No sleep till Brooklyn: a look at GW's A-10 tourney

The Colonials crushed UMass and have rolled into the Atlantic 10 tournament on a positive note: winning three of their last four. The good guys finished the regular season at 20-11 and 10-8 in the A-10, good enough for the #6 seed in the conference tourney. The team would have to win 4 to make the NCAA tourney -- not impossible, but certainly not easy.

The first game is against the winner of the 11 and 14 seeds on Thursday at 9 pm -- that's either Duquesne or St. Louis, respectively. That game to decide the matchup is Wednesday at 9 on the A-10 Network/SNY.

A pretty solid draw, considering the swoon for most of the conference season, although those potential matchups are not as good as you might think: GW beat SLU by only 3 in the one game they had early in conference play and split the season series with the Dukes, losing the second game by 14 in Pittsburgh.

If the good guys triumph Thursday, they'd face Rhode Island on Friday, also at 9 pm -- the Colonials lost a close one at Rhode Island earlier in the season due largely to 21 turnovers and poor free throw shooting.

I don't want to look to far ahead, but after that, it's the winner of #2 seed Dayton and St. Bonaventure or St. Joe's, and then the conference title. Here's the full bracket article.


So, do the good guys have a shot? It's difficult, of course, but like someone said on GWHoops.com (I can't find the link now) GW has surged to a surprise conference tourney title before -- and they were certainly hot enough during that UMass game. If the team can play their solid defense from the first part of the season, can knock down open shots and free throws, and can get some good production out of the bench, things will look up. And in the last two games, the team has had 55 points off the bench. Of course, George Mason is not a good team, but the much better game statistically was against a tougher UMass squad -- aside from bench play, the team looked much more focused, crisper on offense and all-around solid.

We'll see. I plan to go up Friday, fingers crossed, and am feeling a lot better about things than a few days ago.

There's some other good news too: Kangy the Kangaroo is back from Parts Unknown. Kangy, you may recall, was the good luck charm from the great 2006-2007 season where GW went 26-3 and was 16-0 in A-10 play. Last year, he showed up again and gave some bar recommendations near the Barclay's Center. (Here's more about Kangy.) I consider him GW's Quetzalcoatl, appearing from the mists when we need him most.



And if you're going to Brooklyn, let me know. Let's hang.

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