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

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?