GW Hoops / Where were you?

**Posted by GW0509** 1/10/2023 12:34 pm

15 years ago, today...

Last edited by GW0509 (1/10/2023 12:34 pm)

**Posted by The Dude** 1/10/2023 12:56 pm

Travis Ford may not have yet won as big as some expected but he's taken SLU a long way from that!

**Posted by GW Alum Abroad** 1/10/2023 12:59 pm

I remeber tuning in the radio livestream (no video streams back in those days! old fuddy dud whining alert!) late in the 1st and wondering why GW had resucitated the football team-- score was like 21-7 or some such thing. The SportsCenter montage the next day, where they randomly switched to highlights of SLU misses throughout the broadcast to give a "real time" feel to how long they went between baskets, was fantastic. HOWEVER, it was not a great shooting night for GW, if memory serves me correctly.

**Posted by Mike K** 1/10/2023 1:22 pm

Amazing! Here is the boxscore.

**Posted by Mentzinger** 1/10/2023 1:23 pm

Karl Hobbs, defensive mastermind (actually no joke, watch Rutgers some time).
I watched. It was strangely compelling, perhaps somewhat like a witch trial.

**Posted by Free Quebec** 1/10/2023 3:13 pm

Hard to believe that was a Rick Majerus-coached team.

My recollection is that we assumed they’d come out blazing in the second half, but we blocked two shots on the opening possession (and maybe 3 or 4 in the first couple minutes of the half), and that completely deflated them.

I looked at the play by play at that box score link to confirm my memory, but for some reason the play by play doesn’t show any of our 11 blocks that day, so I think my memory is right about the two blocked shots on the opening possession.

As for Hobbs being a defensive mastermind, the scary thing is that even with that great game; we were only 137th in defense per KenPom. Not exactly masterful. Can only imagine what Caputo would do with switchable, long guys like Diggs, Hollis, and Wynton Witherspoon. That team also had Maurice Rice and Noel Wilmore to space the floor - but it also had Cheyenne Moore (huge negative) and a freshman group of Miles Beatty, Joe Katuka, and Xavier Alexander (which was probably the most disappointing recruiting class ever when compared to expectations).

**Posted by Gwmayhem** 1/10/2023 3:23 pm

I was in attendance. And in true Colonial fan fashion, I spent the early part of the second half wondering how unbelievably horrible this was going to be if we lost a game where we held the opponent to 7 first half points.

Remarkably, this game was played during the shot clock era.

**Posted by FredD** 1/10/2023 5:37 pm

Mayhem My Man I was there and because of I-O-W-A and Fairfield and Siena I was in fear of the same. And the weirdest thing was the most obvious I was waiting for them to explode because surely no team especially one with a good coach was only going to score 20. I can 2ND Free's 1 sentence assessment of that class.

Last edited by FredD (1/11/2023 6:57 am)

**Posted by The Dude** 1/10/2023 8:26 pm

That GW team had a 170 KenPom that season, pretty close to this year's squad.

Quite an overnight decline for a team that had just been to 3 straight NCAA Tourneys

If you're bummed about 2008 or this year... take a look at where G'town was in 2008 and where they are today

**Posted by Long Suffering Fan** 1/10/2023 8:48 pm

I will likewise vote present.

**Posted by squid** 1/12/2023 12:46 am

I was there, it was awesome. I remember it wasn't a very big crowd so my buddies and I sat in the first or second row, and we gradually realized what was going on. We had to ask around with the staff before we somehow heard it was a first half record. GW was pretty bad too but it's a blowout. Fun to watch.

**Posted by Ralphie** 1/17/2023 2:17 am

Sad commentary, but I recall one of my first reactions was that we might even get a mention on one of the National Sports Scoreboard shows for our record-setting defensive effort. Or, better yet, some mention by the local TV Sports coverage. Hard to believe, but our local press and TV coverage has actually gone from abysmal 15 years ago to nothing today. Mason's local coverage isn't much better, so we'll be lucky to see a box score buried somewhere among the detritus of the POST's last Sports stats page. Was nice of TV announcer Chick Hernandez to point out the rare significance for MLK Day of the game, i.e., GWU and GMU were the two closest Universities to where MLK delivered his most famous speech, with GMU being a mere 15 miles from the venue ! Oh well, at least I can still read full POST coverage with dedicated beat reporter as the local Jesuit institution adds to a record of historic ineptitude in Big East play.

**Posted by gwfan25** 1/17/2023 2:16 pm

While there may not be an immense amount of larger coverage, WRGW sports has a lot!