights earlier against William & Mary.  The problem though is that the team also couldn't help but think this too.  Nothing gets handed to you.  As I said earlier, I am sure the Hens had a few days of very tough practices after losing in OT to Delaware State.  Did you think for a moment that they were not going to be properly motivated?  Or, did this simply not matter because as 21 1/2 point favorites, everyone just knew how much more talented GW was than Delaware?

I'll offer some perspective and some levity to close this:  as bad a night as it was for anyone remotely associated with GW basketball, it wasn't as bad as the day Sherrone Moore had.  And a line that I can't take credit for.. I wonder if Lane Kiffin is interested.  He's been at LSU long enough.

I hoped that after I woke up this morning that the Delaware game was just a nightmare. I was so much in shock that I really started to think that the game was thrown to get some bookie some money. With all the fraud and point shaving going on this really scared me. I felt better after the new conference. Bad practices, no energy, lack of desire, and bad coaching. My HS team won a State Championship last year. They had to play a slowdown team, and almost lost in the North Jersey Championship game. It was a nerve racking, slow game. Like last night. The team won because they showed confidence, patience, and a determination to win. And a good coach that energized the team. I just hope we can turn the season around. Apparently, the team will have to energized themselves. I hope so.

I wasn't able to watch the game as I don't have whatever service it was on, but one thing I noticed in the second half watching the ESPN live gameplay thing was three turnovers in quick succession by Tyrone Marshall, a bunch of fouls, and poor shooting. The team was under 23% from the floor in the second and 23.5% from three on 17 attempts. GW only had 12 turnovers which is good, but those three seemed to especially hurt the momentum.

I was enjoying the hype with this team... top 3 in conference with a chance to win the conference and/or go far in the conference tournament.  After seeing these 3 losses, I see us finishing 5/6 in the conference and perhaps winning 1 or 2 A10 tournament games... or is that being too optimistic?

firehobbs12 wrote:

Autry said in the presser that the practices have been uninspired, lacking energy and generally bad. Seems like a direct shot at the coaching...

100% no snark question, Why does the lack of energy have to be something a coach always is able to correct? I could easily make a case the older guys on the team failed to get the locker room right.