In an exhibition tilt, Luke Hunger poured in 22 points on 5 made 3's in the first half against those pesky Engineers of MIT.    Please bring on the regular season

Agree losing Hunger hurt. Liked him a lot. Interested to see how he does against us. Poorly, I hope.  

Hunger had a 5 game stretch in the meat of the A10 schedule where he scored 17, 21, 31, 24 and 20
35 for 58 from the field, 8 for 13 from 3, 46 boards.   

31 points 10 boards and 3 for 3 from 3  in a 72-53 win over George Mason.

I think we saw Hunger was capable of being much more than just a back up Center and would have played a big role on this year's squad.

Hope you're right that both end up being better but that remains to be seen.

Lovro certainly looked like he might be in one scrimmage and Vukovic played well for Oklahoma State last year off the bench.   
 

Last edited by The Dude (10/26/2026 11:05 pm)

StJoe’s beat Georgetown in an exhibition. Just like last year, Georgetown’s shooting came down to earth when they weren’t playing us, though perhaps the real story is how efficient the Hawks’ offense was.

Free Quebec wrote:

StJoe’s beat Georgetown in an exhibition. Just like last year, Georgetown’s shooting came down to earth when they weren’t playing us, though perhaps the real story is how efficient the Hawks’ offense was.

There is perhaps another story that we should own up to.  In three out of CC's four seasons, GW's defensive FG percentage on three-point shots have been pretty poor.  The first two seasons were particularly poor ranking in the 260's nationally.  This became a point of emphasis two seasons ago when GW held opponents to 31.6% three-point shooting which ranked 66th nationally.  Last season, this slipped to 33.5% which was right about at the midpoint nationwide (170th).

I realize it's become easy to chalk this up to bad luck, as if to say that opposing players or teams always seem to have career shooting nights against GW.  But maybe, this may have something to do with the way the team plays defense.  Straight up man-to-man defense often takes a back seat to either switching when picks are set or attempted double teams that result in a wide open three point shooter.

These aren't free throws where a 70% shooting team at the line shoots 22-25 against us.  That's bad luck.  This, however, is not.

It’s also our first game with a real crowd, so that probably contributes to some overeagerness.

As for the three point shooting defense, I think part of CC’s goal this offseason was to get bigger on the perimeter to make it harder on opponents.  That said, when we trap and help, we’re likely to continue giving up open looks.

Most of the angst in watching Coach Caputo style team play seems to come on the defensive side of the ball.  We saw the concerted effort by James Bishop to be better at fighting over the top of high picks instead of repeatedly going under them.  We also saw the "switch everything" D take any mystery out of the split decision-making required on every pick.  Somewhere between pure "man to man" and "switch everything" is the hard edging help on most picks where all 5 players participate by repostioning into passing lanes with those long arms deflecting and disrupting the oppostion.  The closeouts on threes is hard work which requires a team commitment and anticipating the next play after the closeout is successful.  All the great teams closeout well because it's a priority drilled on every day.  Breaking the press and foul shooting has also been nerve racking to watch.  

With all the frustration in recent years aside, this team looks Promising (pun intended,) and gives us reason to be optimistic.  There will be upside surprises and downside disappointments.  Hopefully we see steady improvement and cohesiveness as the season unfolds.  Bring on Navy!!!

Fun game.  Very spiritual ND comeback with their mix of transfers.  And a Kwame Evans Jr sighting for Villanova

GW73 wrote:

Christian Jones didn't start today for Murray State in a 88-62 win over Tennessee State. He played 17 minutes, 2 pts, 0-3 from 3, 2 assists, 4 turnovers, 2 steals.

Hopefully he got his NIL check up front 

First day in the books! (Will probably only do this sometimes during the season)

A10 games
#10 Houston 94, La Salle 55 - Dockery fouled out in six minutes, so LAS basically had no chance. Moss had five points in 19 minutes off the bench.

#17 Kansas 95, Fordham 65 - game was more competitive than the final score showed. Patrick seems like a good player for Fordham and they have a good freshman in Koureissi.

George Mason 82, UMBC 54 - I was bummed that we were unable to land Pendergrass out of HS. He'll be a good player for Mason and is already making an impact as a freshman.

VCU 82, Little Rock 72 - former SLU coach Travis Ford gave the Rams quite a scare. Martelli is probably going to chew his team out.

Youngstown State 79, St. Bonaventure 71 - The D2 transfer Philipkoski appears to have had a good game, but they were missing Blackwood who got hurt kicking a trash can. Figures to be a reset year for the Bonnies, because I don't think the Penguins were picked very high in the Horizon.

Richmond 100, UNC Asheville 77 - All five Spider starters finished in double figures. Penn State transfer Stewart (who had a GW offer out of HS) led all players with 29 on a super efficient 12 shots. Kaiser was also a standout coming from Butler with 16. 28 assists as a team is very impressive against any D1 team. Can Mooney bounce back this year?

Dayton 89, NJIT 58 - Derkack may win FOY for Dayton. Both he and L'Etang had double-doubles.

Saint Louis 92, Lehigh 67 - It felt like SLU was going through the motions in the first game, but it was a balanced effort. This probably doesn't matter if/when Avila is back playing.

Loyola 77, CItadel 52 - Dayan led all scorers with 19 points for the Ramblers. They have Jayden Dawson back, and their French PG Grotzinger seems like a stud (he had 11 assists). Also liked the Jeffrey pickup. Question is how much better they will be this year.

Davidson 76, Washington State 61 - probably the most impressive result of the night. I wasn't as high on Wazzu as KenPom coming into the year, but if Davidson is making threes (something they haven't been doing in recent seasons) they will be a tough out. Brown, Janowski, and Scovens combined for 60. The bench only contributed three points, but the top end talent is good. Platteeuw second year breakout?

OOC Opponent Results
San Francisco 76, Radford 72
Utah State 94, Idaho State 58 - USU has a player from Alaska Kingston Tosi who scored 26 points in 27 minutes off the bench.
Western Kentucky 83, Morehead State 58 - Teagan Moore will be a problem when we face WKU.
Cincinnati 79, American 53
Florida Atlantic 74, LIU 60
Elon 84, Columbia 71
McNeese 99, UAB 78

Other Notables/Former Player Performances
East Texas A&M 68, Oklahoma 64 - Porter Moser joins Billy Lange in losing to ETAMU.
Memphis 80, #16 Iowa State 76 - Perhaps Penny doesn't need Andrija after all!
Bryant 80, Siena 75 - Keegan led the way with 20 points and 12 rebounds. Happy to see him doing well.
South Florida 98, Charleston Southern 71 - Garrett started and scored five points in 19 minutes.
Wisconsin 75, Denver 68 - Tricky went 0-2 in 5 minutes off the bench.
Pittsburgh 95, Rider 57 - Ty started for the Broncs and had a rough 0-8 shooting day with just 1 point in 24 minutes.
Old Dominion 61, Western Michigan 49 - Bubu and Zam both started for ODU. Benjamin had 9, while Weluche-Ume went scoreless.
Murray State 94, Tennessee State 64 - CJ with just 2 points in 17 minutes off the bench.
UMass 71, Troy 60 - Jacoi started and had 10 points/4 rebounds/5 assists for the Trojans.