Great Preview! Hope Buford is able to make it back for this game. I'm a strong believer of the "revenge game" factor. Not saying she left on bad terms or anything, but players are always more amped to go up against their former team.

Final Result: GW survives a defensive scrum to win 46-40.
 
Once again, Buford, Marsh, and Robertson were unavailable for GW. The Revs had trouble scoring in the early going but not from lack of execution. They worked the offense for some good looks early, but missed their first 3 long distance attempts. Things got going in the latter stages of the 1st quarter, and GW was able to take a 17-9 lead, shooting 58% from the field. At this point, Brown had 7 points followed by Lok, with 5 points. The “2nd period woes” continued for GW. Lewis and Sims started in the backcourt, with Innis resting and Lok in foul trouble.  Some sloppy ball handling and ill-advised passing led to multiple scoring droughts, and the Pirates outscored GW 15-7 to even the score at 24-24 to end the half. Notably, Lok, with 2 early fouls, went to the bench after playing only 6 minutes and did not return to the court in the first half. In a badly played 3rd quarter for both teams, GW managed to win 10-6. A clutch 3-pointer by Blethen in the closing seconds helped the Revs to a 34-30 lead entering the final period. In the 4th quarter, Innis had a big quarter to lead GW to 12-10 margin. She finished the game with a 14/11 double-double, while Brown, who fouled out, led all players 17 points.
 
GW was lucky to come out with a win. GW’s defense once again rose to the occasion, holding Hampton to 30.2% from the field and only 6 3-point attempts. On the other side, much of the Rev’s offensive deficiency was self-inflicted, with too many unforced errors and missed open shots. Both Durant and Taiwo were held scoreless as each player only took a single shot in the game. GW finished with just 8 points in the paint. The front court was victim to numerous passes in traffic that led to bad offensive positioning or unforced turnovers. Innis and Lok each had 6 TOs, contributing to half of GW’s total for the game. If there was a silver lining, it was that Brown and Innis once again stepped up to show they can score when needed. Regardless of when all players are available, if the team can’t get their inside offensive game in order, we can look forward to more (ugly) contests like this one.
 
Stonehill, another seemingly “weak” opponent, visits the Smith Center next week. It would be great to see that the coaching staff has learned some lessons from this game.

Saturday's game against Hampton marked the 70th game against D1 competition in the McCombs era. Over that span, GW has hit the 70 point mark SIX times (that's less than 9% of games). There are currently 128 teams in D1 who AVERAGE 70 points or more per game on the season. I know schedules are not equal and tempos aren't either, but I think that sums up just how inept the offense has been under McCombs.

I don't want to take away from the defense, which has been great but only relying on one side of the ball leads to a high floor, low ceiling team in a best case scenario. This team simply won't reach the top tier of the A10 without a better offense (especially with the league getting better this year). That's a disappointment given GW WBB has so much history as one of (if not the best) teams in the A10.

I'm willing to excuse the team a little based on the injuries and it being exam season but the former gets a bit less of a pass given WBB gets 15 scholarships as opposed to 13 for MBB so the team should be able to recover a little bit from players being out.

Additionally, this team isn't young unlike MBB so there's less of an excuse for a lack of execution. 24 turnovers - really? How many times did the team try to force feed Mayowa with 1) several defenders on her, and 2) deliver a pass that was borderline uncatchable? We aren't talking about a team full of newcomers either. Most of the players on the court have played together for a season.

As mentioned in previous posts, teams can just zone GW and have a good chance at winning. Hampton trapped the team in the corners multiple times but the team kept passing it there which was baffling. GW isn't a good three point shooting team, but they took over 60% of their shots from there today basically settling for shots in the zone. The shots are open for a reason - GW is shooting under 28% from 3 this year.

As xAC pointed out, Durant and Taiwo were basically invisible on offense. Again very confusing. Nothing drawn up to get them touches underneath when shots weren't falling or any attempts to get to the line. That's tougher against a zone, but players never move off the ball on offense so it's impossible to break the zone. If they get to the line, they miss too many - just 67% on the year.

For positives, Asjah had a nice final quarter and Essence has definitely provided a boost on both ends since coming back. McCombs also did a good job of not playing Durant and Taiwo together after the first five minutes or so. Unfortunately, the lineup with Taiwo and Loving together for a bit suffered from the same problem the few minutes they played together.

It's probably not worth it for me to get too in depth each game. At the end of the day, it's clear that the requisite amount of talent just isn't there on the roster this year even when healthy. There are simply too many spots on the floor where GW is not enough of a threat offensively. Just not enough shooting and less than last year. That's exacerbated by not being able to play through the post consistently.

Second, rotations make no sense. I get experimenting during OOC play especially with the injuries, but Sims suddenly played less today, and Loving/Engel/Webster got minutes at random junctures and were not really used in any meaningful way offensively.

Finally, this season has so far shown that players returning from last year have not really developed compared to last year. Every player that came back looks about the same as last year with maybe a few exceptions.

Don't mean to be too negative after a win, but GW struggled to create any separation from a winless Hampton team that made just FOUR field goals after halftime. That was one of the most brutal games I've seen in quite a long time. The roster will need major retooling next offseason especially with the graduations but until then fingers crossed for internal improvement and better health moving forward. Robertson being back will definitely help.