Posted by Gwmayhem  8/14/2023 11:39 am | #1 |
I've come up with 6 candidates for the best opportunity for revenge this coming season. How do you see it?
1) William & Mary: The wait will have lasted roughly three full years since The Tribe overcame a 15 point halftime deficit to win in overtime at the Smith Center. JBIV should be particularly interested as he is the lone remaining Rev who inexplicably practically dribbled out the clock before hoisting an ill-advised 30 footer to end the game. W&M is 18-47 over the past two seasons and remains one of the select few (4 I think) who have never gone dancing. That win could very well have been one of the school's alltime highlights, with all due respect to Marcus Thornton.
2) Hofstra: We can say that Hofstra received its revenge last season from their very painful 2016 NIT loss. Now, it's GW's turn coming off one of the most entertaining matchups of last season. Aaron Estrada, who engaged in quite a shootout with JBIV, has moved on to Alabama which stands to take some luster off of the matchup. Nevertheless, the Pride have averaged a hair shy of 25 wins per season in their past 4 complete seasons (2020-21 excluded) and should be a tough out anywhere.
3) Fordham: So, death, taxes and beating Fordham is no longer a thing. These Rams are now good, quite good in fact. They won 25 games last year equaling their 1990-91 squad which represents the most wins the school has had in a season since their 26-3 mark in 1970-71. Their dominating (second half, anyway) 15 point win last season comes off a season split the year prior, and is not so far removed from 2019-20 where 1/3 of Fordham's 9 season-long wins came at GW's expense. This is a big game because we don't want certain things to change and perennially defeating Fordham is one of those things.
4) VCU: I was reluctant to include this only because of the one-sided nature of this "rivalry." It's a new era of VCU basketball as HAVOC and all of it's disciples (Grant, Smart, Wade, Rhoades) have moved on. So sure, there would be a special element to beating a coach (Ryan Odom) who refused to interview for our own head coaching position because the position was paying essentially the same as the American East school he was employed at at the time, That said, it may not feel quite the same as beating a HAVOC inspired team, and in fact, this might be more of a revenge game for Odom than anyone else.
5) Duquesne: See Fordham description to an extent. The Dukes were much improved last year but in terms of revenge, the way GW got destroyed in their own building last season has to have some lingering effects heading into any upcoming meeting. Pretty sure we were down 30 in the first half.
6) St. Joe's: This makes the list because: a) GW blew a big lead yet managed to sheepishly pull out an overtime victory last year at home; b) GW then lost on SJU's home court in a game that GW was never truly in; and c) GW's season came to an end when Erik Reynolds went for 34 in the conference tournament.
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Posted by GWRising 8/14/2023 11:52 am | #2 |
Fordham ... two years in a row they beat us at Fordham when I didn't think they were the better team. This year it changes.
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Posted by dmvpiranha 8/14/2023 1:17 pm | #3 |
Not sure I feel too strongly about any of these from a "revenge" aspect, but I'll go with William & Mary.
There have been a number of low points over the past 5+ years but the W&M game certainly felt like one of the lowest to me. The Tribe didn't exactly do anything to win the game if I'm being honest (they were pretty awful) and they were missing Kochera who is now on Davidson. The William & Mary contest represented the worst parts of both the team offense and defense during the tough stretch of GW basketball and there was of course the JB airball. It annoys me when I see opposing A10 fans still assess JB's skills based off that one game they saw like he hasn't grown since then (not that I blame them for not having watched more GW games, but still). It was nice to see him open a lot of eyes last season as a guy who can actually make an impact and not be a good stats/bad team guy. Really hope we come out on top in this season's matchup.
Hofstra honestly looked like the better team last season (at least at the time we faced them) and the game was at their place. Hopefully we can return the favor at home but I don't really feel that strongly about it especially sans Estrada.
Fordham may be the runner-up for this question, partly because I did not feel like they were the more talented team during any of our losses to them in the recent past. Outside of the W&M game, losing to Fordham three times in one season was undeniably a low point. I really respect what Urgo has been able to do there in terms of getting the most out of his talent and energizing the student body/alums but I can't help but feel that they won because of the difference in depth in the final eight minutes of the game. It was like we were playing VCU but the game was somehow more gimmicky if that makes sense. The Rams got away with a lot of slapped wrists with no fouls called.
The revenge aspect for the VCU game would be for them if Joe is eligible to play for the Rams this year. I may have voted for it if we were facing them at our place this year but unfortunately we're not. Like you said though there's finally some hope now that we're no longer facing havoc, but there's just low self confidence when it comes to VCU right now. You would think we'd come out on top in a game or two based off the law of averages but they've simply been better than us.
For Duquesne, I think it's worth noting that they were seeking revenge last year after we pummeled them at their place the season before (rare for GW in road games despite Duquesne being truly awful two seasons ago) and then we somewhat coasted on senior night and barely scraped out a win in triple overtime. The "who is our A10 rival" question has been asked from time to time on the board, but I've felt like Duquesne has been close to one since Dambrot took over.
St. Joe's may end up being the most interesting matchup of all of these next year, especially when it comes to JB vs Reynolds. We will be young, but we'll see just how far along we've grown defensively when we face the Hawks by conference play. They looked great, but I think it had more to do with how inept we were defensively due to our personnel/lack of depth.
Honorable mentions go to UMKC should we play them once again in the Bahamas (another horrendous second half performance that we came to expect under JC), UIC should we play them (from the CBI loss), and I'll throw SLU in there. I have never seen them in the Dayton/VCU tier although some will disagree with me. They were missing Yuri during the last matchup, but this year's squad figures to be the most vulnerable in recent memory. Like against St. Joe's, an improved defense would go a long way.
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Posted by LA Colonial 8/14/2023 6:40 pm | #4 |
VCU. But not for anything that happened last year or because of Odom. My vote would be for revenge for the Collin Goss fiasco in Mojo's second year where it looked like Yuta had made a game winning "3" as time ran out. 0.4 seconds were put on the clock and Goss ran into a screen guarding the inbound pass resulting in a foul and after two foul shots by VCU we lost a home game that appeared to be impossible to lose. Yet several of us thought before the play "Okay how are we going to lose this one."
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Posted by Free Quebec 8/15/2023 9:04 am | #5 |
LA Colonial wrote:
VCU. But not for anything that happened last year or because of Odom. My vote would be for revenge for the Collin Goss fiasco in Mojo's second year where it looked like Yuta had made a game winning "3" as time ran out. 0.4 seconds were put on the clock and Goss ran into a screen guarding the inbound pass resulting in a foul and after two foul shots by VCU we lost a home game that appeared to be impossible to lose. Yet several of us thought before the play "Okay how are we going to lose this one."
You left out the most salient thing about that play: it was a blown call and we should have won.
The screener had a foot out of bounds, and you can’t get a charge on someone out of bounds. A10 made the rule clear to all refs after the game, because it was a blown call more than a Goss brainfart that cost us the game.
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Posted by Gwmayhem 8/15/2023 9:52 am | #6 |
VCU. But not for anything that happened last year or because of Odom. My vote would be for revenge for the Collin Goss fiasco in Mojo's second year where it looked like Yuta had made a game winning "3" as time ran out. 0.4 seconds were put on the clock and Goss ran into a screen guarding the inbound pass resulting in a foul and after two foul shots by VCU we lost a home game that appeared to be impossible to lose. Yet several of us thought before the play "Okay how are we going to lose this one."
You left out the most salient thing about that play: it was a blown call and we should have won.
The screener had a foot out of bounds, and you can’t get a charge on someone out of bounds. A10 made the rule clear to all refs after the game, because it was a blown call more than a Goss brainfart that cost us the game.
Let's be as objective about this as possible...despite the fact that it was a blown call, it was the Goss brainfart that cost us the game. He looked horrified when he was called for the foul, like he had just cost his team the game. It's not like he was protesting that JeQuan Lewis was out of bounds. Not for a moment.
Yes, if called correctly, we win. But if Goss does not get so badly duped in the first place, we also win.
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Posted by jf 8/15/2023 12:27 pm | #7 |
Indeed, Goss should have been told again and again don't run into into the screener--and it should have been called out in real time--and maybe was, but he couldn't hear it.
Perhaps there would have been a technical basis for it, if screener hadn't gone out of bounds.
But then, why wouldn't you call a foul on other times that someone ran into a screener?
And how did it affect the game?
Thought there might have been an NCAA clarification on that type of call, too, afterward.
Quite a bold, and it turns out wrong, call to make with 0.4 seconds left and the game on the line.
