1 of 1- Gwmayhem
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Where Would This Rank?
Not to be all Debbie Downer on you, but the prospect of losing three games to Fordham in a single season is nothing short of horrifying. Fordham won 8 games all season yet was 2 for 2 against GW. (Shit, we won 9 games last year, just for a little perspective.) Fordham went 0-16 against every other school in the A10. Fordham had never won a game in the Nation's Capital (against GW anyway) in 16 previous attempts, until last week. In every conceivable way, going 0-3 against Fordham simply can't happen.
Yet in the very unlikely chance that this were to happen, where would this rank among the all-time great disappointments of GW Men's basketball? Defining a disappointment may vary from person to person. In no particular order, here are some candidates from playing horribly to being snakebitten:
Fairfield..The fact that it's still brought up to this day, over 16 years later, is a testament to the staying power of this collapse. Playing on the road, GW was up 17 with under 9 minutes left, and up 9 with 90 seconds left. They lost in OT to the underwhelming Stags.
Temple...A10 semifinals. The moment when Pat Ngongba "mysteriously" fouled Lynn Greer taking a three point shot, you pretty much knew the rest of the script. Greer made all three and GW was denied its first chance at an A10 Championship.
The Worst 2 Game Losing Streak in School History...It wasn't enough that the Colonials flew to Hawaii only to lose to Vermont and Hawaii. The generously named "7th Place Game" saw GW put an end to Coppin State's 10 game losing streak by rather unbelievably applying a 19-0 run against the Colonials. Four days later, GW was back on the Mainland where they proceeded to lose by 2 at Longwood in a game their coach referred to at the time as their greatest in school history. Just to recap, that would be Coppin state followed by Longwood during the 2008-09 season.
1-27: I don't know what to individually select but the collective body of work speaks for itself here.
Iowa: In the 1996 NCAA Tournament. GW up 17 with just over 8 minutes left. Iowa pressed a lot. GW lost its composure. It's response was to leave two timeouts on the scoreboard by game's end. UIowa ends the game on a 25-6 run, wins by 2.
Not Showing Up at the NCAA Tournament..You may feel that any NCAA game appearance doesn't deserve to be considered. Then again, when you score 44 over an entire game in losing to Vandy, or allow 108 over an entire game in losing to Indiana, you've showcased a rare ability to not show up at the Dance on both sides of the court.
Colin Goss: Yes, I did not want to single anyone out, but Goss's foul of Briante Weber that ended up turning Yuta's heroic three pointer with .3 seconds left into nothing more than three additional points for Yuta was about as stunning a finish as it gets. Bonus points for it taking place against VCU.
Fuckin X: After losing to X during the prior season by 2 and in overtime, GW believed it finally had itself a victory in Cincinnati. That was until David West tipped in a basket that required a lengthy review before the refs awarded the basket and 71-70 victory to the Musketeers. "Thank God for Television" is what Coach Thad Matta had to say after the game. Want more? How about Stanley Burrell's off balanced three pointer with .3 seconds left, resulting in a 66-65 home loss. Am sure there are others too. I don't miss them.
South Carolina: If you put down a bet at Mohegan Sun that the Gamecocks would go up by over 40 in the first half against GW, then you won. 49-8 to start the game.
AU: Not this year though losing at home certainly stung. I'll go with an 81-75 loss at Bender Arena (despite 26 apiece for Chris Monroe and TJ Thompson) which snapped a 9 game AU losing streak to GW. This game gets considered because this was/is a local rivalry where GW clearly had the upper hand. The loss resulted in GW ducking AU for years, and is the rough equivalent of GW showing up on Maryland's list of disappointments.
There's 10 huge disappointments. Would an 0-3 season against Fordham crack your list? Others to add or replace?
- BM
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Huge disappointments for me include the losses to KenPom #183 DePaul and #226 Saint Louis by the NIT championship team which effectively shut out an AWESOME group from the NCAA tournament. Not even going to talk about the late fade in the A-10 tournament against St Joe's. What could have been.
PS -
Not showing up at the NCAA tournament: You forgot 4 of 16 free throws including many front-ends against Georgia Tech in Nashville.
Goss's foul was against JaQuan Lewis. Webber graduated a few years before.
- BGF
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
To have disappointment, a supreme arrow-to-the-heart disappointment, I think you first need to have your expectations unrealistically elevated. For me, that was the 1991 A-10 Championship.
I was working for GW Athletics when GW went on an improbable run to what would have been their first league tournament title. We were the 4-seen and won two close games to make it to the championship, beating UMass and St. Joe's by a combined 3 points. Rutgers, the 1-seed, and the second-seeded each lost in the quarters.
My role was to chaperone the primarily student-filled fan buses to the Palestra. Up and back each day. in the quarters, we had two buses. For the semis, three buses. And then we had a 3-day break back when the league championship game went to the site of the higher-seeded team. That was Penn State, by virtue of a tie-breaker.
During those three days, the campus student body grew more and more excited. Enough to fill 10 buses! For me, I got caught up in it, even allowing two very nice female students to paint my face (I was the exclamation point among five students whose faces read GO GW!")
And then we lost. A soul-crushing defeat that would have brought us to our first NCAA Tournament in 30 years.
That, to me, is my own personal greatest GW hoops disappointment.
Last edited by BGF (3/10/2020 11:24 am)
- GWRising
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
I'm not really into hypotheticals since this hasn't even occurred yet. However, give that this season was basically designed to send the program in a different direction with a lot of moving parts, I don't know how you can compare it to games like Iowa given how much was on the line. Yes, it would be disappointing to lose to Fordham three times. But it's all relative to what's at stake. Losing to Fordham three times probably won't mean a thing 2 or 3 years from now either way. That said, I think we are going to rebound tomorrow.
- Free Quebec
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
BGF wrote:
To have disappointment, a supreme arrow-to-the-heart disappointment, I think you first need to have your expectations unrealistically elevated. For me, that was the 1991 A-10 Championship.
I was working for GW Athletics when GW went on an improbable run to what would have been their first league tournament title. We were the 4-seen and won two close games to make it to the championship, beating UMass and St. Joe's by a combined 3 points. Rutgers, the 1-seed, and the second-seeded each lost in the quarters.
My role was to chaperone the primarily student-filled fan buses to the Palestra. Up and back each day. in the quarters, we had two buses. For the semis, three buses. And then we had a 3-day break back when the league championship game went to the site of the higher-seeded team. That was Penn State, by virtue of a tie-breaker.
During those three days, the campus student body grew more and more excited. Enough to fill 10 buses! For me, I got caught up in it, even allowing two very nice female students to paint my face (I was the exclamation point among five students whose faces read GO GW!")
And then we lost. A soul-crushing defeat that would have brought us to our first NCAA Tournament in 30 years.
That, to me, is my own personal greatest GW hoops disappointment.
Remember that game well, BGF. Penn State was draining contested and deep threes early - like 5 in the first three minutes or so - so they built a big early lead. We battled back, but could never get all the way back.
The good news is two years later we were in the sweet 16.
My most disappointing loss was a. 1st round loss to Rutgers in the A10 tourney (a couple days after losing to them on the last game of the regular season). I think it was 95 or 97. Those two losses, but especially the tourney loss, knocked us off the bubble.
- Gwmayhem
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
BM, I was at the game in Nashville that day. Yes, the parade of free throw misses was frustrating and as it turned out, a huge factor in that game with GT. I would say that the Vandy and Indiana tournament losses were more disappointing only because we were never in these games for a second. And, maybe this is just me but blowing a huge lead late like we did against Iowa (again, in the tournament) was a bigger disappointment than GT because we still lost the GT game by 12 so even if we had made an average percentage of FT's, we may still very well have lost that game.
Thank you for pointing out Lewis and not Briante. I guess watching their point guards destroy us over the years has resulted in making them somewhat interchangeable in my mind.
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Thread Starter- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Playing on the road, GW was up 17 with under 9 minutes left, and up 9 with 90 seconds left. They lost in OT to the underwhelming Stags.
Up by 8 with 40 seconds to go. I remember the game very well. I was in Vegas at the time.
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Would also give honorable mentions to losses at Longwood (after which their coach called it Longwood's biggest win ever) and this year vs. Morgan State. Was at the Temple Ngongba loss. We were already discussing staying over another night. And of course was at the South Carolina game in Connecticut. And to boot, I was at every home game during the 1-27 season except one...you guessed it. A third loss to Fordham would definitely impact my overall assessment of the coach. Fortunately, a slightly tweaked back has prevented me from going to Brooklyn this year. If I had gone, not only would I witness that 3rd loss in a season vs. Fordham (I was at the previous 2), but would have probably come home with the coronavirus. The 2 angriest I have ever been at individual players were Ngongba and Goss. Still never forgave either. On another topic, when do season ticket renewals go out?
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Would also give honorable mentions to losses at Longwood (after which their coach called it Longwood's biggest win ever) and this year vs. Morgan State. Was at the Temple Ngongba loss. We were already discussing staying over another night. And of course was at the South Carolina game in Connecticut. And to boot, I was at every home game during the 1-27 season except one...you guessed it. A third loss to Fordham would definitely impact my overall assessment of the coach. Fortunately, a slightly tweaked back has prevented me from going to Brooklyn this year. If I had gone, not only would I witness that 3rd loss in a season vs. Fordham (I was at the previous 2), but would have probably come home with the coronavirus. The 2 angriest I have ever been at individual players were Ngongba and Goss. Still never forgave either. And for you real old timers, who remembers the 1972-1973 very close loss at Fort Meyer to Syracuse, which would have resulted in an NIT bid (when an NIT bid meant much more). I think it was Mike Battle who missed a tip in at the buzzer on that one. On another topic, when do season ticket renewals go out?
- Long Suffering Fan
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Iowa: In the 1996 NCAA Tournament. GW up 17 with just over 8 minutes left. Iowa pressed a lot. GW lost its composure. It's response was to leave two timeouts on the scoreboard by game's end. UIowa ends the game on a 25-6 run, wins by 2.
I took a knife to my GW hat after that game. What was especially disappointing was I believed that this may have been one of the best, if not the best, GW team ever. Kwame, Koul, Yegor, Shawnta, Vaughn Jones, JJ Brade, Seco Camera.
Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (3/10/2020 4:29 pm)
- PKGW
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
BGF
Was on those buses all 3. Days. Agree with the disappointment- our hopes had been raised so high from 1-27 and the year the guy sitting in front of me ended up playing as a walk on.
- jf
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Re: Where Would This Rank?
Ah, Iow@.
Remember telling their fans who were walking out, they were leaving prematurely. That we could blow any lead. You could see the dissolution coming and could only watch it play out, like the Silent Scream.
Then having to scramble to find activities for another 2 days before the flight home.
On the other hand, the Dayton game, the way they flipped on a switch and decimated us with a huge, athletic run, reminded me of the 27-2 team (I think at that point) in general and against NC-Wilmington.
Just as I thought, "Crap, I just got here and have to go home 200 miles away," we scored what 19 points? in what seemed like the blink of an eye.
Of course, being GW, recall we squandered that lead and had to gain it back again. And we were already screwed before tournament start by being the No. 6 team in the country, but getting an 8 seed and playing against North Carolina teams in North Carolina, including greatly referee-aided Duke.
Just wanted to add a semi- positive thought to our many negative memories of GW shooting itself in the foot, including the horrific last 4 years.