Colonial Hoops - the George Washington University basketball blog

Xavier tonight! Buff Out!

2012-02-01T10:27:00.000-05:00

Also, if you wear a jacket, keep it on during the player introductions -- then when Tu Holloway is announced, unzip and zip it: Tu said that after the big Cincinnati brawl, "we got a whole bunch of gangsters in our locker room. Not thugs, but tough guys on the court. We went out there and zipped em up at the end of the game. That’s our motto — zip ‘em up.”

GW beats Richmond, Charlotte at home: turning the corner?

2012-01-24T00:17:00.001-05:00

Despite an overall 8-10 record, GW is 3-2 in conference after a surprise drubbing of Richmond 83-65 and a 60-52 win over Charlotte.

It seems like coach Mike Lonergan has changed and solidified his lineups lately, with Smith, Mikic, Taylor, Ware and Kromah starting both games, while big men Jon Kopriva and Jabari Edwards are getting a lot fewer minutes than in previous games. Kopriva and Edwards had been averaging 37 minutes a game between them, but against the Spiders and 49ers, that dropped to 22 and 14 total.

While I think Kopriva will be solid later on, he's only averaging 3.7 points and 2.5 boards, and had some defensive lapses. Edwards rebounds well and can block shots, but doesn't do much on offense. Aaron Ware and David Pellom have picked up some of the rebounding slack, averaging 7.5 and 6.5 over the two games.

The team also seems stronger on offense and has started the game less flat than in the earlier part of the season, as well as playing much stingier defense, causing bad shots and getting more rebounds. And against Charlotte, Nemanja Mikic came out of his shooting slump, scoring 19 on 3/5 from three, plus some long jumpers and even some nice moves down low.

The team still needs to work on free throws (only 53% against Charlotte) and on making short shots and lay-ups, but there's some hope. The games have been exciting (a nice return) and have been close even when the good guys are playing poorly. Then, as has happened all year, the team turns it on in the second half -- GW scored 50 in the second against Richmond. For the season, the Colonials have scored 516 in the first half versus 661 in the second, while opponents have scored 626 and 613. That's a big difference. Hopefully the guys from Foggy Bottom can come out strong in the first halves from here on out.

Stomp the Spiders tomorrow, 7 pm -- plus dance crew, free shirts

2012-01-17T14:53:00.001-05:00

GW plays the Spiders of Richmond tomorrow at 7 pm at ol' Smith Center, and there's also some cool promotions -- a DC-based dance crew from the America's Best Dance Crew TV show is performing at halftime, and they're also giving out free Stomp the Spiders t-shirts for the first 100 people there.

Sounds good to me. Let's help GW get the 2nd conference win of the year.

No word whether Randy Jackson will be in attendance or not, dawg.

Prove your GW knowledge: are you the smartest GW fan?

2011-12-30T13:02:00.001-05:00

GW media guru David Earl clued me into this: it's a game on the CBS Sports website where you answer GW trivia questions. It's pretty fun, you do a few each day and there's a leaderboard, so you can brag. Right now myself and Mr. Earl are battling for #1.

http://www.smartestgeorgewashingtonfan.com/

Awesome idea: let's start calling Tony Taylor "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow"

2011-12-01T15:36:00.001-05:00

Poster JB over at GWHoops had a great idea: nickname Tony Taylor "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow." As in Sleepy Hollow, New York; as in the Headless Horseman; as in where Tony Taylor is from.

The guy is an awesome player and already has 1000 points for his career. He deserves an awesome nickname.

And if Pops Mensah-Bonsu as "the King Whale Killer" isn't too long, then why not "the Legend of Sleepy Hollow" ? It's catchier than Tony "Ichabod Crane" Taylor for sure.

Forgot to post this: A bunch of mascots dancing at Colonial Invasion

2011-11-29T10:55:00.000-05:00

And it was awesome.

And yes, Haddaway went to GW. Fun fact.

Take the Metro with the team to the BB&T this weekend, win prizes

2011-11-28T14:17:00.001-05:00

This rules:

3 games in next 3 days; Smith back; streaming video?

2011-11-21T13:04:00.001-05:00

Good news like crazy. First, Dwayne Smith is back and will be coming off the bench. None too soon.

Just in time for 3 games in 3 days: GW is in the CBE Classic in Bowling Green, Ohio, with games against Detroit tonight at 5, Austin Peay (let's go Peay) tomorrow at 5, and against Bowling Green on Wednesday at 7:30.

Some industrious GWHoopsters have posted some possible game video links so you can watch it online -- or if you can't, tune into Federal News Radio, 1500 AM.

Three recruits announced: Argentina, Greece and Alexandria, VA

2011-11-15T12:24:00.001-05:00

Whoa! GW releasing recruit info! Another nice result of the new AD and hard working sports info folks. Pretty cool to see this.

And as there are two foreign players, it hearkens back to the Mike Jarvis days where GW had stars from Africa, Belarus, Spain and all over -- here's an article from 1998 on the international flavor of the team back then.

And below is the press release from GW.

Colonials Fans -
When introduced as Head Coach in May, Coach Lonergan committed to recruiting both locally and internationally for the Colonials. Yesterday morning, Lonergan demonstrated what he meant when he announced two international players and a local star would be joining GW next season.
Argentina's Patricio Garino, Greece's Kyprianos "Paris" Maragkos and Alexandria-native Kethan Savage signed National Letters of Intent last week, marking the first recruiting class of the Lonergan era. They will join Isaiah Armwood, a Baltimore-native who transferred from Villanova this off-season and will take the floor as a junior in 2012-13.
Visit GWsports.com today to learn about this strong international recruiting class.
RAISE HIGH!

And here are the Maragkos, Garino and Savage recruit pages at GWHoops.com.

"Desperation and frustration": #24 Cal beats GW 81-54

2011-11-14T10:18:00.001-05:00

The Hatchet called it "desperation and frustration." I described our offense and defense as "yucky" on Twitter. It was not a very pretty game.

In GW's first game on national TV in forever (ESPN-U), the Colonials were beaten on offense and defense. The first half started even, with a brief GW lead at 19-18, but it ended with a 21-0 Cal run. The good guys did play better in the second half, narrowing the gap to 16 at one point, but the damage was done.

Some positives: Tony Taylor scored 20 and Nemanja Mikic found his shooting touch, scoring 12 on 4/8 from three. Some brief notes:

GW struggled on offense, not getting many good looks, forcing bad shots, and missing putbacks and open looks. GW shot 37.9% for the game and 29.6% in the first half
Ditto on defense. Cal had lots of open lanes to the basket and hit everything else. They shot 56% for the game
And ditto on free throws -- GW was only 3/8 from the line (though refs did seem to avoid calling a lot of close ones). Cal went 17/23
Inside play was again a problem -- Cal muscled out GW repeatedly for a 38-22 rebounding advantage, though part of that was due to wild Colonial shots
Kromah forced a lot of shots and was 0/5 with 0 points. We're going to need him to score more
In general the team made some nice offensive moves, but generally couldn't finish them. Pellom and Ware especially. Hopefully with time those will start to fall
There was an early alley-oop to Kopriva, which was cool
The airline lost John Kopriva's luggage, so he wore Dokun Akingbade's old #42 jersey with no name on it, instead of his regular #34
The Cal band dresses like TGI Friday's waiters
And somebody in the Cal band had an Easy button sign. Really? That was only barely funny when it came out 5 years ago. What's next, Bud-weis-er frogs?
The ESPN-U guys barely mentioned GW, but hey, at least we were on TV. They did have some nice things to say about Lonergan and Tony Taylor
It's the second game of the season! Against a ranked team! That's ok!

Here's the GWSports article and box score, and an AP article with some quotes from Lonergan.

Your thoughts?

GW vs. Cal: an interview with a Cal blogger

2011-11-13T13:19:00.001-05:00

GW faces #24 Cal today at 9:30 pm (on ESPN-U) and I recently got an email from Shaan, the blogger at Golden Bear Lair, a Cal blog. We exchanged some questions about our teams, and here's what he had to say about Cal. In short, he thinks they are really good. Should be an interesting game.

Tell us about your back court. Gutierrez and Krabbe look good, plus you've had some transfers and young guys.

Our backcourt this year looks to be very dynamic with talented players at each spot. Jorge Gutierrez normally plays Small Forward or the #3 so I'll talk about him in the front court question. Allen Crabbe will be the starting Shooting Guard or the #2. Crabbe is a legitimate choice for Pac-12 Player of the Year along with Gutierrez. Crabbe's accuracy is deadly including from the beyond the arc and he is someone that can score at will. At Point Guard, Brandon Smith won the starting position coming into the season. He was always a very good passer and playmaker, but his jump shot has improved as well as limiting his turnovers. The top player coming off the bench is Justin Cobbs, the PG transfer from Minnesota. It was reported that he amazed in practice and summer leagues, but Cal fans got to see him for real in the Exhibition vs UC San Diego, where he led the team with 17 points. Cobbs has the chance to make a huge impact on this team as I think he plays just as well as Smith and is a better scorer.

(Editor's note: Gutierrez is 6'3" and called a guard on the Cal website and box scores and led the team in assists -- thus I called him a guard.)

UPDATE: Shaan emailed saying that Gutierrez does play the 2.

I know you lost Sanders-Frison to graduation, what does your front court look like?

Jorge Gutierrez is the #3 or small forward and he is absolute beast of a player. He has a motor that doesn't stop, he is the best defender on the team, and he can score. He is one of the main reasons why Cal is projected to do so well this year. Harper Kamp will be the #4 or forward this year. He develped into a great player last year, who was versatile and he can rebound and score. Richard Solomon is the #5 or center. He is lanky and he has big potential. Last year, he only really scored on dunks, but he also had a ton of blocks. This year, he has worked on scoring from the paint and looks like he can contribute a lot more than last year. It will be fun to watch the strides he has made from last season to this season.

What will your team rely on this year?

Well, this isn't the easiest question because Cal has a lot of go-to guys. It will mainly be Allen Crabbe and Jorge Gutierrez as they are the most talented and they make up the core of the team. They are also leaders on the floor and Jorge leads this pesky defense.

I like that you have a guy named Bak Bak from Sudan, what's his deal?

Well, Bak Bak had a bunch of visa issues over the summer and couldn't go with the team on their trip to Europe. Also, it doesn't look like he lifted weights and was able to train hard during that period so it doesn't looked like he improved. That will hurt his playing time as he now has to play catch up all season to get in form.

What are your expectations for the season?

Well, Cal has been picked to win the Pac-12 by multiple different websites and sources and I think it's a real possibility and should happen. This team has experience, some defense, and firepower off the bench in Cobbs. I think that Bears could make some noise in the NCAA tournament as well and depending on where they end up could go to the Sweet Sixteen. This team is the best Cal has had for a couple years and they will show that.

And what does Cal need to win this game?

Cal just needs to play to their style of game and get the ball to Crabbe and their scorers. They also need to be decent at rebounding and play to their potential and I think they'll win this game.

GW trounces Bowie State: Some thoughts

2011-11-07T10:01:00.002-05:00

So GW gave Bowie State a beatdown in Coach Mike Lonergan's first game, and Lasan Kromah's first since 2010. Kromah led all scorers with 23 and GW had a comfortable lead for most of the game. The first half was fantastic for GW, while in the second the team played sloppier. That said, the good guys had 18 steals and Bowie State had 31 turnovers. Here's the GW article and box score, and below are some random thoughts:

Lasan is back. He played great, making some nice cutting moves and also dished out 6 assists
Freshman John "High School QB" Kopriva started and looked pretty good, scoring 9. Only 2 boards, however.
Tony Taylor was Tony Taylor. Played well. This is going to be a nasty backcourt.
That said, Dan Guest was not very good. The team sputtered ~~after Tony Taylor fouled out.~~ when Taylor was out. Guest had 0 assists.
Freshman Jonathan Davis played but didn't make much of an impact.
Mikic had a bad shooting game (2/11) but did lead the team with 7 boards
Which leads us to GW's frontcourt: it was bad. Jabari Edwards had some extremely painful sequences on offense and didn't look too swift on defense or the boards. His hands were very boulder-like, balls bouncing off them in every way.
The rest of the frontcourt was pretty nonexistent. Going to have to be a lot of team rebounding this year.
Dwayne Smith was out with concussion-related symptoms. Hopefully his return will help.
Foul shooting was Hobbs-esque: 21/37
Bryan Bynes played well and seems to be the defensive stopper.
David Pellom was fairly quiet.
There are 9 guy cheerleaders and 10 girls. What's up with that.
There's a new GW Athletics Hall of Fame section. More on that later.
Colonial Army had a good turnout. They didn't do the "ohhhhh, sit down" finger twirl thing when an opposing player fouled out.
Lonergan had a meeting/presser type thing after the game with season ticket holders. I couldn't go, but sounded cool.
They have Domino's Pizza in the snack bar now. The pretzels are still bad.
They replaced the hot babe behind the bench with a little kid and another dude. Downgrade
And finally, there's a GW Tailgate before the first official game on Friday. Go there!!

UPDATE: Forgot to mention, my buddy recognized a bunch of recruits at the game too: Ishmail Wainwright and Kevin Larsen. Kethan Savage was there too, a verbal commitment.

Herve: GWHoops.com should be back in 24 hours ro so

2011-11-01T11:56:00.002-05:00

If you're like me, you're going into GWHoops.com withdrawal -- our message board has been down a few days, according to Herve, who runs it, with virus and other problems. He tells me the virus is wiped out but it's taken awhile to copy files and rebuild it all.

Fingers crossed it's back soon, and thanks to all Herve does in keeping up with our favorite team.

Basketball season starts in 10 days! And info from the Athletic Department

2011-10-27T10:18:00.000-05:00

10 days! I am excited. Just got this from GW, lots of useful stuff:

Colonials Fans,
There's only 10 days until the start of the 2011-12 men's basketball season and the Colonials' exhibition game against Bowie State on Sunday, November 6 at 6pm. Please read this entire email for some important updates about your game day experience.
Your Season Tickets are on the Way!
Men's basketball season tickets are being mailed today. If you do not receive your tickets in the mail by Wednesday, November 2, or if your address has changed since you renewed your tickets, please call 202.994.7325.
Men's Basketball Exhibition November 6
You'll need those tickets to get into our Colonials men's basketball exhibition game against Bowie State on Sunday, November 6 at 6pm. Doors open at 5pm and we hope to see you there!
Parking on Gameday
With the construction of our new Science and Engineering Hall, we know that parking is a concern for our fans. If you are driving to the game, Parking Services has put together a convenient guide to campus garages with their rates and times. We recommend parking in either the Academic Center or Marvin Center on game day.
New Will Call and Additional Entrances
This season, all Will Call tickets will be available for pick-up at the street level entrance on the corner of 22nd and G Streets, NW (the Northeast Corner of the Smith Center on the concourse level) beginning one hour prior to the start of the game. Please walk up the ramp to pick up your tickets and have your photo ID ready.
There is also an additional entrance on the corner of G and 23rd Streets for fans who have their tickets in-hand and want to skip the Box Office. Our G & 23rd Street entrance is also a convenient entry for our Athletic Director's Club and Colonials Club members.
BB&T Ticket Pick-Up
Tickets for the BB&T Classic are going to available for pick-up at Will Call (the Northeast Corner of the Smith Center on the concourse level) beginning at half-time on both the November 6 exhibition game and the November 11 Home Opener game against UMES. If you would like to purchase additional BB&T tickets, please call 202-994-7325.
We can't wait to get the season started and we're looking forward to seeing you next Sunday!
RAISE HIGH the Buff and Blue!

It's Halloween, make a George Washington Jack-o'lantern

2011-10-26T13:57:00.002-05:00

Do it. Thanks to the National Archives for providing the pattern.

Click it for a big version.

Cool Lasan Kromah video

2011-10-24T10:04:00.002-05:00

Nice!!!

I'm getting pretty excited for the season.

Colonials taking Metro to BB&T, get lots of press for it

2011-10-12T10:30:00.000-05:00

The Athletic Department is killing it recently. There's already been the great ESPN articles about Mike Lonergan calling GW his "dream job," and they are continuing to do awesome, clever stuff. For example, it was recently announced that the team will be taking the Metro to the BB&T Tournament on December 4th against VCU, rather than rent a bus. This got picked up by the Washington Post's DC Sports Bog, which was then picked up by USA Today and Yahoo Sports.I can't be happier about this, so great to see the university doing cool and novel stuff to get us some press. I will certainly be on that train when it happens.Of course, the GWHoops crowd, while happy, had other ideas. Why not walk? Why not do Capital Bikeshare instead? Come on guys, they're already in the national news.

TCU leaves Big East, more dominos to fall??

2011-10-06T12:42:00.001-05:00

Yuh oh. I hope if they leave they don't grab Xavier and Dayton. There are only 6 football programs left.

Rumor has it Louisville and Cincinnati are thinking of leaving too.

Temple to join Big East?

2011-10-01T16:55:00.000-05:00

Yuh oh. Apparently Big East presidents are voting on Sunday on whether to bring in Temple as a full member for all sports, according to Mike DeCourcy. This would obviously cause a hole in the A-10's hoops as Temple has long been one of the best programs for some time. We are in a land of confusion.

I wonder who else our little geographically-dysfunctional league might try to bring in? GMU and VCU would be my top choices, then places like Western Kentucky and UNC-Wilmginton. Of course somewhere like Butler would be amazing, but I don't think that would happen.

And does this mean that the Big East won't try to take schools without football, like Xavier and Dayton? If so, at least there's a ray of hope here. Of course, that means we wouldn't get to join the Big East in one of those domino scenarios.

This might also mean that the Big East is going to try to keep football as the big deal, which means schools without it like Villanova, Providence, and that school off Wisconsin Ave might be out in the cold. Which could be good or bad for us.

H/T to GWHoopsters for the heads-up.

Wanna buy a GW Fathead?

2011-09-29T15:37:00.000-05:00

Are you familiar with Fatheads? They're the big "wall graphics" -- sticker type things of sports teams and other stuff that you can stick on your wall: a giant football helmet, team logo, athlete, etc. They're actually kind a cool idea for a dudes' room or sports room or something (I refuse to use the term Man Cave.) Could be good for a dorm or frat house too.

And there are now GW ones available! This is pretty awesome. Along with the GW logo, you also get a couple smaller logos, including one that says Colonials and one of George's face. I would like to request a life size (5'4") Shawnta Rogers for next time. Would be a nice way to measure the kids -- little Billy is up to Shawnta's waist!

Kudos to GW for getting this on the site. I'd buy some if I had a wall for it.

The GW Basketball All-Stars, Episode 3: The GW Basketball All-Stars Go Back in Time for Kurtis Blow

2011-09-23T08:00:00.000-05:00

Written by Don Pitz.  Illustrations by Seth Melton.  Seth Melton is available for hire.  You can find more of his work at meltonium.com

The George Washington University Men’s College Basketball All Stars work every day to spread the joy of basketball.  They encourage others to live an active lifestyle with proper nutrition.  The League of Bad Guys is dedicated to bring chaos and evil.  They know the power of basketball is the greatest force of good in this world, and could bring us peace and prosperity.  Who will win this struggle?

Last episode, The League of Bad Guys’ Comrade Chaos took over the school system in a city in Slovenia.  She converted the schools into sweatshop factories and made the children work there to ship junk food to the United States.  That matter has since been resolved.

The GW Basketball All Stars are watching the movie “Krush Groove” at the Fortress of Basketball-tude. Their neighbor Gary enters without knocking on the door. "Hey, GW All Stars! It's your crrrazy neighbor!' says Gary.  The All Stars cheer, happy to see their friend again. “Say, Pops.  I’ve been looking all over the place, but I can’t seem to find my nundoo.”

“What’s a nun do?” asks Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

“Teach Catholic school,” says Gary.  They all laugh together.  Gary exits.

The ghost of Yinka Dare appears before them.  “GW All Stars, the world needs your help!  I have a letter from 1984.”

“What’s a 1984?” asks Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

“Oh, Pops” says Mike Hall. “1984 isn’t a thing.  It’s a year.  We received a letter sent to us from back in time.”

“That’s right,” says the ghost of Yinka Dare.  “We’ve had this letter ever since we built the Fortress.  It said on the envelope not to open it until this very date.  Here’s the really strange thing – the letter is written by Shawnta Rogers!”

Shawnta Rogers says, “Hey, I may be capable of some pretty incredible things, but I know I didn’t write a letter to us back in 1984.”

“Not yet!” says the ghost of Yinka Dare.  “I don’t want to bore everyone with all the details, but we need to go back in time to save Kurtis Blow.  The League of Bad Guys will go back in time to try and make Kurtis Blow come out with a song about how he hates basketball.”

“Kurtis Blow’s song, ‘Basketball’ is why basketball became my favorite sport,” says Mike Hall.  “Ever since that song came out, I love it when they dribble up and down the court.  But how are we supposed to be able to travel time?”

“Well, the good news is time travel is the easy part,” says the ghost of Yinka Dare.  “I’ve invited Physics Professor William Briscoe from GW.  He’ll explain how you can travel time.”

Professor William Briscoe enters and teaches them how they can travel time.

Meanwhile, at the lair of the League of Bad Guys, they’re all talking about how they hate basketball.

“I hate slam dunks.  I don’t want to be taken to hoop”, says Mr. Kim.  “My least favorite play is alley-oop.”

“I hate the pick and roll.  I hate the give and go”, says Comrade Chaos, in her thick Soviet accent.  “I hate basketball and I hate Mr. Kurtis Blow.”

“Grongo smash Kurtis Blow”, says the mindless oaf Grongo.

“Yes, well… I think we can stop worrying about Kurtis Blow and his rap song about basketball”, says Number One Bad Guy.  “I’ve got wonderful news.  I’ve discovered how we can travel time.”

"What good that do?" asks Mr. Kim.

"What good WILL that do," corrects Number One Bad Guy.  “We all know that Kurtis Blow’s song about basketball is one of the main reasons why the GW All Stars ever started playing basketball in the first place.  So, we’ll go back in time to convince Kurtis Blow to come out with a song about how he thinks basketball stinks.  Then, the GW All Stars will never start playing basketball.  The world will be ours! It's really a foolproof plan. The best part is the GW All Stars can't do anything about it." They all laugh maniacally together.

The GW All Stars arrive in the year 1984.  They all remark on the cultural differences between 1984 and 2011: the hairstyles are different; the fashion is different.  Nobody has cell phones and they carry boom boxes instead of i-pods.  But the strangest thing to all of them is that nobody recognizes them.  In 2011, they’re used to being world-famous.  But in 1984, they haven’t formed as a team yet, so they’re not famous yet.  They go to try and find Kurtis Blow at his studio.

The bad news is that the League of Bad Guys have captured Kurtis Blow and overtaken his studio.  They also captured the Fat Boys.

“Fat Boys!  We demand that you make rap songs about eating lots of junk food and going to buffets”, demands Number One Bad Guy.

“No arguments here,” says Prince Markie Dee.

“Yeah, we love eating junk food and going to buffets.  You’ve got a deal,” says Kool Rock-ski.  The Fat Boys exit.

“Now, onto you, Kurtis Blow,” says Number One Bad Guy.  “We’re here to convince you to make a song about how basketball stinks.”

“I’ll never do that”, says Kurtis Blow, who has been tied to a chair.  “Basketball has always been my thing.  I like Magic, Bird and Bernard King”.

“Well, we have ways to convince you otherwise”, says Mr. Kim.  He sends five of his kung-fu goons to beat up Kurtis Blow.  Just as one of his goons is about to hit Kurtis Blow with a nunchaku, it gets hit out of his hand with a basketball.  The GW All Stars have arrived!

“Step away from Kurtis Blow”, says Mike Brown.  “Mr. Kim, we challenge your goons to a game of basketball.  If they win, we leave and Kurtis Blow can write your song about how basketball stinks.  If we win, you and the League of Bad Guys leave him alone and he can complete his “Ego Trip” album the way he wants to.”  Mr. Kim accepts their challenge.

In the locker room before the game, the GW All Stars discuss their strategy.  They try to decide who will be the fifth player. Former GW basketball player Kwame Evans enters the room.

“Kwame Evans!  What are you doing here?” asks Mike Hall.

“I travel time a lot.  It’s fun!” says Kwame Evans.  “Mind if I play with you guys?”

In Mr. Kim’s locker room, the goons ask him how they could possibly beat the GW All Stars, and they thank him for believing in their skills.  Mr. Kim informs them there won’t be any basketball game.  Instead, he has a plan…

At tip-off, Kwame Evans goes up for the jump ball.  One of Mr. Kim’s goons hits him with a nunchaku.  The other goons reveal that they are carrying kung fu weapons and look like they want to fight the GW All Stars.

“Hey, this isn’t how you play basketball!” says Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

The GW All Stars team up with Kwame Evans and use a combination of their basketball skills and kung fu skills to defeat Mr. Kim’s goons.

“GW All Stars, you may have one the battle, but you won’t win the war!” yells Number One Bad Guy.  The League of Bad Guys retreat and travel time back to 2011.

“Kurtis Blow, it really is an honor to meet you,” says Shawnta Rogers, as he unties him from his chair.

“Hey, the pleasure is all mine.  Thanks so much for saving me,” says Kurtis Blow.  “You guys actually gave me a great idea for my music video.  You think you’d want to stick around and watch me make the video?”  The GW All Stars all agree.

The conference dominos are starting to fall: should we panic?

2011-09-20T10:05:00.000-05:00

This weekend the news broke that Pitt and Syracuse were leaving the Big East for the ACC. This raised concerns that other Big East football schools might flee, and now it looks like that may happen, as the rump of the Big 12 and the Big East are talking about merging (or more accurately the Big East getting subsumed into the Big 12).

This is obviously driven by football and by the money schools and conferences get from TV contracts, radio, bowls, etc. That means the basketball-only schools, St. John's, Providence, Marquette, Seton Hall, DePaul, Villanova and Georgetown, and Notre Dame (which is independent in football) would be out of the loop. That's the problem.

Would those remaining schools grab the better non-football schools from other conferences? Would those be only Catholic schools? Who are likely candidates to go to the new Big East? Dayton, Xavier, St. Joe's, SLU, Butler? Could GW go there? What about URI, UMass, Temple? What would happen to GW and the A-10?

The GWHoopsters are hashing it out too. Free Quebec has a couple of scenarios:

The worst case scenario would be that the leftover BCS football schools (like South Florida and maybe Iowa St or Kansas St) will join C-USA and MWC to create solid second tier leagues.   Then, in the worst case, the top A-10 catholic schoolsw will join up with the big east basketball schools to create an all-catholic league. I don't tihnk this is as easy as it sounds, but if it happens, that's the worst case.

That would leave GW along with UMASS, URI, and Richmond to form the core of a new confernece. That's not that bad. You could even potentially keep Temple if they don't feel they have to join the MAC or CUSA for all sports.   You might be able to add a school like Butler if they don't go to the new Catholic league, or a good basketball school like Western Kentucky. BU could possibly jump over to it, and that's a school that could be decent if they wanted to. Duquesne and the Bonnies could get left out of the big league and stay with us (decent tradition but I could live without the Olean road trip).   Maybe you get some other school like GMU, JMU and/or ODU to jump from the Colonial, or someone like Siena from the MAAC. Heck, you could even have a school like St. Joe's get vetoed by Villanova.

And that's all just the worst case scenario. It's no given that schools like st. John's and Villanova will want to travel to Philadelphia or Dayton or even Milwaukee for swim meets without football revenue.   It's just as conceivable that the Big East basketball schools stay together and add no one or add only a couple teams, leaving the A-10 largely intact. Or that the baskteball schools from the Big East and A-10 split into a midwestern regional league and an eastern regional league, with us in the eastern league.

There's that stupid saying that the Chinese symbol for "crisis" is made up of the symbols for "danger" and "opportunity." That isn't true, but it's accurate in this case. We could lose the crappy schools and get some better ones, or we could end up with the dregs.

I think we're better positioned now than ever, and that was kind of the idea. New athletic director Patrick Nero is said to have a lot of good connections, and Mike Lonergan has a lot of northeastern experience too. Conference-wise, conference commissioner Bernadette McGlade was associate commissioner of the ACC, and seems a lot better than Linda Bruno.

So, fingers crossed. Hail to the Buff.

Here are two related videos.

New official GW athletics blog: GW Sports Today

2011-09-19T13:08:00.001-05:00

The GW sports media world got a little bigger recently, with GW Sports Today, a new blog from GW Today, the university's official news source. And for that I say: get off my turf!!!

Just kidding, it's always good to have another voice out there. Check them out.

Cool season ticket picking event today, with Coach Lonergan, free food, etc

2011-09-14T10:58:00.000-05:00

This sounds awesome:

The new schedule is out, and it is good

2011-09-07T14:15:00.000-05:00

Remember the days of GW versus August State, Coppin State, Sacramento State and other states you haven't heard of? They may be forgotten.

GW announced its 2011 hoops schedule, and it's pretty solid: Cal-Berkeley, Kansas State and Syracuse on the road, VCU at the BB&T, plus UAB at home. There's a total of 16 postseason teams including 7 NCAA tourney teams.

There's a great interview with Coach Lonergan by GW's David Earl on the GWSports website where they talk about the schedule.

Lots of good stats on the schedule too: the Washington Times points out that the average RPI for the non-conference schedule is 134, versus 186 last season, and that only 4 teams from this schedule finished above 200 in the RPI, whereas last year there were 14, and GWHoopsters find that there are 12 OOC teams in this year's top 100. A vast improvement.

Of course, part of the debate about Hobbs's crummy schedules was why he did it: some folks thought it was because he wanted to rack up wins and build confidence going into the conference schedule, but that meant nobody wanted to come see GW play crappy teams and it backfired when GW got beat by those crappy teams. I don't really see a negative to this schedule, unless we go 0-14 out of conference or something, which I don't see happening.

Here's the schedule itself. The season opener is November 11th at home against Maryland-Eastern Shore (hey, have to have some high RPI teams in there) and there's also an exhibition against Bowie State at home on the 6th.

Hey PS: BUY SEASON TICKETS!

GW is taking over Columbia Heights -- sort of

2011-09-06T10:41:00.000-05:00

This is nice to see. The other day I was shopping at the DCUSA shopping center in Columbia Heights, DC, at 14th and Irving. Target had a big selection of GW stuff in their back to school section, including t-shirts, kids' shirts, baby clothes, and even cheerleader outfits for little girls. It seemed like there was more GW stuff than any other colleges there.

Then across the hall in Bed Bath and Beyond I saw this GW mug on a display of sports team mugs.

Good to see this stuff. Let's hope it sells well -- and if you live in the neighborhood, go pick something up!

As Yogurt would say in Spaceballs, moichandising!

Another reason for recruits to come to GW: Whole Foods

2011-08-16T13:11:00.000-05:00

I can just hear it now: "I liked George Mason's recent history, but at GW they had an olive bar." Take that, other non-fancy pants schools.

DCist has the story. The place is going into Square 54, where the old hospital used to be. I wonder if that'll reduce lines at Trader Joe's.

Mike Hall owns a bobblehead of Mike Hall taking a dump

2011-08-12T10:00:00.000-05:00

No, seriously. Mike Hall, former awesome player for GW from 2002-2006, has a Twitter account, @_MikeHall. The icon for his account is a bobblehead of him on the toilet, reading a newspaper. #3 is taking a #2. This is amazing.

I reached out to him (hopefully while he's not taking a dump) to ask what the deal is with this. Where did it come from? Why taking a dump? Is that the Chicago Sun-Times or Tribune?

Mr. Hall, as you may remember, is playing for Turkish team Erdemir SK after a stint in Italy and with the Wizards.

He averaged about 10 points and 8 boards for his 4-year career at GW, and also pretty much willed GW back into the NCAA tournament game in his senior year against UNC-Wilmington when the team was down 18 early in the second half. During a timeout he yelled at the other players that their careers were about to be over, which got them fired up and they came back and won. It was a great game.

Awesome season ticket commercial -- buy yours!!

2011-08-11T09:56:00.000-05:00

Check it out. Pretty great, and I like the clips of old school GW players like Shawnta.

Also, buy season tickets. They're inexpensive and you're helping the university!!! I usually get an extra one so I can bring a buddy.

Rocking the GW gear in Pakistan

2011-07-22T14:08:00.001-05:00

So I'm in Pakistan for work. Here's me rocking the GW gear at Taxila, an ancient archaeological site with ruined cities and Buddhist stupas. That's the 2005 A-10 champs shirt.

Interview with new recruit Jonathan Davis

2011-07-17T23:09:00.000-05:00

Nice to see this: the athletic department's David Earl has another of his series of interviews, this time with incoming recruit Jonathan Davis. I like his "Blockhead" Charlie Brown shirt.

There's a bunch of other good interviews and content on the GWFanVideos YouTube page, check it out.

Assistant AD Dom Perno retires, GWHoopsters say "don't let the door hit you"

2011-06-21T12:57:00.003-05:00

Assistant AD Dom Perno is retiring at the end of the month, meaning the last of the UConn crew is officially outta here (at least by my count.) Many GWHoops.com posters didn't seem too upset that he's leaving. I didn't have much visibility on what he did or didn't do, as the case may be, but it's good to have a fresh start and I wish him well.

Here's Perno's brief article on Wikipedia and below is the press release from GW. If you're wondering why Kvancz signed it, it's because he doesn't leave until June 30.

To Department of Athletics staff, coaches, student-athletes, alumni and members of the GW community:

Our friend and longtime colleague Dom Perno has informed the university of his intention to retire from his position effective June 30.

As all of you know, Dom has been a key member of the Department of Athletics leadership team. In 13 years of service to the university, Dom has elevated and expanded athletics development, including directing the expansion of the Athletic Director's Club and the Colonials Club, leading the annual golf tournament and spearheading numerous other fundraisers. The programs he began will continue to support and enhance the student-athlete experience for many years to come.

Dom has built strong and lasting relationships with alumni, fans, and supporters and has represented the Department of Athletics and the George Washington University with class and dignity. He has been not only a trusted advisor but also a good friend who will be greatly missed.

On behalf of the Department of Athletics, I thank him for his friendship, expertise and wise counsel that have served so many of us over the years.

One of Dom's first orders of business is his transition into retirement following his recent move to Kure Beach, NC. During the coming academic year, we intend to properly honor him to celebrate his friendship and his many contributions to GW athletics.

In the meantime, if you would like to wish Dom well, messages can be sent to gwsports@gwu.edu or to Dom Perno c/o the Department of Athletics.

Sincerely,
Jack Kvancz
GW Director of Athletics

UPDATE: Just spotted this line on GWHoops, from Levinator: "Does anyone know the link to his retirement party celebration ? Is it on channelsurf ??" Sour grapes maybe, but that's pretty funny.

GW Basketball All-Stars, Episode 2: The GW All-Stars Go To Slovenia

2011-06-13T13:54:00.001-05:00

Written by Don Pitz. Illustrations by Seth Melton. Seth Melton is available for hire. You can find more of his work at meltonium.com

The George Washington University Men’s College Basketball All Stars work every day to spread the joy of basketball. They encourage others to live an active lifestyle with proper nutrition. The League of Bad Guys is dedicated to bring chaos and evil. They know the power of basketball is the greatest force of good in this world, and could bring us peace and prosperity. Who will win this struggle?

Last episode, The League of Bad Guys made a robot to pose as former Kansas City Chiefs wide receiver Stephone Paige to join the All Stars for a basketball game benefiting children with cancer. The robot was designed to teach the kids to eat junk food and stop exercising. That matter has since been resolved.

The GW Basketball All Stars are exercising at the Fortress of Basketball-tude. Their neighbor Gary enters without knocking on the door. "Hey, GW All Stars! It's your crrrazy neighbor!' says Gary. The All Stars cheer, happy to see their friend again. "Say, Pops. What are you going to do with that Henway you guys have outside in your yard?"

Pops Mensah-Bonsu asks, "What's a hen weigh?"

"About 5 pounds" says Gary. They all laugh together. Gary exits.

The ghost of Yinka Dare appears before them. "GW All Stars, the world needs your help! We received a letter from our pen pal, Bojan in Slovenia."

"What's a Slovenia?" asks Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

"Oh, Pops" says Mike Hall. "Slovenia isn't a thing. It's a country in central Europe, formerly a part of Yugoslavia. Bojan Androjna is a 10-year-old boy that lives there and started writing us letters last year. We've inspired him to play basketball and to do well in school. Yinka, is something wrong with Bojan?"

"Actually, it's good news", says the ghost of Yinka Dare. "Bojan has convinced the city council of his hometown, Ljubljana, to erect a statue in your honor".

"That's great!" says Mike Brown. "It's hard to complain about getting a statue made in your honor. However, I wish all the cities in this world that have built us statues would dedicate that money to more nutrition education instead. I don't want to get too political here, guys, but the children are our future."

"I understand,” says the ghost of Yinka Dare. "This is the price we pay for being world-famous. I told Bojan that you all would be happy to visit for the unveiling ceremony. I have you guys booked on a flight there tomorrow. Before you go, though - I know you guys really love education. So, I've invited Professor Henry Hale from GW. He's here to teach you guys about the culture and history of Slovenia."

Professor Henry Hale enters and teaches them about the culture and history of Slovenia.

Meanwhile: at the lair of the League of Bad Guys, they're all making disparaging jokes about Slovenians. "How many Slovenians does it take to screw in a light bulb?" asks Number One Bad Guy. "Slovenians don't screw in light bulbs, they live in squalor."

"Why did Slovenian cross road?" asks Mr. Kim. "Because Mr. Kim told him to."

"Grongo smash Slovenian" says the mindless oaf Grongo.

"I agree with all of this,” says Comrade Chaos, in her thick Soviet accent. "I'm actually working on an evil plan in Slovenia as we speak. I convinced the mayor of Ljubljana to appoint me as their minister of education. I made all sorts of promises about improving test scores. They gave me ultimate power in this area."

"What good that do?" asks Mr. Kim.

"What good WILL that do," corrects Number One Bad Guy. "With her in place as minister of education, she's converted the schools into sweatshop factories."

"Yes," says Comrade Chaos. "The children toil away in my factories instead of learning. These factories make low-cost junk food to send to the children in the United States so they will become fat and lazy. It's really a foolproof plan. The best part is the GW All Stars can't do anything about it." They all laugh maniacally together.

The next day, the GW All Stars arrive in Slovenia to a hero’s welcome. Throngs gather around outside the airport just to catch a glimpse of them. The All Stars notice that there are no children in the crowd, except for their friend Bojan. Bojan runs up to greet them. “GW All Stars! This is really a dream come true. I’m so happy to see you!” Bojan then explains the whole situation. There is no statue being built for them. He made that up because he needs their help. He explains Comrade Chaos’ evil plan.

“Bojan, we hope you understand that you didn’t need to lie to us. We don’t need a statue built in our names. If you explained that you needed help defeating Comrade Chaos, we would have helped you” says Shawnta Rogers. “You’re our friend, and friends help each other.”

Bojan apologizes for deceiving them. “Don’t feel sorry” says Mike Hall. “We’ll still help you. We’ll go teach this minister of education a lesson.”

The GW All Stars go to the ministry of education headquarters to confront Comrade Chaos. She’s surrounded by five large goons wearing Soviet army uniforms, and she’s very upset to see them. She threatens to send Bojan to detention, which just means more work in the sweatshop.

“Your reign of terror ends now” says Mike Brown. “I challenge your goons to a game of basketball. If we win, you resign and the children go back to getting a proper education. If we lose, we leave.” Comrade Chaos accepts their challenge.

In the locker room before the game, the GW All Stars discuss their game plan. Bojan asks who will be their fifth player, and the All Stars decide it will be Bojan! They’ve watched his basketball videos that he sent them and they are very impressed by his fundamentals. They tell him that he reminds them of a young SirValiant Brown. Bojan is very excited to have his dream come true.

In Comrade Chaos’ locker room, the goons ask her how they could possibly beat the GW All Stars, and they thank her for believing in their skills. She tells them that she doesn’t believe in them, she believes in all the performance-enhancing drugs they’ve been taking. She thinks that they will gain a competitive advantage and the All Stars will leave her alone forever.

The arena at the game is filled with throngs of Slovenians. They are wild with energy. Their hopes and dreams are in the hands of the GW All Stars. The game proves to be a close one. Comrade Chaos’ goons aren’t playing fair and use a lot of cheap shots. In the final seconds of the first half, the goons gang up on Bojan as he’s driving down the lane for a lay-up and they hard foul him to the ground. The crowd gasps and Bojan is clearly hurt. The All Stars carry him to the locker room and the crowd is all very concerned. The doctor takes a look at his ankle and he is not healthy enough to keep playing.

Bojan becomes very upset with tears. He is very sorry that he let down his people and the All Stars. The All Stars are there to reassure him.

Bojan says “But what about the game? If I can’t keep playing, who will?”

A basketball rolls into the locker room. They all look to see who is there. It’s former GW basketball player, Sasha Koul!

“Mind if I play?” says Sasha Koul.

Will Sasha Koul help lead the GW All Stars to victory? Or will Comrade Chaos’ goons triumph? And for God’s sake, will somebody think of the children? What will happen next? Tune in next time to find out!

FIN.

Got ideas for the Smith Center Jumbotron?

2011-06-07T09:10:00.000-05:00

The fine folks in the athletic department have been talking on Twitter today about what sort of graphics to put on the Jumbotron at the Smith Center. That led to some serious suggestions like the old Pat's/Pops'/Ugo's House and the Mark Lund People's Champion graphics, and some not-serious ones like a Kiss Cam. David Earl reminded me of who I sit next to, so good point on that one.

But that said, what are your ideas? Post them in the comments!

New assistants announced: Pete Strickland, Kevin Sutton

2011-06-06T13:47:00.003-05:00

Nice! GWSports has a press release with videos and there's a video interview on Youtube (below).

Strickland was an assistant at NC State for five years and before that was the head coach at Coastal Carolina. Sutton was a very successful high school head coach, with stints at Bishop McNamara and Montrose Christian, both in the DC area, and Monteverde Academy where he coached Joe Katuka.

Conference schedule announced

2011-06-01T11:06:00.001-05:00

Some news from the A-10, which has announced the 2011 conference schedule. Looks like the good guys are home against La Salle, Charlotte, Richmond, Xavier, Dayton, Rhody, UMass, and St. Joe's. Sounds pretty good to me. Your thoughts?

Colonials Fans –
This morning, the Atlantic 10 announced the home and away matchups for the 2012 men’s basketball conference season. FourA-10 teams who played in the 2011 postseason will come to the Charles E. Smith Center this winter.

The Colonials maintain last season’s home-and-home matchups, playing La Salle, Charlotte and Atlantic 10 Tournament Champion Richmond both in Foggy Bottom and on the road next season.

GW will host Xavier, who boasted the conference’s best record last season, and 2011 College Basketball Invitational teams Duquesne and Rhode Island. The Colonials’ home schedule is rounded out with games against Massachusetts and Saint Joseph’s traveling to the Smith Center.

Coach Lonergan will bring the Colonials on the road to play Dayton, Fordham, 2011 CBI participant Saint Louis, St. Bonaventure, and 2011 NCAA Tournament team Temple.

Dates and times have not yet been determined.

The Colonials went 10-6 in conference play last season, and 2010 Atlantic 10 All-Rookie Team selection Lasan Kromah joins 2011 All A-10 Second Teamer Tony Taylor after missing last season due to injury.
Visit the Colonials’ Facebook page to discuss which game you’re looking forward to most.

GO COLONIALS!
http://www.GWsports.com
http://www.facebook.com/GWsports
http://twitter.com/GWGeorge

Hajj Turner hired as associate head coach

2011-05-26T15:48:00.001-05:00

Hajj Turner, an assistant under Lonergan at Vermont, has signed on as an assistant at GW. GWSports has an interview, sounds pretty good to me.

Bio, interview and press conference on Coach Lonergan

2011-05-16T12:00:00.004-05:00

The GW Youtube channel has a bunch on new head basketball coach Mike Lonergan recently, including this video with his bio and an interview, and the one below of the press conference introducing him. Check them out:

Lonergan press conference today at noon, open to the public (and free food!)

2011-05-09T09:37:00.002-05:00

Get yourself to the Smith Center:

Dear Colonials Fans,

On Monday, May 9, at 12:00 pm a new era of Colonials Basketball will begin. We would like you to join us as we welcome the newest member of the GW family, Head Men's Basketball Coach Mike Lonergan.

Mike joins us after six successful seasons at the University of Vermont where his teams won four conference championships and averaged over 20 wins per season. His teams advanced to the post-season in four of his six seasons.

Mike has lived most of his life in the Washington, DC area, growing up in Bowie, MD, attending college at Catholic University and serving many successful years as Head Coach at Catholic University including winning a Division III National Championship. After his tenure at Catholic, Mike was an Assistant to Gary Williams at University of Maryland.

Mike's teams have consistently won. In 18 overall seasons they have won 377 games and 10 of his last 12 teams have advanced to the post-season. It is this type of success that brings Mike to GW.

In his tenure at Vermont his basketball student-athletes had a graduation rate of 100%.

The press conference will be held in the Charles E. Smith Center and we hope that you can attend and join us in welcoming Mike. Following the press conference, we invite you to a welcome reception in the Colonials Club.

I look forward to seeing you on this exciting day as we move into the future and "Raise High the Buff and Blue".

Warmest regards,

Patrick Nero
Incoming Athletic Director
The George Washington University

It's Official: Mike Lonergan will be the new GW head coach

2011-05-06T09:02:00.002-05:00

It looked like GW might have its man, but then Sweaty Gary Williams retired from Maryland, throwing the coaching carousel into a loop -- GWHoopsters wondered if this meant that all the Lanegan, Dooley and all the guys GW was after would look at Maryland instead of Foggy Bottom U.

It all worked out in the end though, as Vermont's Mike Lonergan, formerly coach at Catholic, will be GW's next head coach. I'm pretty happy about it. More to come.

But in honor of this, here's a song by Mark Lanegan (almost Mike Lonergan) and the Screaming Trees, titled appropriately enough, "Nearly Lost You."

(If Kansas assistant and GW alum Joe Dooley became the coach, I would have posted "Tom Dooley.")

GW Basketball All-Stars, Episode 1: GW Basketball All-Stars Vs Robot Stephone Paige

2011-05-05T11:30:00.001-05:00

Written by Don Pitz. Illustrations by Seth Melton. Seth Melton is available for hire. You can find more of his work at meltonium.com

The George Washington University Men’s College Basketball All-Stars work every day to spread the joy of basketball. They encourage others to live an active lifestyle with proper nutrition. The League of Bad Guys is dedicated to bring chaos and evil. They know the power of basketball is the greatest force of good in this world, and could bring us peace and prosperity. Who will win this struggle?

Early one morning, the GW All-Stars are relaxing in the Fortress of Basketball-tude. They’re eating a plant-based, high-fiber breakfast. Their neighbor Gary enters without knocking. “Hey, GW All-Stars! It’s your crrraazy neighbor!” They all cheer, excited to see their friend. “Say, Pops, I’ve got a problem. My piecost has really been acting up lately.”

Pops Mensah-Bonsu asks, “What’s a pie cost?”

“Five dollars for cherry, three dollars for apple”, says Gary. They all laugh together. Gary exits.

The ghost of Yinka Dare appears before them. “GW All-Stars, the world needs your help! I’ve arranged a celebrity basketball game to benefit children who are living with cancer. You’ll be matched up against some washed-up has-beens from UMass.”

“Sounds great”, says Mike Brown. “Who’s the celebrity?”

“I’m glad you asked”, says the ghost of Yinka Dare. “As if a fundraiser for children with cancer wasn’t awesome enough, the really great news is you guys will be teamed up with Stephone Paige.”

“Wait a second – THE Stephone Paige?” asks Mike Hall.

“What’s a stephone paige?” asks Pops Mensah-Bonsu.

“Oh, Pops. Stephone Paige isn’t a thing. He’s a person”, says Shawnta Rogers. “He’s a former wide receiver for the Kansas City Chiefs. He’s my all-time favorite Chiefs player.”

“I knew you guys would be excited about it,” says the ghost of Yinka Dare. “You guys won’t have to wait long. The game is set for tomorrow. You guys should practice on the fundamentals of basketball right after you’re done with your well-balanced breakfast.”

Meanwhile, at the lair of the League of Bad Guys:

“The thing I hate most about the GW All-Stars is their culture of winning”, says Comrade Chaos, in her thick Soviet accent.

“I hate GW All-Stars because they bad for business”, says Mr. Kim, who is throwing ninja stars at a target with a picture of Pops Mensah-Bonsu on it.

“Grongo smash GW”, says the mindless oaf Grongo, as he drools over his gruel – which is full of empty calories.

“Yes, well… the GW All-Stars will be a thing of the past,” says Number One Bad Guy, seated on a throne at the head of the table. “I’ve got a plan that will finally bring them down. I just found out that they’re scheduled to have a basketball match tomorrow, some sort of fundraiser for kids with cancer.”

“That’s terrible”, says Comrade Chaos. “If they teach these children about basketball, that might just cure them. Or at worst – it would bring a whole new generation of basketball fans.”

“The good news is they’re slated to play with Stephone Paige”, says Number One Bad Guy. “I’ve kidnapped Mr. Paige and replaced him with a robot that looks just like him.”

“What good that do?” asks Mr. Kim.

“What good will that do, Mr. Kim”, corrects Number One Bad Guy. “I’ve programmed the robot Stephone Paige to be a poor sport and to teach the kids that basketball is a vile game. It will completely discredit the GW All-Stars, and that will be the end of our little problem.”

The next day, the atmosphere at the Smith Center is electric. The place is filled to capacity (of course) with dedicated fans (of course). Much of the crowd is children living with cancer and their parents. The GW All-Stars are warming up, and the UMass has-beens are bungling through haplessly. The announcer heralds the arrival of the great Stephone Paige, and the crowd goes absolutely bananas. Stephone Paige grabs the microphone. He tells the crowd that they shouldn’t exercise and junk food cures cancer. The audience isn’t sure what to make of this. The GW All-Stars greet Mr. Paige and bring them into their huddle.

“Mr. Paige, it’s really a pleasure meeting you. We’re all huge fans. Thank you so much for supporting this charity”, says Mike Brown.

“I don’t care about charity and you shouldn’t, either”, says Stephone Paige. “These kids are just a pay-check to me. If I teach them anything today, it will be that basketball is a sport for losers. Now, let’s go hard-foul these U Trash players.”

The game starts off ugly. At tip-off, Stephone Paige shoves the UMass player instead of jumping for the ball. He takes the ball and throws it hard into the face of one of the players. The ref calls for a flagrant foul and Mr. Paige gets in the ref’s face and yells at him. UMass inbounds the ball and Mr. Paige throws an obvious elbow and then dunks it. He gloats and showboats to the crowd. The adults start to boo, and Mr. Paige eggs them on.

“Something’s up, All-Stars”, says Shawnta Rogers. “This isn’t the Stephone Paige I know”.

“I agree,” says Pops Mensah-Bonsu. “Plus, I’m pretty sure that junk food doesn’t cure cancer.”

Stephone Paige takes the microphone again and starts yelling at the audience. Children start to cry. Just then, Mike Hall notices a metal rod sticking out of Mr. Paige’s elbow. It must have been exposed from his hard foul.

“Look, All-Stars!” says Mike Hall. “It isn’t Stephone Paige at all. It’s a robot!”

How will the GW All-Stars get out of this one? Will Number One Bad Guy’s robot destroy them all? What will happen? Tune in next time to find out!

Pops blogging on his career at the GWSports Facebook page

2011-05-02T11:09:00.000-05:00

How about some non-Abbottabad-related news? Pops Mensah-Bonsu has been blogging at the GWSports Facebook page about his career in Europe.

Nice to see -- it's interesting stuff and well-written, although he was somewhat unlucky: he had a double-double in a preseason game for the Hornets, but then got an elbow infection and was later cut, moving to Europe, where he's been doing well, being named the player of the month the first month he joined his team in Lyon, France. Here's the link to the GWSports Facebook page.

Karl Hobbs is out: many questions

2011-04-25T16:20:00.002-05:00

To misquote the Simpsons, you have many questions, Mr. Nero. Karl Hobbs's tenure at GW is over.

What's the deal? Why now? Why was Hobbs forced out? Was he forced out? It seems so, considering he tweeted a few hours before the announcement about next year's schedule. Did something happen? Did some big scandal just get unearthed?

Where will Hobbs go now? Did he get a job somewhere else? What about his recruits, like Erik Copes (whose uncle is assistant coach Roland Houston) and recent signee Trey Davis?

Who will GW get to replace him? Mike Lonergan from Vermont? Former assistant Steve Pikiell? Some people are asking about Bruce Pearl, is that a good idea? Roland Houston?

So many questions. Tune in soon for (hopefully) some answers.

GW announces new AD: Patrick Nero, former head of America East

2011-04-20T12:07:00.001-05:00

As you've probably read by now, GW just announced Patrick Nero, former head of the America East Conference and former University of Maine athletic director as the new AD for GW. This seems like a good hire, as he proceeded over an entire conference and thus has a holistic view, and also presided over Maine as they went to the NCAA hockey championship game. He's also 45 and has no prior connection with GW staff. Nice to see a talented-sounded younger person hired, and I look forward to hearing more.

Here's GW's press conference:

Great article on Yegor Mescheriakov at GW Today

2011-04-19T11:41:00.002-05:00

There's a great article at GW Today about Yegor Mescheriakov, a small forward from Belarus and one of the stars of those great late 90s teams (#55 to Shawnta Rogers' #54).

Yegor got his undergrad degree between his junior and senior years, played overseas successfully, and is now back getting his masters. He also runs a basketball camp for kids (Belarus champs two years in a row) and sounds like he's doing well for himself. He's deciding whether to continue in pro ball or work in sports. Nice to see him doing well, and I'm glad GW is writing these kind of articles.

Yegor also writes a blog about European basketball, with a lot of tips on how to make it overseas as a player and his memories from throughout his career. Good stuff.

And something hilarious in the article is that class of '96 GW player (and 7 footer) Andrei Sviridov is apparently a pretty successful actor, in among other things, and a Russian sitcom called University. Awesome. Here's his website, lots of photos, and his IMDB page.

Hat tip to GWHoopsters for finding it.

Cool event with Jack Kvancz and John Feinstein about mid-majors this Thursday

2011-04-11T13:05:00.000-05:00

This sounds pretty neat. You may recall that Jack Kvancz coined the term "mid-major" when he was coach at Catholic.

Hello GW fans,
On Thursday April 14th at 7pm, WRGW will be hosting an event with Jack Kvancz and renowned basketball writer John Feinstein. Along with two student moderators from WRGW, the two will be discussing the recently completed NCAA tournament and the success of mid majors, while tying in Jack's time at GW and career in college basketball. After the discussion Kvancz and Feinstein will take questions from the audience. Admission is free and all that we ask is for you to RSVP. The event takes place in Jack Morton Auditorium on the corner of 21st and H Street in the SMPA building.

RSVP here: http://midmajormadness.eventbrite.com/

GW athletics idea forum on the 20th: go there and tell the university your ideas

2011-04-08T09:46:00.002-05:00

This sounds great. Got an email from David Earl of the athletic department on the second GW Idea Forum, check it out. I missed the first, which was on the 5th.

It's Wednesday, April 20th in the Marvin Center's Continental Ballroom form 5-7 pm. The idea is for the steering committee that's looking at GW athletics to hear what fans and others have to say. There's going to be a lot of people there to listen, so it's a great opportunity.

If you can't make it, there's also an online feedback form: http://www.gwu.edu/~athleticsvision/

(Not promising the cute idea girl above will be there, however).

Results of the Colonial Hoops NCAA pool: I stink

2011-04-07T11:52:00.000-05:00

I almost forgot to mention the results of the Colonial Hoops First Annual NCAA pool! This was a Sweet 16 pool, and "In memory of red" won -- fitting. He had Butler and UConn in the Final Four and picked UConn to win it all and thus dominated the rest of us. The prize is... congratulations!

I finished sort of in the middle. Unfortunately "TP Rubbed me the wrong way" didn't win, because that's the best name. "You best be A. Ware" is a runner-up on the best pick name award. "Carl Elliott School" and "Busted like Atilla" get honorable mentions.

Thanks to all who entered.

GW's Season Recap: Not too shabby. What do you think?

2011-03-23T10:22:00.000-05:00

I think most people have to agree that all things considered, this season went pretty well. After losing Lasan Kromah, who had a great season as a freshman, right before the year started, there was a lot of doom and gloom. There were early losses to BU, Hampton, UNC-Wilmington, and in the BB&T, Navy, and lots of folks (including me, sort of) were calling for Hobbs's head.

But then things started to improve, Nemanja Mikic came on as an awesome shooter (and Washington's Newest Nemanjament), the guys started to find their roles, Tony Taylor became an absolute beast, and GW won 8 of 9 at the end of the OOC schedule and start of A-10 play.

There were still boneheaded plays, missed free throws aplenty, and questionable coaching (defending the 3 was painful at times), but soon enough GW was 10-6 in conference and 17-14 overall. The good guys ended the season winning 5 of 7, Dwayne Smith and David Pellom had some good games, Katuka had some double-doubles, and Jabari Edwards turned on the defense.

Who woulda thunk it. Hobbs turned around what could have been his worst season into one of his better coaching performances.

And there was other good news too: there didn't seem to be much intra-team conflict, no players left (as far as we know), and crowds got bigger and louder as the season went on. There was a cool story about the new mayor, Vince Gray, who is an African American and was the president of a Jewish frat during his time at GW.

Jack Kvancz announced his retirement and the university announced a review of athletics, hopefully to make it better. I say that's good because it'll be nice to get in some fresh blood, but Kvancz did do a good job as AD. Can't beat that 2005-2006 season.

Plus GW started to put out some cool videos and do more marketing, and there was the whole Professor KASMIR saga with a new GW hero emerging.

I'm looking forward to next season. Eric Copes, Jonathan Davis, Lasan Kromah, Nemanja Mikic, Dwayne Smith, David Pellom... yes please.

But that's my thoughts -- what do you think?

Join the GW group in the second chance bracket at Yahoo! Sports

2011-03-21T09:57:00.001-05:00

Bracket busted? Yeah, mine is. I started a group at Yahoo! Sports in their Second Chance Bracket contest, where you can win $5000 bucks. It's called GW's Newest Nemanjament -- Washington's was too long.

Join!!!

And tell your friends.

Going to Atlantic City anyway? Here's my recommendations.

2011-03-10T17:45:00.004-05:00

So GW lost, but you can still have an awesome time in AC for the A-10 tourney. I've been a couple times and here's my recommendations.

First off buy a bunch of beer somewhere outside of town. It's expensive/hard to find in the city.

Hotels: if you are a cheapo like me, the Comfort Inn and Days Inn are reasonably priced, they're close to the strip and you won't get gangrene. If you're a baller then some casino I guess. The Borgata is supposed to be nice but it's not on the strip. Stay as close to the strip as possible unless you want to cab it all the time.

Food: There's a bunch of places to eat in the Tropicana, like Red Square, a decent Russian place. Plus you can order delivery food to your hotel. There's also Irish Pub, on Kentucky Avenue right off the strip. Just Irish Pub. It's a laid-back Irish pub, kind of a dive, with cheap beer and whiskey and decent pub grub. I always go, worth a stop.

Bars: Casinos of course. The Tropicana also has a few bars. Last time I was there we got kicked out of a karaoke bar there because my buddy was drunk and dropped a beer. For some reason, the Dizzy Dolphin on the Boardwalk was a big meeting place last time around. It's in the Hilton and they have slot machines at the bar you can play. Plus, there's Irish Pub.

Adult Entertainment: And I don't mean casinos. The main place you'll want to go is called Bare Exposure, it's the only all-nude place there and it's BYOB, which means you can bring in a case of beer or two.

Make sure to get somebody from another A-10 school the "Hot Seat." He will not thank you later, but everybody else there will. Don't talk on your cell phone though, the same buddy as before got kicked out for talking on his phone in the bathroom.

Casinos: Of course. I like the Tropicana, Caesar's is alright, and the crummy looking one next to Bally's (I forget the name, maybe Claridge?) is less nice but seems to have better odds on slots and you get more free booze there, in my experience.

Other fun stuff: The Boardwalk, of course, has lots of boardwalk-related crap: t-shirt shops, carnies, fried food, and so on. There's an amusement park on the boardwalk, plus some reasonably fancy shopping. There are also pedicabs. Last A-10 tourney I remember some drunk Xavier fans pushing around a passed out friend of theirs in one, which was pretty funny.

Got any other ideas? Post them in the comments.

Well, we lost. Nice season though. And now we have KASMIR!

2011-03-09T18:38:00.000-05:00

GW played lethargically and it seemed like nobody wanted to step up until about 5 minutes to go in the game, then we turned it on, tied it up, missed two short last-second shots, and that was that.

Tough loss, but in all a pretty good season. The Smith Center atmosphere was phenomenal, that was the loudest and most full I've heard it since the 2006-2007 season. Great to see that. Prof Kasmir, aka HERO, was in the house, and a bunch of random guys in the side seats printed out my Kasmir HERO poster and brought them, which was cool.

So is the season over? Probably. The CIT is only for small conferences and I don't know if a 17-14 record will get us into the CBI, and definitely not the NIT. We'll see. I'm looking forward to next season anyway, especially Nemanja, Tony Taylor, Pellom, Smith, KROMAH!, Copes & Davis.

Your thoughts on the year? It was infuriating at times (BB&T, crappy losses) but overall we did better than I thought we would. Plus, you know:

Kasmir Hero

Professor Kasmir = Hero

2011-03-08T17:06:00.000-05:00

Hopefully you've heard this story already. A GW accounting professor and donor to the athletic department was honored at halftime of the Dayton game. And then he was ejected.

Prof. Robert Kasmir disagreed with a ref and told him, as an accountant would, that he wasn't worth the $1,600 he was getting paid for the game. Then he got tossed. GWHoopsters say this lit the fire in the building and the team came back to win.

And now it's getting picked up everywhere: Yahoo, WaPo, Deadspin, DCist, Scott Van Pelt's radio show, etc etc.

This is the most press we've gotten since Pops Mensah-Bonsu. Give this man front row seats forever.

I made a poster. Download it and print it out and bring it to the game.

Here's the video:

ESPN,

Happy Presidents' Day: Video

2011-02-21T12:26:00.002-05:00

It's Gee-Dub's Day (plus Abe) so here's a classic video about how George is awesome.

Athletic director Kvancz announces retirement, GW announces review of athletics

2011-02-18T10:59:00.000-05:00

Big news for GW, longtime athletic director Jack Kvancz has announced his retirement, which will be in June 2011. At the same time, GW has commissioned an evaluation of the athletics program chaired by Yankees president, GW alum and Board of Trustees member Randy Levine.

While Kvancz has done a good job, getting GW basketball to great heights, I agree with most of the GWHoops crowd in saying that it was time. I'm looking forward to somebody with more energy and drive to improve the program, which I felt Kvancz lacked sometimes.

I'm hopeful but cautious of the review -- after all, President Knapp came from Johns Hopkins, a mostly non-Division 1 school, although their lacrosse team is Division 1 and one of the best in the country. Levine, however, you'd assume is a big sports fan.

I hope they don't recommend that GW focus less on athletics or basketball.

Here's GW's press release.

Ladies and gentlemen, your next Pita Pit dance contest winner

2011-02-10T08:32:00.000-05:00

University President Steven Knapp.

And the remix!

H/T to the Post.

Buff Out this Wednesday against Richmond

2011-02-08T14:58:00.000-05:00

Those jerks the Spiders are coming to town on Wednesday, and GW has a Buff Out planned. Richmond is having a great year, going 18-6 and 7-2 in conference. It'll be a tough one, but hopefully with lots of noisy fans in buff (or shirtless, I suppose) the good guys will have some proverbial wind in their sails. Here's the press release:

Don’t miss the GW men’s basketball team as they take on the Richmond Spiders this Wednesday night at the Charles E. Smith Center for the 2011 Buff Out!

GW Men’s Basketball vs. Richmond
Buff Out
Wednesday, February 9th
7:00pm • Charles E. Smith Center

Be sure to wear your favorite Buff gear to the game to help the Colonials "Buff Out" the Smith Center. Fans can visit the Colonials Spirit Shop to get 25% off all Buff t-shirts. There will be a special halftime presentation recognizing the 300 Dean's List Athletes and the Student Athletes' Choice for Professor of the Year. Encourage your friends to join us for the last four home games of the season by purchasing our new Colonials Battle Plan ticket pack – a four game package starting as low as $32! We hope to see you this Wednesday as we Buff Out the Smith Center and beat the Spiders!

GO COLONIALS!

And here's a video about spiders

Cool commercial: Colonials Battle Plan -- on MTV!?

2011-02-03T15:36:00.000-05:00

So I heard we lost to Duquesne -- apparently it's opposite year, Duquesne is good.

But who cares about those Blufftop jerks, GW is putting out some cool commercials, including this one on the Colonials Battle Plan. They've been showing it on MTV! Must be a local commercial deal. Pretty awesome if you ask me.

Video: 7 things you need to know about Colonials Hoops

2011-01-26T12:00:00.001-05:00

Another cool video from GW. Love this stuff. Pass it around!!

GW drops three straight -- why is there always a big conference losing streak??

2011-01-24T14:23:00.000-05:00

Every year it seems like GW has a nice winning streak early in the season, then a not-so-nice losing streak in conference play. Things are seeming to go well, then the proverbial wheels fall off. This year, unfortunately, seems no different, with a 5 game winning streak followed by losses to Harvard, Richmond and Bonaventure.

Let's look at past years: last year GW started the season 4-0 and won the first conference game, then dropped the next 4 in a row and 7 out of 8. In 2008-2009, the good guys started 7-2, then lost 11 in a row, including the first 7 conference games. In 2007-2008, the team was 4-6 OOC, won the first conference game, and lost the next 7.

Why does this always happen? Is it the weak conference schedule not preparing the team for conference play? Or something else?

Mike Hall: still good at basketball

2011-01-19T13:06:00.000-05:00

From the article

GW alum Mike Hall (of the great 2005-2007 teams) is doing well in the NBA's D-League for the Dakota Wizards, scoring 27 with 11 boards plus going 4/8 from three in the last game. In fact:

"He's the only one that's carrying us," a frustrated Wizards coach Rory White said. "If you look across the board - Anthony Goods, Chris Johnson, Mike Anderson, Renaldo Major - we're not getting anything."

Nice to see this. Let's hope he gets picked up by the pros. He played for the Washington Wizards in the past, plus in Italy.

Tony Reali spotted at GW-Fordham

2011-01-13T19:28:00.000-05:00

ESPN's Tony Reali, who hosts Around the Horn, was at the Fordham game last night. Reali went to Fordham and apparently some GW fans chanted at him to stop texting during the game -- pretty funny.

H/T to GWHoops for this one.

GW beats Fordham by 20, starting to feel it?

2011-01-13T10:55:00.002-05:00

GW: doing the bull dance, feeling the flow, working it, working it.

The good guys won their fifth straight and third straight in A-10 play, clobbering the Rams of Ford-Ham 72-52. The game was 26-21 GW up at half after some sloppy play by both teams -- 33% shooting for GW and 27% for the Rams. Thankfully just before the half, Tim Johnson hit back-to-back threes. In the second GW exploded for 46 points on 54% shooting.

Interestingly, the Colonials didn't really rely on their usual scorers, as Tony Taylor only got on the board late in the second half, and finished with 12 to lead GW scorers. Dwayne Smith added 11 and Katuka had 10, though he missed some close ones (as usual). Bynes was 3/10, but made some key shots to light a spark (although also some bad ones) while Nemanja Mikic got 10 boards, but only 6 points -- including a dunk! Dan Guest added 7 and Daymon Warren had 6 and I liked what I saw from both of them -- energy and smart play. Also nice to see that Warren can actually score a bit and not just rebound off the bench.

The team made some bonehead plays, namely bad passes, but thankfully overcame them due mainly to scoring runs. And Fordham missed a lot of open threes, going 6/28. Make 4 more of those and it's a much different game.

The student turnout was great, and after a quick sequence where Smith dunked it from the side and Bryan Bynes hit a three, the crowd went bananas. Loudest I've heard it all season. As the game wound down and GW pulled away there were a bunch of alley-oops, which further energized the fans. Let's hope that many students keep coming to games, although the rest of the stands were still pretty sparse.

Here's the GWSports recap (and good video) and box score plus a Post article. Whoa!

In other random game notes, the Air Force drill team performed, which was cool, a crazy flailing dude won the Pita Pit dance contest, finally tearing the title away from the usual flailing little kid, and it was armed forces appreciation day, which included segments on GW Vets, a cool student organization for military vets.

Watch the new Karl Hobbs TV show online

2011-01-13T10:05:00.000-05:00

Karl Hobbs has a TV show on MASN now, which is pretty cool. It's also available on GWSports.com so you don't have to DVR it. Check it out.

GW vs Fordham tonight at 7: Can the Colonials go 3-0 in the A-10?

2011-01-12T12:21:00.000-05:00

And get a 5th straight win? Let's hope so. Ford-ham is 6-7 and just got beat by Temple. They're 1-2 on the road and their best win was a surprise over St. John's. They also lost to GW opponent Hampton and future opponent Harvard. They have four guys scoring in double figures, including Chris Gaston with 14.9 points and a whopping 12 boards a game, which might make it tough on GW, so we'll see.

Here's GWSports's preview.

Awesome sign on Academic Center: DC's Newest Nemanjament

2011-01-12T08:24:00.001-05:00

This is so great. Love that GW is doing this sort of thing. Spread it around!!!!

Via the GWGeorge twitter.

D-League team loses Leemire Goldwire, picks up Maureece Rice

2011-01-11T15:35:00.002-05:00

Talk about fate. NBA D-League team the Sioux Falls Skyforce just picked up former GW star Maureece Rice after Leemire Goldwire left for Italy

If you recall, back in the 2006 season GW was ranked #6 in the country. The last game of the season was against Charlotte at the Smith Center, and GW was trying to go undefeated in the A-10. The game was on ESPN and the hype around it was huge, players and fans gathered hours beforehand for a cookout and pep rally.

Fast forward to the end: the game went into overtime. With 5.7 seconds left, GW was down 2.

Maureece Rice missed a three and then GW's Mike Hall and Charlotte's Leemire Goldwire got tangled up, with some pushing and pulling, and apparently Goldwire throwing elbows at Hall. The officials looked at the replay monitor for awhile to see if Goldwire threw a punch, which would mean he'd be kicked out. They ruled he didn't,
Goldwire was called for a technical and Hall was called for a regular foul, giving GW possession.

Charlotte's DeAngelo Alexander (brother of former GW player Xavier) made 1 of 2 foul shots and Hall made both of his, putting the Colonials down 1. Hobbs designed a play for Maureece Rice to shoot, but he passed it to Noel Wilmore, who threw up a three that missed the rim altogether. Carl Elliott jumped up, caught it, and tossed it in as time expired, giving GW the win. Pandemonium ensued (see above).

Pat Forde of ESPN wrote a nice piece on the game. And I took a ton of photos at the game.

Pretty awesome, intense game. And now Goldwire and Rice are back in the news. Weird how things come full circle.

Karl Hobbs hype video

2011-01-07T11:09:00.003-05:00

Spotted this over at the Fire Hobbs blog, it's a video put together by GW about Hobbs and the team's success. Say what you want about Hobbs recently, but it's good to see GW making some cool, professional videos like this. Spread it around!!

Nice article about DC Mayor Vincent Gray's time at GW: prez of a Jewish frat!

2011-01-06T10:37:00.007-05:00

At yesterday's win over La Salle (more on that later) new DC mayor Vince Gray (class of '64) was honored at midcourt, where he was surprised by some of his fraternity brothers, including Garry Lyle, who was the quarterback of GW's football team and later played for the Bears.(GW had football until 1966.)

The story gets more interesting though, and there's a Post article about it. Gray was the head of Tau Epsilon Phi, a Jewish frat, and his frat had an awesome intramural (and integrated) basketball team. Of course, Gray is African-American and not Jewish. He was also the first African-American member of a GW frat.

At that time, the varsity basketball team wasn't integrated (the football team was) so Gray, who was apparently scouted by pro teams, couldn't play for them.

The team played at the old Tin Tabernacle gym, which used to be located on the quad, and when Gray and his frat brothers were announced at the game there was a cool graphic on the Jumbotron that had the gym and said "Tin Tabernacle All-Stars" on it (which would make an awesome t-shirt, by the way).

Very cool that the University put this all together.

But don't take my word for it. Read yourself.

At right is a picture of the Vince Gray in younger days and the Tin Tabernacle in 1965. The gym is the white building, and behind it, I believe, is Stockton Hall, the law school building.

Regis in the house

2011-01-04T10:51:00.002-05:00

Regis Koundjia, GW class of 2007, has been around lately, attending both the Holy Cross (pictured) and Howard games. Regis was one of the faster GW players I've seen and was an important part of the great 2005-2006 team. After graduating he played for the Vermont Frost Heaves of the USBL, plus overseas a bit.

There was also an interesting Post article about him. I didn't get a chance to talk to him, but I hope he's doing well.

Random thoughts about Burr Gymnasium and the Howard game

2011-01-03T18:19:00.001-05:00

This was my first away game in a long time, not counting the BB&T or NCAAs. I saw GW at American a couple times (including a loss when AU was bad, a short dude hit a ton of 3s and we refused to cover him -- sounds familiar) plus a win at Towson.

First off, Burr Gym is small. There's only one tier of about 12 rows of seats and nobody was there. Maybe 150 people total. It was also free -- we walked in, and there wasn't a ticket booth. We walked around a bit and didn't see any, so we just went in and sat down. Everybody else did the same apparently. Kind of weird they don't charge something. I'd have paid $10-$15 or so, GW prices.

It was also a good 85 degrees in there, maybe more.

There was a DJ during the breaks in the action, which was cool, though sometimes there'd be really loud static when the music started or stopped. I don't know if the school band usually plays and this was a temporary thing since school is out or if they always have a DJ. But he played some pretty good stuff, like "Atomic Dog" by Parliament and/or Funkadelic.

The small crowd made it an interesting game, as you could hear everything -- Hobbs' advice to players, their own talking and play calling, fans yelling at the refs, and more. You're also really close the action, there's not much space from the court to the seats like at the Smith Center. This made for some funny moments, like when Hobbs begged Mikic to take a shot fake, and if he did that one time he could shoot as often as he wanted. At one point Pellom (I think) let out a loud groan after he missed a free throw too.

There were about 30-40 GW people there, and we were much louder than any Howard fans. There seemed to be very few, most of the people just seemed like passive observers or were kids teams that brought those inflatable noise-makers you hit together. Random.

All in all, a fun time. I should go to more road games.

GW runs past Howard, wins 85-50: game plan for A-10 season?

2011-01-02T20:49:00.000-05:00

It was a close one until the second half, when GW turned it on and blew past the Howard Bison in a very warm Burr Gymnasium. Maybe 150 people were in attendance as GW shot 54.4% from the floor for the game, and 57% in the second half.

Howard kept close until GW shut them down in the second, when they got only 6 baskets. The good guys forced 30 turnovers and got to the line 27 times, though they shot a GW-like 63%.

It kind of seemed like Hobbs got an actual, sensible rotation going, which is good. Starters Smith, Taylor, Bynes, Mikic and Katuka were the only players with more than 20 minutes, and all but Bynes scored in double figures.

Bynes only shot 4 times, which is good considering he's shooting 33% from the floor and has shot more than anybody on the season. He did get 7 assists, so let's hope that continues. Daymon Warren had 16 minutes and grabbed 8 rebounds while everybody who got into the game scored. Here's the box score and recap.

So maybe we have a game plan going into the A-10 season? Dwayne Smith has been more aggressive lately, which is good, and has been scoring in double figures consistently, both driving and taking some outside shots. Tony Taylor is also slashing more, and he's great at that. Nemanja Mikic may be one-dimensional (three pointers) but the team is finding him when he's open. Hopefully those three form the core, with Katuka, Bynes, Guest, and Pellom next most as role players, and maybe Warren if we need more boards.

I've liked what I've seen of Guest as a distributor, and Pellom can rebound and score from close in, while Katuka sometimes plays well, and Bynes can be a good point guard if he doesn't take crazy shots, as he's been doing. It doesn't look like Tim Johnson will get in much.

Then again, Howard is not a good team. We'll see through the rest of the season.

Day off tomorrow? Go see GW play Holy Cross!

2010-12-30T12:21:00.001-05:00

I'm going to pretend the GW-UAB game didn't happen.

So let's move on! GW is playing the Crusaders of Holy Cross, Worcester's finest (suck it, Clark and WPI) on Friday at 3 pm. It's kids day, so if you have little kids, bring them at 2 and they can meet the mascots and get free stuff.

Holy Cross is 1-10, so this might be a good game to check out. Let's hope.

SER-BI-A! Mikic named A-10 freshman of the week

2010-12-20T14:09:00.003-05:00

And for good reason. Mikic scored 19 against Oregon State on Saturday, hitting 6 of 10 threes. Nice to see him getting some props.

Here's the GWSports article.

Wow, we won! GW 87-Oregon State 79

2010-12-19T12:37:00.000-05:00

I certainly didn't see this coming: GW winning on the road against a BCS team. Sure, not a great BCS team (300+ RPI) but hey, I'm happy.

Tony Taylor had a great game, 19 points and 11 assists, while as predicted by OSU fans, Nemanja Mikic had a big game, scoring 19 as well on 6 threes. Dwayne Smith and Bryan Bynes (who has gotten a lot of crap lately on GWHoops) also scored in double figures.

Sounds like GW played its game, forcing 20 turnovers and frustrating Oregon State's offense. The team finally shot well, hitting 58% in the first half and 54% overall, plus 47% from three, making 11.

I wonder if this is GW turning the corner on the season? Or just a fluke game? Your thoughts?

Here's GWSports on the win, and GWHoopsters wringing their hands.

Oregon State tonight: I got interviewed by a Beaver blog

2010-12-18T11:34:00.000-05:00

GW plays Oregon State tonight. Last year, of course, the Obamas came to the Smith Center to see Mrs. Obama's brother, who coaches the Beavers. This year, we will probably lose big time.

I also got interviewed on Building the Dam, an Oregon State blog. Check it!

So we beat Towson: now what?

2010-12-15T14:32:00.000-05:00

GW returned to the strategy of old against Towson: press, trap, force turnovers, get transition buckets. Of course, Towson is a bad team, so they probably could have run the usual Hobbs-wheel or run the triple option and done ok.

But is this the future this season for GW? Can the good guys do this new/old style of play ("GW Basketball" as Hobbs calls it -- he even has a video about it) and win some games? They also need to stop the three, get penetration (which they did against Towson) and find some go-to scorers. A tall order.

And I don't think GW can do that against Oregon State. Your thoughts?

Cool interactive media guide for GW

2010-12-10T10:46:00.002-05:00

Maybe all isn't lost. I recently discovered this interactive guide to the GW team, which is pretty cool. It's well-designed and has cool videos in it, as well as some neat facts and nice photos.

Enjoy.

The Fire Hobbs chatter heats up

2010-12-08T14:42:00.004-05:00

It looks like, for maybe the first time in history, the residents of GWHoops are unanimous about something -- displeasure with Hobbs' performance. Many of the GWHoopsters are calling for him to be fired now or at the end of the season. There are threads asking for Mike Jarvis to come back, new head coach candidates (including my 2 cents), a poll on if he should go, and suggestions to write to the Board of Trustees demanding Hobbs and the whole AD leadership go. More on that in a future post.

In addition, the Fire Hobbs blog has started up again.

Tonight: GW vs Towson at the Smith Center

2010-12-08T12:26:00.001-05:00

In a normal year, Towson would be an easy win. Of course, in a normal year Hampton and Navy would be easy wins. Herve gives Towson the edge by 2. Towson is 2-4 with wins over Coppin State and Western Michigan, and losses to Navy, Hofstra, Buffalo and Miami (OH). They sound pretty bad.

I have a feeling if GW loses this one, there might be people with torches out on Eye Street calling for the head of Hobbsenstein's monster. Or maybe people will just cry into their beers.

Here's Towson's preview and GW's preview.

Navy recap: GW torpedoed by inability to make short shots and defend threes

2010-12-06T17:58:00.004-05:00

Stephen Decatur burning enemy frigates in Tripoli. That, or GW's offense.

Well, that was not very much fun. At the BB&T, GW played the role of the Spanish navy in the Spanish-American War, and it did not end very well.

As has been noted previously, GW has some major deficiencies: namely the lack of anyone who wants to score, the inability to defend the three-pointer, an offense that mostly involves passing it around the perimeter, and the stunning ability to miss short shots. We're talking lay-ups and shots from two feet away. They missed so many.

This game really should have been a blowout, but Navy, which shot 45.5%, also missed a lot of open shots and easy drives. If they could finish, they would have shot 60% easy and this game would have been even uglier.

GW shot 31% for the game. This is the second game in a row that GW shot 31%. That is really terrible. GW actually did better when the team stopped shooting and tried to draw fouls, then pressed-and-trapped on defense. Hopefully the Colonials do more pressing and trapping going forward, since that seemed like the only time GW got any stops and any momentum and wasn't dead in the water (another naval reference for you).

There really were no bright spots from the game, except we got to do lots of naval heckling: "Nimitz was overrated." "The Coast Guard is better." "Remember the Maine." And so on.

The Navy mascot. What?

Plus we figured out that Navy are called the Midshipmen. But that's what they are, it's not really a team name. It'd be like calling GW the College Students instead of the Colonials. Kind of dumb.

And speaking of dumb: the Navy mascot is a ram. Not an admiral or a sailor or a battleship. I have never seen a ram on a boat.

Where are they now? The great 2005-2006 team

2010-12-04T10:40:00.001-05:00

Pretty cool article from the Colonial Cable, the GW alumni newsletter, which has a where are they now feature for the 2005-2006 men's team. That team had a fantastic season, going 27-3 and undefeated in the A-10, rising as high as #6 in the AP poll and making the 2nd round of the NCAA tourney (getting shafted by facing Duke in North Carolina in that round, in one of the worst-officiated games I've ever seen).

Most of the players from that team are still playing ball, overseas or in the NBDL, or in Pops' case, in the NBA. The Ukraine Train (Alex Kireev, now called Kireyev) lives in the DC area, as does Dior Toney and Dominic Green. Regis Koundjia played for the Central African Republic national team, which is pretty cool, and Montrell McDonald popped up to play for Arkansas, briefly.

The school is also hosting a men's and women's basketball reunion Feb 25-27, which is pretty cool.

"Basketball" rapper Kurtis Blow busted for weed

2010-12-02T15:01:00.002-05:00

Instead of writing about GW losing again, here's something only tangentially related the GW basketball, but amusing. The TSA found less than an ounce of doobies in rapper Kurtis Blow's pocket thanks to one of the scanners. (Maybe he was on his way to Thurston, or Georgetown.)

Blow is most famous for "The Breaks" but also did my favorite basketball-related song of all time, which is surprisingly called "Basketball." I listen to it before every GW game, no joke.

(Apparently Lil Bow Wow covered it, but screw him.)

Here's "The Breaks."

GW versus Mason tonight at GMU -- get ye there.

2010-12-01T11:53:00.001-05:00

Kind of a lame memorial if you ask me

GW faces George Mason in the 2nd Battle of the Orange Line tonight at the Patriot Center, 7 pm. I hope you go, but it might not be close -- Herve, for instance, gives this bronze dude above the edge in every category: "GW has a about as much chance staying close in this game as Charlie Sheen has of completing the Four Loko factory tour."

Then again, GW is 10-1 versus Mason, including a win last year. If we win, great, if not, oh well.

Here's GWSports on the game, which is a bit more cheery.

That sucked. GW 69-UNCW 73

2010-11-30T11:27:00.004-05:00

GW is bad at three things: scoring inside, defending the 3, and rebounding. The Seahawks (which apparently is a thing) shot 54.5% from beyond the arc, and while freshman Nemanja Mikic had a Lasan Kromah-esque game, scoring 23 on 7-12 from three, GW couldn't keep up.

The Colonials had trouble all day scoring from inside, going 14/38 from 2 while 11/27 from three.I'd be interested in seeing a shooting chart, there'd be tons of X's around the basket and tons of O's around the arc. The Colonials missed lay-ups and short shots like crazy, and were slow on rotations, allowing the Seahawks to shoot the lights out, 12/22 from three.

If you look at the stats, the game actually looks pretty good for GW, 19 assists versus 12 turnovers, 17 offensive boards (mainly due to missed short shots), 22 points off turnovers. However, the team only shot a combined 38.5% from the floor, and 32.3% in the second half, allowing UNCW to walk away with it.

The rebounding numbers don't look too bad (38 for the bad guys vs. 35 for the good guys) but a lot of those UNCW boards were uncontested, and GW seemed to miss ones they should have had.

Joseph Katuka had an ok game, though he missed some shots off nice post moves, while Aaron Ware seemed to be the only consistently energetic player, grabbing 7 boards. Dwayne Smith had 10 points and 9 boards, while the Taking of the David Pellom 1-2-3 had 9 points.

Tim Johnson played sparingly after getting pulled for turning it over two possessions in a row, and Tony Taylor fouled out, going 1/5 from the floor.

Blah. The recap is on GWSports.com and lots of stats are on Statsheet.

If you want to see more hand-wringing, check out GWHoops.com. GW next faces George Mason at the Patriot Center on Wednesday.

On the bright side, Mikic played very well, reminiscent of Lasan Kromah's coming out game last year. Mikic was one three short of tying the school record (held by Greg Collucci and somebody else). Former players Mike Hall and Dior Toney were in the crowd as well.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Mikic basically kept GW in the game.

Basketball tonight! GW men vs Nevada in Preseason NIT

2010-11-22T10:09:00.000-05:00

Nevada's old logo is a ripoff.

Do you like basketball? Good! Get to the Smith Center at 8 pm tonight as GW faces Nevada in the consolation round of the Preseason NIT. Earlier in the P-NIT, GW lost to Boston U to open the season and then beat Marist (Karl Hobbs' 150th win) behind big games from Tony Taylor and freshman Chris Fitzgerald.

Nevada s 1-2, beating Montana then losing to Pacific and Pepperdine. Unfortunately GW doesn't start with a P, but considering those losses, I think the Colonials have a chance.

Here's GWSports on the matchup. If you really like hoops, BU faces Hampton at 5:30 as well.

More from the game: fans, Smith Center, food, funny stuff

2010-11-10T11:08:00.001-05:00

So now, the non-game portion of our program.

Mac n cheez

The first thing was, of course, the updated Smith Center. The outside looked sleek and modern, and the ticket booths had nice wood above them, not quite as functional as they used to look. The corner areas are all white and modern now (and empty), and the concession stands moved downstairs. They still have the people walking around selling food, which is good, and the hot dogs were fine. One addition though: mac and cheese. I figured I had to get it, and it was not bad. Not amazing, but not bad either, I'd get it again. No chicken sandwiches though.

The downstairs concession stands also have seats where you could conceivably sit and eat, though nobody was doing that. There were also two trophy cases in the concession area, which included the game ball from the 1957 Sun Bowl, GW's only bowl game, where GW beat Texas Western, which is now UTEP.

Back upstairs, there's a new jumbotron, which was cool, and it seemed like the scoreboard operator could keep track better of who was in, which is good to see. There were times last year when nobody on the scoreboard was actually on the court. There was decent student turnout for an exhibition game, and the noise level was pretty good during Tim Johnson's run and Mikic making good plays.

Buy this stuff

I also noticed some other random stuff: Big George was walking around with two guys who had shirts that said "Mascot Secret Service." There was some kind of scout sitting behind the basket too, he had drawings on the lane and was charting something on it. He was an older guy, maybe he'd volunteered to keep stats or track plays or something. I should have asked.

They had clothing and such for sale too, including new blue foam tricorner hats. A bit more tasteful than the bright yellow ones. They only had #20 jerseys that I saw, but maybe they'll get more in. They usually do.

Concession area downstairs. Trophy case at right.

Recap: GW clobbers Bowie State

2010-11-09T00:54:00.001-05:00

The season started! And it was good for GW. The Colonials took the lead early but couldn't pull awway until about 15 minutes had elapsed, and then they outran the Bulldogs for the rest of the game, 82-64. Lasan Kromah was out with an injury while freshman Nemanja Mikic started, so it was a pretty different lineup. Here's my thoughts:

It's going to be an interesting year. To me, there aren't a lot of assigned roles really. There's a lot of tall guys (Mikic, David Pellom, Dwayne Smith, Jabari Edwards, Chris Fitzgerald), a bunch of point guards (Taylor, Tim Johnson, Bryan Bynes, Dan Guest?), and then some other miscellaneous, but solid, guys (Aaron Ware, Joe Katuka, Lasan Kromah). It almost seems like it doesn't matter who's doing the damage, and at times, it was tough to notice who was in and who was scoring. But it worked.

The new guys: I liked Mikic, who played 31 minutes, the most of anybody. He shot from outside, shot from inside, and got 6 boards to go with 11 points. Pretty solid outing. Dan Guest was in briefly (9 minutes) but seemed pretty steady, getting 4 assists in that time, tied for most with Aaron Ware. My first impression of Chris Fitzgerald was that he looked like me as a freshman, aside from being big (listed at 6'8", 235, which I buy). He's maybe the palest guy ever but had some good defensive stops, though he was 0-4 from three, his only shots. Daymon Warren only got a few minutes and didn't do much.

The old guys: Ware was his usual athletic self. Tony Taylor had some nice offensive moves, and Bynes looked lightning fast. Tim Johnson was pretty quiet until about 10 minutes to go in the second, when he went off, getting two steals and hitting two 3s and a layup over about 2 minutes. He just took over, and finished with 19. I really liked his attitude, he was encouraging other players and looked good out there.

Joseph Katuka apparently played 22 minutes, but I didn't really notice, though he scored 10 and got 6 boards. There weren't many entry passed to him to make post moves, though he did one that worked pretty well, as I recall. David Pellom quietly got 11 points, 7 boards and 3 blocks -- reminiscent of Omar Williams, who'd have good games and you didn't really notice. Dwayne Smith got 6 boards and 7 points in 13 minutes, but it was sort of subtle too. Maybe that's the idea, it doesn't really matter who's doing the damage. A lot of threes were taken and made too.

Stay tuned for more about the atmosphere at the game, the Smith Center, and other non-basketball stuff I noticed.

All in all, an enjoyable game, and it made me look forward to the season. Here's the article, box score, and quotes, and the Hatchet's coverage, with lots of photos.

BASKETBALL TOMORROW!!!! Exhib vs Bowie State 2 pm!!!!

2010-11-05T12:13:00.000-05:00

Hey, just a usual day in Colonial Hoops land... oh wait!

BASKETBALL TOMORROW!!!!!!!

That's right, it's GW vs Bowie State tomorrow (Saturday) at 2 pm at the Smith Center. Be there! See the freshmen! See how Big Joe Katuka has progressed! ~~See Mark Lund!~~ (Sorry, he graduated 10 years ago)

Here's something to put you in the dunking mood!

And something else!!

6 AM workouts: I'm glad I'm not a college basketball player

2010-11-05T10:02:00.000-05:00

Spotted these two messages on Karl Hobbs' Twitter:

You just can't help but get better at this hour. #riseandshine (posted at 6 am)

Early practice tomorrow. I love the 6 AM workouts. Gives players the whole day for school and to receive any injury treatment they may need.

Oof. I had a tough enough time waking up for my 2 pm classes when I was at GW. I would have gotten kicked off the team in days. Assuming I wasn't already kicked off for being bad at basketball.

I got my season tickets: did you?

2010-11-04T10:01:00.001-05:00

The envelope with season tickets arrived in the mail the other day, which is always a good day. Did you get yours?

If you aren't a season ticket holder, DO IT! It's inexpensive as heck. Plus you're helping out GW and putting butts in the seats. Even if you can't make all the games, it makes a good present, or something fun to do with friends.

GW Cribs: Looking at the new Smith Center

2010-11-03T10:00:00.001-05:00

GW is getting more involved with web 2.0, social media, and all that jazz. I like it. As one example, here's a pretty cool video on the new Smith Center upgrades, called "GW Cribs," like that MTV TV show. It features Aaron Ware and Sara Mostafa. Enjoy!

Surprisingly, GW is no stranger to MTV. For example, here's Xzibit wearing a Chris Monroe jersey on Pimp My Ride. Apparently a producer or something went to GW.

GW: Best college team in DC

2010-10-28T10:22:00.001-05:00

Suck it, UDC Firebirds! We're number 1!

So says the Express newspaper's Best of 2010, where readers vote for their favorite things in DC. GW won for best college team, thanks in part (I hope) to this humble blog. Got to love the photo they picked too of Hobbs being his crazy old self.

This is actually pretty cool, considering we beat out much bigger schools like Maryland, Virginia Tech, Virginia (great campus, btw), American, Mason, Catholic, Trinity, Strayer, and that one where the Exorcist guy lived.

Karl Hobbs almost made it a sweep, getting 2nd place in best coach to Capitals coach Bruce Boudreau, but hilariously beating Mike Shanahan.

Hail to the Buff!

Buff and Blue Game, an intrasquad scrimmage, tonight

2010-10-22T10:31:00.000-05:00

Got this from the department today, check it out. Sounds pretty cool.

Don't forget to join us this evening at 6pm for the 1st Annual Buff and Blue Game. This men's basketball intrasquad scrimmage will include two 15 minute halves, a post-game Q&A session with Head Coach Karl Hobbs, and complimentary concessions fare for all 2010-11 season ticket holders. Fans can RSVP by emailing GWpromos@gwu.edu. All 2010-11 Athletic Director's Club and Colonials Club members are also invited to a special dessert reception after the game in the Colonials Club. If you have any additional questions, please contact 202-994-7325. We look forward to seeing you at the Smith Center!

To clarify, season ticket holders get the free concessions. Other fans can get in but don't get free concessions. Students must be in the Colonial Army to go.

Gary Williams quits coaching, joins Air Force

2010-10-19T12:00:00.001-05:00

Check it out, above. Maybe now they'll play some decent teams. Not sure if there's any danger to being extremely sweaty while flying an airplane though, as Gary is wont to do.

He also likes being drunk and eating chicken wings with girls.

Hey Gary: play GW. And Georgetown while you're at it.

Pops joins Hornets training camp

2010-10-05T12:44:00.001-05:00

Everyone's favorite Whale Killer has another shot at the NBA, joining the New Orleans Hornets' training camp. He gave an interview to MVP Basketball, including this:

“I’m 27-year-old now and I’ve been at this stage before. I’m a bit older and wiser. But I have a chip on my shoulder and when I played for GB in the summer, it definitely helped that I was playing with a bit of anger. It made me focus in a little more and it made sure I brought the same intensity to every game. I just wanted to show the best of my abilities. I did that this summer. And I want to continue to do that.”

I didn't know Pops was 27. He had a deal with Spanish league champions Caja Laboral Baskonia, but it fell through after they learned about an apparently well-known knee injury which doesn't seem to be bothering him. Pops played well for the Great Britain national team lately, being the team's leading rebounder during Eurobasket qualifiers. He also gets a mention on Hoops Fix, a British basketball site.

Interestingly, the Hornets GM was the GM for the Austin Toros, the D-League team Pops dominated for before getting called up to the Spurs. He's up against Joe Alexander, Daryl Watkins, Michael Washington to be former Xavier player David West's backup. I've only heard of Alexander, so maybe that's a good sign. And the MVP Basketball article says the Hornets need energy and rebounding. Sounds like that English guy from GW. Let's hope he sticks.

Colonials Run is today: run with the players and eat what Karl Hobbs grills

2010-10-01T13:44:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the lack of lead time on this, just saw on the GW Sports Facebook that today at 4 is the Colonials Run, where you can run with the players around the Monuments, then go to a cookout where Karl Hobbs is grilling. Sounds fun. Too bad I have to work.

Here's the registration form with more info.

There are prizes too. If you beat Greg Collucci you get a free car. (Not really).

No, really. Vote for Hobbs and GW and see Aaron Ware's Hobbs impression

2010-09-14T14:05:00.002-05:00

Aaron Ware as Karl Hobbs

GW is really pushing the Express Best of DC poll, and I'm glad!

You can vote often, so do it. Click on Sports and vote for Karl Hobbs for best coach and GW for best college.

Also check out Aaron Ware's Karl Hobbs impression on the GWSports Facebook page. Pretty funny.

Best of DC: Vote for Karl Hobbs and GW

2010-09-09T16:15:00.002-05:00

The Express newspaper has its best of 2010 poll up, and among the choices are best coach and best college team. Karl Hobbs is a choice for best coach (suck it JTIII) and GW is up there for best college team.

Click here to vote!!!!!

Jonathan Davis to join Colonials in 2011

2010-09-08T11:14:00.008-05:00

YouTube Highlight Reel

While his name might appear to be more musically inclined, this Jonathan Davis is a stand-out 6'8" 215 lbs. forward with a handle who averaged 16 and 10 last season for Simi Valley High School in Southern California. Jonathan verbally committed to GW after a visit during labor day weekend. He also held offers from Hawaii, Pacific, SMU, Utah, and UTEP as well as reported interest from other major programs. Jonathan will join ESPN top-100 commitment Erik Copes in the frontcourt next season as part of GW's class of 2011.

LA Times Report

ESPN Profile Link

Rivals Profile Link

Scout Profile Link

Additional sources: gwhoops 1, gwhoops 2, Sports Hawaii