They also missed a travel on the rebound on that play.  Richmond pulled away from a potential jump ball and run like 4 steps before dribbling.  Oh well, at least we made it a game.

But hey… we are tied for 5th place

Tough loss. Good to see the team fight until the end, but Richmond forcing GW to defend for long periods of time made things tough. The Spiders have the ability to just play through King in isolation in addition to their usual Princeton offense which makes them hard to defend, especially for long periods at a time. King is a ridiculous shot maker - tip of the cap to him. They were very disciplined on defense as well.

Having said all that, it's not a surprise that teams have been ridiculously good from three against us. You can say that some of it is bad luck (and it might - Hunt looked like a better shot maker tonight than his career averages suggest), but these are open shots the other teams are getting. A10 teams shoot roughly 35% from deep (per KenPom) so maybe we might want to rethink our strategy defensively if we can't contest shots effectively. It made sense against UMass (and I thought the defensive game plan was effective despite what Diggins did) but it didn't make sense tonight against a team that's 36% from distance.

JC may not have had a discernible style of play on either side of the ball, but I thought the focus to run teams off the three point line was a good one (funnily enough, the JC era coincided with arguably the weakest stretch the league has maybe ever had shooting the 3 ball). The only problem with his strategy was the lack of a true rim protector. We have one now with Stretch. Would playing this way sacrifice open midrange shots? Perhaps, but something is going to be left open. However, it would be a worthwhile sacrifice to concede long twos than threes the way we are currently. It would also force the opposition to have to adjust and throw them off rhythm at least.

Right now it looks like the other team is going through shootaround. Guys went under screens consistently (I could see Coach Lee furious on one open King three late in the first half when Richmond gained the momentum). It's over once that happens - the team is almost better off running back on offense because the result may be the same. GW has to fight over screens and more importantly close out on shots better. I'm not sure if guys are scared about fouling the player they are guarding or what, but the closeouts are lackluster and it seems like GW is always a second late rotating over. I don't know if there is a photo of King's shot to beat the buzzer before halftime but that to me was the most representative play of the way the team closes out on shots. Granted, this was a bit of a scramble play but there were three GW defenders looking to contest the shot and none of the arms looked remotely close to impacting the shot in any meaningful way.

Hopefully the couple of shots that went in for JB late in the game can get him going. He's the only guard on the roster who can consistently and effectively drive the ball to the hoop (I love what Jacoi and Trey bring to the team now and long-term, but they are better taking jumpers than driving to the rim right now) so JB will need to take and make a fair number of shots for the team to be successful. Were there times where he could have passed the ball up a bit more? Perhaps (and to his credit, he did pass up a shot for a Garrett three during GW's late run), but we still need his scoring. Good to see no careless turnovers from him today - that was definitely a positive even if the shooting was rough.

When Max gets the ball, it still feels like he operates outside of the flow of the offense. There is no denying his ability to make things happen on offense, but it would be nice to see him get assisted threes more often like Garrett does. Hopefully for his sake his next close proximity attempt falls - he had a great cut in this game but failed to convert on the layup. That's been tough since the Davidson game.

Jun and Garrett have very bright futures ahead, but are obviously a work in progress. Nice to see DBJ make his FTs, but he makes risky passes a lot of times that get picked off. I would like to see CC make more use of him as a passer. There are times that he does, but I think it could open things up to establish DBJ in the post and then kick it out to Max/Garrett along the perimeter. Indiana State has had a lot of success doing this with Avila this year. DBJ is shorter than Avila, but I think he can play a bigger role in the halfcourt (outside of just bringing the ball up) to maybe free JB up more. I really liked his pass late to Garrett even if the shot didn't fall.

Garrett is a money shooter, but when teams run him off the line he struggles to finish a lot of times off the bounce in traffic. The next step in his game is to draw contact and get to the line because he's a great FT shooter. He's made some huge shots for the team all season.

I get that Stretch is raw offensively, but I still think CC should try to find ways to get him rolling to the basket for a shot inside here and there. Most of Akingbola's attempts are often from stick backs. I liked the JB drive and pass to Stretch which ended up sending him to the FT line. Teams can basically ignore him on offense because GW doesn't use him at all on that side of the ball.

Jacoi's ability to make shots is a potential game changer for the team, but he had zero assists today. GW has been successful getting JB shots in rhythm when Jacoi plays point to feed him those opportunities. Would like to see that a bit more. Trey played 14 minutes, but didn't seem very involved in the offense for some reason.

Good to see Zam get some minutes today as well. He had a nice take to the basket late in the game to cut Richmond's lead to single digits.

Up next is a home game at La Salle which is hopefully a get right game for the team. I don't really care much about La Salle's "rank" on analytic sites. From the times I've watched them they play hard, can make shots, and Brickus/Brantley can be tough to guard. They will be by no means an easy win and GW will have to show better effort defensively for 40 minutes to win.