Agree that this team lacks the Joe Mac grit, floor general, leadership player.  We all see the deficiencies in Dinkins, CJ, and Jean.  Imo the bigs are strong but negatively affected by the guards.  Many teams in the A10 start 4 guard like players with better foot speed than us.  The good teams value the ball with vice grip hands on possessions and impose their will on us.
 
We can dissect and analyze each player strength and weakness all day.  What surprises me is that no one here has mentioned the embarrassing substitution fiasco in the last minute!!!  Is anyone really surprised that what we saw was a confused group that couldn't even figure out who was supposed to be on the floor??  Let alone run a play??  Very troubling and disappointing!

 

I agree with GW Rising's analysis and the other comments about lack of leadership and point guard weakness. On WTOP radio this morning I heard Tony Skinn;s commentary on why Mason won the game. He said something like his team was more prepared and had. stronger will to win than did GW. And this is coming from a guy who played for Mason when Caputo was an assistant coach. I would hope our players would be really motivated by those words from Skinn when GW plays them again on Feb. 20.

GWRising wrote:

I'm going to attribute yesterday's game and perhaps several of the other disappointing losses to one constant theme which is becoming more apparent as the season progresses. This team lacks grit (mental toughness) and leadership on the floor.

It shows up time and time again. Missed FT's down the stretch, missed layups, key turnovers, failure to get the big stops, etc. Until we fix that, nothing is going to be much different. It leads to tremendous inconsistency within games and across games. Sometimes you can have all the talent in the world but not enough grit. This team has pretty good talent but not enough grit. 

And leadership? We don't have a floor leader. Mostly that may be because we don't have a true PG. But who is the vocal leader and who leads by example on this team? I don't have an answer to that question and I'd bet CC doesn't either.

So we can talk about  X's and O's and coaching decisions all day but those don't become really that relevant until the players show some grit and leadership.

I think Autry has grit. Every time the other team goes on a run and things seem to be slipping away, Autry hits a couple key buckets to get us back in it and recenter the team. But I agree the team has no floor leader. We also seem to lack a player that wants the ball in his hands with the game on the line.

GWRising wrote:

I'm going to attribute yesterday's game and perhaps several of the other disappointing losses to one constant theme which is becoming more apparent as the season progresses. This team lacks grit (mental toughness) and leadership on the floor.

It shows up time and time again. Missed FT's down the stretch, missed layups, key turnovers, failure to get the big stops, etc. Until we fix that, nothing is going to be much different. It leads to tremendous inconsistency within games and across games. Sometimes you can have all the talent in the world but not enough grit. This team has pretty good talent but not enough grit. 

And leadership? We don't have a floor leader. Mostly that may be because we don't have a true PG. But who is the vocal leader and who leads by example on this team? I don't have an answer to that question and I'd bet CC doesn't either.

So we can talk about  X's and O's and coaching decisions all day but those don't become really that relevant until the players show some grit and leadership.

This all goes back to CC - he didn't bring in a true PG.  The players who aren't showing grit are his players!  And despite his other seeming recruiting successes, I am starting to really wonder how much that's him vs what any other coach could do with the investments that have been made in the program.  
 

I wanted to offer some longer-term perspective on CC and his staff.  In certain respects, it is easier to become more disappointed about close games that don't go your way when the bar has been raised than blowout losses when expectations are minimal.  I firmly believe this is what we are experiencing.

While it should not take much reminding, I will nevertheless point out that this program could not have been much lower than during MoJo's final season.  MoJo was not personally the problem but his inexperience certainly was.  He should have never been hired as head coach had GW conducted a coaching search like most schools would have while he was the interim.  Jamion was a breath of fresh air by comparison but came off more as a motivational speaker than a head basketball coach.  Anyone who publicly showed surprise over how much better the A10 level of play was than the MAAC (where he coached at Siena) probably should not have been handed the keys in the first place. 

This brings us to CC who had never been a head coach before but had plenty of big-time experience.  He showed up knowing all about the area as well as GW's basketball history.  The program under his watch has indeed elevated, perhaps not to Top 4 A10 material yet but away from pillow fight discussions as well.  Anyone from last year's team who wasn't a malcontent  (except Keegan who was a great guy but not a rotation player) who had eligibility wanted to come back and play for this staff again.  That ought to tell us all something.

It's very easy for folks on this board to criticize (it's what we often do here) about the lack of a true point guard or late game breakdowns that contribute to losses.  At the same time, I've concluded that what CC has done to help elevate the program, the added talent and better schedule, the additional nationally televised games, the perception of GW no longer being in the same sentence as La Salle or Fordham, leads me to believe that he is the right choice for this job.  So when we start questioning things like whether his contract should have been extended, I can only hope that those who do so have concluded that he is the wrong choice for the job, and that GW could do better with a different coach.

Tactically, I have disagreed with CC a number of times and have said so here.  That said, the fair thing to do is to weigh these frustrations against all that's gone right with the program over the past several seasons.  When I do this, I don't think even for a second that it was a mistake to extend CC's contract. 
 

GW Alum Abroad wrote:

Gwmayhem wrote:

I wanted to offer some longer-term perspective on CC and his staff.  In certain respects, it is easier to become more disappointed about close games that don't go your way when the bar has been raised than blowout losses when expectations are minimal.  I firmly believe this is what we are experiencing.

 

So, the program is better off than when Caputo became GW´s third coach in five seasons? I would certainly hope so. That still does not explain what the (bleep) that inbounds play HE DESIGNED/CALLED in the time out HE CALLED at the end of the Mason game was. Down three you toss a crosscourt pass to a guy the opposition would be keyed on? Does not take a John Wooden-level of basketball knowledge to figure out that even if the pass works there were probably better options available for the moment, including maybe getting the ball in to the hands of the guy who had been your best player that night (in this case, Johnson). 
I am not saying it is time to sharpen up the pichforks, but the fact that this team is facing an uphill battle just to get a second-straight invite to The Crown is reason enough to wonder what is needed to reach a higher level (yes, I know the top two needs are lots of NIL money and lots more NIL money).

So the play doesn't work and that makes it an ill-conceived, poorly designed play?  

First, nobody is expecting an across-the-court pass in that situation which sounds like the kind of thing that's easy to make fun of after the fact but in reality, makes sense.  Ideally, you'd like to execute on something that the defense is not expecting.  We also ran this play earlier in the season with success so let's not pretend that it would have been impossible for this to work.  Garrett set a good pick but Mason immediately switched onto Tre.  It's unclear whether Tre was supposed to flare towards the 3 point line (makes sense given time and score) or whether the goal was to get a quick layup.  This means that either Tre did not execute properly or Wu threw the pass to the wrong spot.  My guess is the former and maybe CC addressed this postgame which I did not listen to.

The problem was that there did not appear to be a contingency on the play should Tre be well defended.  Now, maybe there was but Wu thought he had Tre.  The point is there was absolutely nothing wrong with the play design, aside from it being riskier than some may have liked.  Again, the point was to get a good look presumably from 3 and the play was intended to do just that.
 

Gwmayhem wrote:

I wanted to offer some longer-term perspective on CC and his staff.  In certain respects, it is easier to become more disappointed about close games that don't go your way when the bar has been raised than blowout losses when expectations are minimal.  I firmly believe this is what we are experiencing.

While it should not take much reminding, I will nevertheless point out that this program could not have been much lower than during MoJo's final season.  MoJo was not personally the problem but his inexperience certainly was.  He should have never been hired as head coach had GW conducted a coaching search like most schools would have while he was the interim.  Jamion was a breath of fresh air by comparison but came off more as a motivational speaker than a head basketball coach.  Anyone who publicly showed surprise over how much better the A10 level of play was than the MAAC (where he coached at Siena) probably should not have been handed the keys in the first place. 

This brings us to CC who had never been a head coach before but had plenty of big-time experience.  He showed up knowing all about the area as well as GW's basketball history.  The program under his watch has indeed elevated, perhaps not to Top 4 A10 material yet but away from pillow fight discussions as well.  Anyone from last year's team who wasn't a malcontent  (except Keegan who was a great guy but not a rotation player) who had eligibility wanted to come back and play for this staff again.  That ought to tell us all something.

It's very easy for folks on this board to criticize (it's what we often do here) about the lack of a true point guard or late game breakdowns that contribute to losses.  At the same time, I've concluded that what CC has done to help elevate the program, the added talent and better schedule, the additional nationally televised games, the perception of GW no longer being in the same sentence as La Salle or Fordham, leads me to believe that he is the right choice for this job.  So when we start questioning things like whether his contract should have been extended, I can only hope that those who do so have concluded that he is the wrong choice for the job, and that GW could do better with a different coach.

Tactically, I have disagreed with CC a number of times and have said so here.  That said, the fair thing to do is to weigh these frustrations against all that's gone right with the program over the past several seasons.  When I do this, I don't think even for a second that it was a mistake to extend CC's contract. 
 

Agree with this. I think CC was the coach that GW needed based on where the program has been post-ML. On the court, we needed someone that could raise the floor of the program. Perhaps just as important was being able to unlock the money off the court. There's been discussion over the years that GW is a good job on paper, but previous coaches were not able to get the BoT and President to buy in (for one reason or another, sometimes out of their control - after all, during this time GW has cycled through several presidents as well). I think CC deserves a lot of credit for getting GW to commit to NIL this past offseason and he's done fairly well on the fundraising front too. All you have to do is look back to when we were landing transfers from Alabama State and Evansville to now where we are picking off another A10 team's leading scorer. A larger sample size will needed moving forward, but it's certainly a good start. The list that Goodman put out asking coaches to rank jobs in the A10 doesn't mean a lot, but the fact that GW is even in the conversation of a top 5 job in the league is thanks in part to the job CC has done to elevate it. I'd like to think if we were having the record Mason does, the attendance at home games would also be better as well.

Now this season being a slight disappointment is a somewhat separate discussion. The high expectations at least from me come from still having Slim on the team rather than the roster as a whole (interestingly, the best players on the team this year have all been returners. The transfers have all had moments, but have lacked consistency). It's felt like a decade since GW last had a big that was above average, let alone one of Castro's caliber. I question whether we'll have the frontcourt to be a contender in the future, especially if Luke ends up being the #1 option up front next year (fwiw I don't see that happening, but you never know how things go in the portal).

I think on the recruiting front the one thing that I feel like CC doesn't really actively look for is the gritty wing that will get after it on defense and make the opposition really uncomfortable. Mason under Skinn always seems to have that in abundance. Getting Bubu and Woo really excited me because they kind of check those boxes. While Bubu has been somewhat of a rough watch offensively, I think his absence was felt on defense Monday. Despite the botched inbound pass, I thought Woo did a lot of good things. Fly on the Wall said the team overall is 'more finesse than physical' and I think that sums it up well.
 

Agree with the comments from DMV and GW Rising, but I’m going to add something that will be unpopular. 

I think it takes some luck for us to be an ncaa tourney team, and we haven’t had it. Now that the BCS cartel has a stranglehold on college basketball, it’s really tough for us to be a tourney team. In fact, it takes a lot of luck. 

Everything has to break right.  Transfers have to click, team needs to stay mostly healthy, you have to get some in game breaks from opponents making mistakes and maybe your team hitting a lucky winner or two.

For us, so far, we haven’t gotten the breaks. In fact, theyve almost all done against us — we’ve been mostly healthy but have missed key guys in a majority of of our losses, we’ve had some opponents just have their games of their lives against us (Davidson, Murray St, that center from McNeese hasn’t even had 50% of that performance before or since), and we’ve made late game mistakes.

After how low we’ve been, I don’t think it’s an indictment of the coach to get us to the level where we’re so close, but things just haven’t quite clicked enough.  I think if you ran 100 simulations on this season, this would be a bottom 20% result.  Disappointing as it is; it’s just the way it goes some years at this level.

I do think KenPom tells the story pretty well.  We’re good enough to currently be ranked 74th.  We’ve shown the ability to be even better than that, but it just hasn’t quite worked out yet.  And given how efficient our team has been at both ends, I do believe being ranked as the 5th most unlucky team is about right (in that our record should be better than it is and sometimes it’s just little things that make all the difference, sometimes out of your control).

It may just be that I’m getting old and starved for good basketball after the last decade, but I’m enjoying this season.  Yes, I expected more and I’m frustrated by the losing, but the numbers don’t lie - this is literally the best offensive teams we’ve had in at least 30 years. Our defense has disappointed, but we’re still a fun team to watch - and given our depth and our ability to score the ball, I’m still hopeful that with a little luck regression, we can make a big run in the A10 tourney.

So let’s try to accept what we are (good, best in a decade, but not as good as we could be), enjoy the games, and support them tomorrow even if things aren’t going well.

Free Quebec wrote:

Also meant to add that this team reminds me of the NIT title team from a decade ago, in which the team underachieved its talent during the season and was disappointing (granted we didnt know at the time the impact of all the off court turmoil with the AD, which affected them).

That team was in the top 50 before the loss to DePaul at the end of December and was ranked 75th before postseason, almost exactly where we are today.

Let’s hope we can follow in that team’s footsteps and gel late.

Out of curiosity, in what way(s) does this team remind you of the 2016 team?  Starting 5 of Yuta, Patricio, Tyler, Joe MacDonald and Larson.  Solid at every position.  Other than Castro, this team, not so much.  And I think it's highly debatable that this 2025-26 team is underachieving. At this point in the year, I think it's clear that we are what we are. I think you may just be trolling, but if you are serious, it would be interesting to understand what makes you believe what you wrote.