Starting lineup:
Diggs, Hollis, Witherspoon, Moore, Rice
First off the bench:
Xavier Alexander (Although it should be noted that by the time X actually entered the game, he had three other colonial subs join him on the sideline. Only 'Spoon remained of the starters after the first rotation).
Overall:
Fun to watch, clearly many early season mistakes against an undermanned foe, but the game still gave the sense of good things to come.
Quik Sum:
With 21 points, Rob Diggs paced the Colonial squad that scored the first 15 points of the game and never trailed. 'Spoon chipped in 15 and with Hollis the two accounted for more than half of GWs total rebounds. GW shot over 50% from the field and drained 7/11 from 3 land. See AP, GW press releases.
Moment(s):
The game was punctuated by three monstrous dunks, one by Cheyenne (windmill break-away), Witherspoon (unreal baseline one hand in-your-face-omar-style), & Robb Diggs off a sweet alley-oop.
Other notes:
Maurice Rice scored a quiet but effective 15. His trademark. Although Hobbs talked about Rice taking up the point in King's absence (who sat out again but did dress and warm-up with the team), others like 'Spoon seem to be pulling a fair share of the weight as well.
Noel chipped in 3 baskets (which Noel followers know usually equals 9 pts).
GW turned the ball over 6 more times than Mt. St. Mary's but road the +10 rebound differential in their favor. Will be interesting to see if typically pocket-picking GW maintains such a positive rebound differential against teams with bigger bruisers in the middle.
Errant passes and overdribbling. All over the place, often. The vast majority of GW turnovers were the result of those two fundamental infractions.
Chey looks healthy, which is good, but his shot selection still seems questionable at times. Granted, if two more of his long-distance 3s fall I don't make this comment- but they didn't.
Witherspoon. Not enough can be said about the guy. Kept GW going steady and strong.
Freshmen. Definitely saw some action, definitely tended to defer to their upperclassmen counterparts on the court.
Opoku and Xavier battle foul trouble. See next note.
Refs paced the game reasonably well (e.g allowed the game move at a GW pace) but called a lot of bizarre offensive fouls (esp. on Opoku and X). Would have to look at the numbers, but the refs may have called more offensive fouls on GW than defensive.
Neat Note(s):
Many audience members including three young boys in the upper deck above the home basket busted out their Soljah boy moves during halftime. Coach McKeown would be proud.
Check out this box score. Now check out this box score. Lone senior, large underclass roster. 2004-2005 redux anyone?
As always, check out the chatter over at GWhoops.
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