GW Hoops / Now playing Richmond at home.

**Posted by BC** 1/29/2021 5:05 pm

Loder banks in a 3 from the baseline. Maybe that will bring us luck.

**Posted by BC** 1/29/2021 5:28 pm

Turned into a turnover contest

**Posted by BC** 1/29/2021 5:49 pm

GW down 23-27 at the half. Both teams horrendous in the TO dept. GW 14 TO to 7 assists. Richmond even worse: 16 TO to 6 assists. GW again shooting under 30%.

**Posted by BC** 1/29/2021 6:59 pm

lose 49-60 with 30% shooting. Rizzo's teams have never shot well, and defense by itself can't win games. Now 1-8 in the A10 4-11 overall. Time to lose Rizzo.

**Posted by MG14** 1/29/2021 7:20 pm

We're one of the worst offensive teams in the country. We're averaging roughly 55.4ppg which is good for 304th in the nation.

**Posted by GW Alum Abroad** 1/29/2021 8:39 pm

I hate to make excessive use of the dead horse emoji but GW was 2-15 shooting threes tonight (including 1-9 in the second half). You cannot win doing that. Period. So either shots need to fall or they need to not be taken. And it is up to the coaching staff to decide how a team that shoots so poorly from outside stops shooting itself in the foot.

Last edited by GW Alum Abroad (1/29/2021 8:39 pm)

**Posted by BC** 1/29/2021 10:59 pm

they don't shoot that well from inside 3 ft for that matter.

**Posted by xAC** 1/30/2021 10:13 am

Sadly, a familiar pattern is emerging -- where short periods of dysfunction determine the outcome of the game. When you get 15 more shots than the opponent, it means you're doing some things right and you should win. In a rare occurrence, GW actually got more offensive rebounds than defensive (17-14), but could only net 7 second chance points. Too many hurried shots after the rebound that either went over the basket or were slammed too hard off the backboard.

Shooting aside, it's frustrating to also see so many (weak) passes inside being stolen or batted away. Just not necessary to force them, especially as our younger players don't have strong (good) hands at this point, and we usually pay the price at the other end.

What makes this worse is that this seems like a down year for the A10. There seems to be a lot of parity, but no great teams. GW has been competitive against the top tier teams, but is also playing down to the level of the lower tier teams.

**Posted by dmvpiranha** 1/30/2021 12:40 pm

If only MBB could teach WBB offense and WBB could teach MBB defense both teams would be so much better off...

This will be Rizzotti's fourth consecutive season where the team is averaging under 60 points a game. To be a good team, you will really want to average ideally 65 points per game or so. The really good Tsipis teams averaged north of 70 ppg, but that was partly because of JJ and probably not realistic. You can probably get away with scoring fewer points per game in WBB (after all, Rizzotti did make the NCAAs her second year with that team not scoring a whole lot, but those seasons just don't happen too often).

I compare this GW WBB team similar to Fordham MBB. You can be strong defensively (although we are surrendering nearly 60 ppg - Rizzotti's past two teams defensively have actually been slightly worse than her previous three at GW) but if you are only scoring in the 50s you are simply not going to win many games consistently. I will say the poor three point shooting this season is likely an outlier, but the struggles on offense have been consistent for several years now.

I chalk this season up to COVID and not one that probably counts at all, but I would think the team will need to return to at least .500 in A10 play next season (and perhaps make the postseason the following year) if we are to keep up with standards of previous GW teams.

Granted, previous coaches at GW WBB have set a high bar. Taking out the forgettable Mike Bozeman era, Tsipis took WBB to three postseasons in four years, and McKeown 17 in 19 years. In the past 30+ years, this has been a top 50 program in the country, and quite frankly should never be at the bottom of the league. GW WBB has arguably had more success than any other team in the conference. Whether the administration sees the history or cares is a different question I guess though.

Currently, I think the team is a year away from being a year away. Whether we can contend at the top of the league two seasons from now will partly depend on whether the incoming freshman class can match the promise of this year's freshman class. Future teams will simply need to put the ball in the basket more frequently though.

**Posted by GW Alum Abroad** 1/30/2021 6:41 pm

This discussion seems to be expanding beyond the one game against UR, but this team is taking almost 60 shots per game, and given the defensive intensity that is a perfectly acceptable pace (in keeping with Joe´s teams, which were effectively uptempo). But considering 11.6 three point shots per game are not falling, almost a quarter of those 60 shots are wasted, especially since less than a third of the missed shots are rebounded by GW. The team is shooting less than 20% from behind the arc for the season now,