Siena lost at home to Albany 86-51.  Saw a few #FireCarm's on Twitter.  They are now 1-5 on the season with their only win coming against Dave Paulsen's Holy Cross.


 

Losing to a bad Albany team is never good, but falling by 35 points and not showing up in a local rivalry game is unacceptable even given the youth of the team. The firing calls are somewhat warranted.

Siena is one of the few good things the MAAC has left, and the fact that they might be the worst team in the league is truly baffling. I'm not sure the MAAC is any different than the NEC right now save for Iona and that's troubling. I turned on one of Siena's games for a few minutes a couple weeks back just out of curiosity and they are really that bad. They are young, but the talent doesn't look D1 level - they would struggle against many D2 teams as well. Not sure what they run on offense or defense. I guess Carm was hoping Durugordon (who we expressed interest in) was going to be eligible. I wonder how many coaches gambled on guys being immediately eligible and lost. They've also lost many good players to the portal in the recent past (Pickett to Penn State, McCollum to Oklahoma) but that's only gong continue to happen in the future.

Sure enough just after I wrote that Delaware preview about them potentially changing conferences for football it seems the Blue Hens are off to the C-USA. That conference has a bunch of random teams from all over but will allow them to move up to the FBS level. I wonder if Iona or Fairfield will look to fill their spot in the CAA given how awful the MAAC is looking right now. Not that the CAA looks particularly great either if Charleston actually joins the A10. Conference realignment is just sad at the mid and low-major level.

In former player news, JNJ put up 15 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds for TCU against one of the teams FQ mentioned above as being worse than Siena (Houston Christian). I still can't believe JC was bringing him off the bench just before JNJ decided to leave. He was still feeling things out offensively but his ability to generate turnovers on defense was as good as any GW player in recent memory.

I didn't see the VCU-Penn State game mentioned from the other day, but how about the Rams knocking off their former coach and Ace Baldwin! I always thought Ace was a bit overrated (hot take maybe, but never thought of him as player of the year good although he is talented) and he didn't help things by going 0-9 from the field when they played at GW last year.

On the flip side, Davidson got blown out by an underachieving St. Mary's squad this year. Didn't expect a win but didn't see a 30+ point blowout coming either. Neither the Gaels nor the Wildcats play particularly fast so I thought that alone would keep the game close.
 

Per KenPom, Atlantic 10 is rated the 8th best of 32 conferences, however the AAC and West Coast Conference are just a whisker behind.   Unfortunately, the A-10 is still far behind #7, which is the Mountain West.   Further, the A-10's highest rated team, Dayton, is 69, followed by Richmond (79), Duquesne (81) and VCU (83), which means we could be looking at another 1 bid year if these numbers hold.   Currently, GW sits at 139, having moved up from 156 prior to the start of the recent tournament.  And while I am presenting meaningless (but fun) stats, per KenPom ratings, we are the 9th highest rated team in the conference, just 1 spot ahead of Davidson (140) and 3 notches ahead of UMass at (142).   Next ahead of us is Loyola-Chicago at 125.

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (11/28/2023 1:53 pm)

Looks like a bad night for A-10. 2 home games for Loyola Chicago and St Louis and down in 2!d half by double digits in both

Loyola can back and got the win but St Louis fell short to Utah St

Gwmayhem wrote:

These ranking systems in the month of November are just garbage.  Not only does the A10 get squeezed for the usual reasons... practically impossible to get home games against quality opponents, hard to get games against anyone anywhere (which is why you see so few Q1 opportunities), and failure to make up ground during conference season (because as a Q2 or Q3 team, you're playing against mostly Q3 and Q4 teams, with a few Q2 opponents), you also have the starting point for each team which again is largely contingent upon where a team finished last year as opposed to an honest albeit subjective assessment of what a team looks like this year.  Let's look at the NET where 6-1 GW is #211, the 12th best team in the A10.  Am not suggesting that we should have a double digit ranking given our opposition but 211 does strike me as egregiously high.  At least we're not dead last in the conference, that would be 3-3 Loyola who presently sits at #269.  Despite the fact that most analysts feel they are much improved this season, that #269 is as much an indictment of how they played last year as it is how they've played over their first 6 games.

Our next opponent, undefeated South Carolina (who plays Notre Dame tonight)?  They are at #235.  If my memory is correct, not a very good team last year.  Quite a bit better so far this season.  At least they'll be playing some Q1 games.  We don't get this luxury.

Back in the A10, SLU is third at #97.  Fordham sits 4th at #132. 

Richmond is #79 in KenPom?  They'll have to settle for #160 for now in the NET. 

Our next home game against winless Navy?  They are #172 in the NET.  (Navy has lost at home to Temple and on the road at Campbell, San Diego, and at UC San Diego.  For this, they are 39 spots higher than 6-1 GW.)

Yes, even 1-5 Siena at #206, is more highly regarded than GW right now, according to the NET.

Not that any computer ranking should have much significance to GW this season (with respect to postseason play), but paying attention to these rankings before say January 15 appears to be a pointless exercise.
 

Pretty sure that’s the NET rankings to end last season. Updated NET usually comes out in mid December I believe.

Good call GW18.  CBS Sports updates the won-loss records daily on their NET rankings chart but with zero movement to one's NET ranking.  So what you're saying makes sense, as does not creating new NET rankings until a sufficient number of games have been played.  The only thing that doesn't make sense is why CBS Sports has a Net rankings page where W-L records are updated daily but before the current NET rankings are even established.

Long Suffering Fan wrote:

Today's lines per FanDuel

Question:  Who in the heck is Bellarmine and why are they only getting 4.5 points at Louisville???  (I just looked them up...you don't have to tell me.}  How about this...GW with a better KenPom rating than Louisville.  (at 155).   I don't know about anyone else, but I hate when people pronounce is is Loo-el-ville rather than Loo-ee-ville.

Remember to bet with your head, not over it.

Trap bet?

Free Quebec wrote:

Upset alert.  Stonehill up 6 on UMSS Lowell with 9:30 to go. 

UML is a good team that won at Georgia Tech and lost by 2 at Arizona St.  They were a 15 point favorite.

They couldn’t pull it off.  Lost it in the final minutes.

Great win for St. Joe’s and the conference