I really am not sure what I witnessed there.  At least with Mojo I could figure out what he was doing and his teams played hard the entire game even when they lost.  What the hell was that!?!?!? JC keeps telling us how talented this team is. Really? ML's crew would have eaten up this squad in every facet of the game. I have been coming to these games for 30 years and never have had as little hope moving forward as of now. The last year plus I have seen a confusing structure, minimal talent, and often a lack of heart. Someone needs to answer for this crap. 

Yinka dont Stinka wrote:

ML's crew would have eaten up this squad in every facet of the game.

In his second year, ML lost the home opener to Youngstown State by 7. A couple of weeks later he lost by 10 at home to...Jamion Christian and Mount St. Mary's.

GW0509 wrote:

This is two years in a row where we weren't ready to start the season.  Biggest issue on the team right now is a lack of energy.  Are we sure Jeb Bush isn't coaching this team?

It's been a while since I have posted on here, but this has also been my biggest takeaway so far this season. I remember after the first loss in the Bahamas last year, there were plenty of people trying to claim that 19-20 would be as bad as the 1-27 year. Such reactionary talk was clearly silly in retrospect and aside form the two late year losses to Fordham, JC's first season came a lot closer to unmitigated success than unmitigated failure.

However, I can't say I'm pleased with the trend of using the first few weeks of the season as "teaching opportunities" and not coaching with a priority on winning each game on the schedule. Last year, it was Mazzulla being discarded after one game and JNJ being allowed to fumble turnover after turnover in losses to Morgan St. and AU. Now, if that had resulted in JNJ learning how to take care of the ball and developing him as a PG that may have been worth it, but in reality we only started playing well once we put the ball in Armel's hands, negating the perceived benefit of the slow start.

This time around, IT'S THE F***ING ZONE!!! I understand if the press into zone defensive philosophy is where JC wants to go long term. I also understand the desire to use game time as the way to learn it considering training camp probably didn't allow for what a coach would usually want to get out of it. But the unwillingness to abandon it when it was clearly a disaster @ Navy was malpractice and I didn't see anything tonight that made me believe we know how to press or play zone. Giving up games to inferior opponents is not teaching, it is simply digging a hole on your resume for whatever aspirations you may have later on. Maceo Jack averaging 18 minutes per game in his senior year is offensive and feels similar to what happened to Mazzulla early last year. Jack is one of our best four players, he should be playing 30 minutes a night. 

All of that being said, I believe JC will be a good coach here long term. I remember being pretty pissed about the start last year and he earned more faith as the year went on. I would guess this year may have a similar looking turnaround at some point. But let me be clear, the expectation for year 3 will be for this team to be ready on opening night. If not, it will be clear with have a problem at HC. 

Last edited by Class of 13 (12/01/2020 11:04 pm)

Assuming we play most of our scheduled games, it will be interesting to see if Christian's second-season record is better than the second-season records of Hobbs (12-16, 5-11) or Lonergan.(13-17, 7-9).

Few things to note:
1) Sure they scored 22 and 15 respectively, but when the ball was in Bishop and Moyer's hands the majority of the possessions went to die. Their shooting percentages look presentable in this one, but combined they had 7 of the teams 17 TOs and were constantly stripped going to the hoop. They both play a me first brand of basketball you didn't really see from any of Jamion Christian's previous teams.
2) Could Coach be too nice? When we saw Bishop and Moyer repeatedly control the ball without passing you didn't see coach make too much of a fuss. And he was their biggest cheerleader when they scored. Can he be the disciplinarian necessary to get them to share the rock?
3) Battle only took 5 threes tonight. For the first time in his career at GW, he didn't make a three in the game. Why you might ask? Well all but 2 of his threes tonight were heavily contested because both Bishop and Moyer didn't provide the floor spacing necessary to give them open shots. This could also be the reason why every one of Sloan Seymore's three came from behind the Washington Monument, because he couldn't find any spacing otherwise. If Coach really wants to shoot 50% of our shots in a game from three, he has to do better in setting this team up to shoot less than 28% of our shots tonight (16 of 58 total shots).  
4) On the note of lacking energy, that many other posters commented on, it was never more obvious than on fast break points tonight. This was made even more obvious by Hampton bricking dunk after dunk on break aways and having no GW player around to get the rebound and pushing the ball the other way. I don't think this is a conditioning issue but rather a mental one. I will note that JNJ and Battle were actually the only GW players sprinting full speed on these fast breaks.  
   

Thanks for the kind words LSF. It definitely gives me the motivation to continue writing them, because certainly the team's current performance isn't making me want to!

We lost to a very bad team today. While I think our team is too talented to not win games this season and it's too early to make any strong generalizations as to how the team will fare long term, tonight was not exactly a confidence booster. If SportsCenter was lacking ideas for their not top 10 segment, they could have used this game alone for all 10. I would have been more upset by this loss, but the number of missed dunks, airballs, and jump shots from Hampton that hit the side of the backboard it was hard not to laugh and be entertained for all the wrong reasons. The basketball rim played the best defense in the game.

Believe it or not, I do think there were some positives. I actually thought the offense was better from the Navy game. We still turned the ball over too much, but many weren't travel calls picking up the dribble. The team needs to lean to hold on to the ball. It is far too easy for the opposition to knock the ball out of our hands and we don't do a good job securing it while dribbling (this has been an issue from the Mojo days). I also don't know if our passing is predictable or what, but defenses seem to always deflect many of our passes as well. While there were definitely times where I think we could have made some extra passes instead of forcing something near the rim, there were many times where we got clean open looks on the one pass but couldn't finish. The biggest issue was execution - we missed far too many layups and dunks today to the point where it was disturbing. Some bad flashbacks to the team two years ago that ranked 321st in efficiency on offense. Need to be able to convert on those shots. I liked that we didn't settle for threes on a night where clearly guys not named Maceo were having a tough time converting. We took advantage of Hampton's fouling issues and got to the line early and often. Despite some early misses, we finished much better from the line tonight at 70%. Minus the missed bunnies, we did enough to put ourselves in a position to win on this end. I would rate it maybe as a B- but it really should have been higher given Hampton is one of the worst teams in the country defensively.

Going back to the missed dunks, I don't think I have seen a team show as little verticality as this team has shown so far. I assumed that this year would be an upgrade from last year in that category, subtracting guys like AT and Javier. From Jamison's missed dunk in the scrimmage (he did end up converting on the second chance) to Chase's miss to Lincoln's rim around make to Matt's miss late it seems like our guys are unable to jump more than a foot from the floor. Very puzzling.

The other positive was that we definitely showed more of an inclination to get out in transition and play more pressure defense. While both have room for improvement, we at the very least took steps to actually playing some form of "Mayhem" on both sides of the ball. That to me is an improvement over whatever product we put out there versus Navy.

Defense was pretty much an F today. We closed out marginally better but that's pretty much all that can be said that was good. It's not like we took away close shots near the rim - Hampton got plenty of those on second chance opportunities. A game after Navy finished the game with 26 assists, Hampton had 18 of their own and picked us apart without any trouble. They consistently found the holes in the zone, whether it be down low along the baseline or near the free throw line where there is never anyone to even contest the shot. Hampton and Navy might be playing in lower conferences, but at the end of the day they are still D1 and all teams can make that shot pretty consistently if left open. We also exposed ourselves from three late in the game because of the zone, and rebounding always suffers when playing zone. I am very curious to know what JC is seeing in practice to continue with it. I can understand the notion that we perhaps have more length, but we have been anything but disruptive on that end so far. Like others, don't know why we don't mix things up - perhaps after one season of playing only man and one season of playing only zone we will mix things up in year 3. When coaching in the MAAC and NEC, you can afford to experiment more in OOC play and lose games as there is no chance of an at-large bid for the conference. Our losing games like this OOC is bad for the league though in a much improved year for the A10.

Turnover differential separates good teams from bad teams, and I think right now no category illustrates the issues with this team better than that. We cough up the ball too much on offense and have no ability to turn teams over on defense. I just do not see any inclination the latter in particular will improve (that was the big question mark with the team coming into the year - we can score with anyone, but can we defend??) until the team plays defense with more effort and aggression. This has been an issue for the team for several seasons now when it comes to generating turnovers on defense. We pressed more today, but it was just so lackadaisical and devoid of energy. Say what you want about Mojo's teams, but they always came out with defensive intensity even if the offense was sorely lacking. It actually makes me think our current offense with Mojo's defense would at least be a respectable team. Probably average with not much of a ceiling, but a threat on any given night. I know Devlin handles the defense and frontcourt - those are probably the two areas that have been most disappointing so far. Njoku and Ed Hampton have looked like studs compared to our guys. Speaking of which, is there a plan to bring in a third assistant at some point soon to replace Nima? Thought we would have heard something by now.

Player Breakdown:

James - thought he showed an improvement finding more guys today than just Jamison. He is progressing in terms of deciding when to shoot and when to distribute. He is clearly a talented passer and scorer on offense. Needs to show a whole lot more effort defensively though. MInus one late deflection in the game, I generally saw very little pressure along the perimeter.

JNJ - has been honestly our most consistent player on both ends of the floor so far this season. Jameer is the only player I see who actively tries to get into the other player's grill and make life tough for them instead of hanging back and playing defense passively. Probably forced things near the rim a couple times, but overall did a nice job finishing near the hoop. After all, he came up with the key steal in the game late to potentially tie the game and made a good pass to Matt.

Jamison - was fine enough defensively, but did a good job on offense despite the threes not falling. His ability to get to the hoop and create for himself is a big step forward from last year. Can be a bit careless at times with his passing and ball handling, but overall played well and I think we should have drawn up some more plays with him cutting to the hoop.

Matt - played well today minus the missed dunk and airball fadeaway jumper. A bit careless with the ball offensively and I am not seeing JC's praise when it comes to his defense but he fared well at the line and made some nice extra passes as well.

Chase - we got him a bit more involved today which was nice to see. Minus the missed dunk, Chase had some nice finishes in traffic and did well on the glass. However, I think defensively playing zone has hurt his defense a bit where he is in the middle of nowhere and out of position down low. He tends to bite on a few too many pump fakes, but I think when we were in man to man he proved to hold his own last year. Showed some nice passing ability on the transition opportunities tonight.

Maceo - glad he saw a bit more time today as he is one of those guys on the team that plays with a lot of effort. I still don't know if he is best served as a microwave guy off the bench but is better in the starting lineup. I appreciated his effort on the glass and trying his best defensively down low but was a bit short defensively to make a profound impact there.

Sloan - I was fine with his corner three that rimmed out, that's just bad luck and he's definitely due for some positive regression on his shooting percentages, but his missed layup and two contested deep threes were awful. The layup was one on one and a shot you have to make, and even though he has the range there has to be better shots than the contested threes he took. He just isn't very good defensively and somehow put up zeroes across the board while playing 14 minutes. There will be definitely games where he is hot from three, but otherwise I just don't see what he brings to the table outside of shooting to play 15 minutes a game.

Noel - glad he is continuing to get more court experience - given that he isn't likely to play more than 10 minutes a game right now, I think he can afford to be more aggressive down low even if it results in a foul on either end. He is a bit tentative at times down low, but definitely shows a lot of potential and did a good job securing a loose ball in the game.

Lincoln - definitely is showing more confidence to let it fly when in the game. I think he brought some good energy in limited time.

Tyler - I think the team played better for the time he was in the game. Not sure if that was specifically because of him, but it was refreshing to see someone actually convert on a layup that was open. I believe we managed to cut into Hampton's lead when we played the freshmen more. Want to see more of them - they at least played both ends with energy and effort.

Surprised to not see Ace or Brandon out there today, even if it's just a couple minutes early on.

Not sure when the next game is. I believe the Towson game might still end up being on next week, and we may have a replacement for Saturday. Regardless, I still think we can turn things around, but it needs to come from the defense which is all about effort. We are pretty much playing like the NBA right now, putting up a lot of points and stats offensively (which isn't bad) but not caring at all defensively (which is bad).
 

Thank you to dmvpirhana. The game isn't over until you have posted your analysis. Always the best posts on the board. Your insights are excellent. Please don't stop. We need you to get through the season.

I watched a lot of A10 teams this week and sadly GW is the worst  performing team I saw. Even St. Joe’s is better. It’s clear to me that coaching successfully to the talent you have is Themis difficult thing to do for  a coach.. while I’m disappointed. I’m not getting mad bc Covid is so disruptive .

But yes where is the defense?

The basketball coaches we have now and the teams for several years have been losers. Watching the game last night and the lack of interest of the players is very discouraging. I have lost interest in watching this sport because , if the players don't care, why should I. Terrible. At least the high school team is of consistent championship caliber. 

When the Coaches and media picked GW, a clearly low tier A10 roster on paper, with all sorts of new parts and young players, near the bottom of the A10 I'm pretty sure they know better than a know nothing fan crying on GW Hoops about "Coaching ineptitude" under a parade of a dozen names.

We are the start of a rebuild, and the build back is going to take time, and a lot more talent.  We have a few really solid pieces, that's the start.  Battle.  Bishop, and the still raw but talented Jameer Jr.  Need a lot more than that and need those guys to develop and gel better and better, both of which will happen.... in time. 

There's no magic wand to waive.  Time and talent.