Yowsers: GW 108 (!) - Maine 81

 

As you can tell by the score, there wasn't a ton of defense in this game, but then it's hard to complain when the good guys score triple digits and win by 27.

For the second game in a row, GW shot well and blew the game open early hitting threes. Early in the first half Maurice Creek had 3 and Nemanja Mikic had 2 from behind the arc, and only rarely did GW look back (the two shooters finished with 5 and 4, respectively.) For the game, the Colonials were 11/28 from three, on 39%, shot 54% from the floor overall and 75% from the free throw line, taking 28 foul shots. Those are some nice numbers. Another nice number: 1-0. That's now GW's all-time record against Maine. Suck it, Orono!

KevLar with a ghostly dunk

Of course, the worry comes that these two good shooting games have come against weaker competition, but then again, maybe GW is just a good shooting team this year. It's certainly nice to see players take and hit open shots over and over.

For a while I thought this might be the most points ever for GW in regulation, but that was actually 119 versus Howard in 2000. (Thanks to voice of GW basketball Byron Kerr and Fred on Twitter for that info. Check out the crazy box score for that game: 20+ points for Chris Monroe, Sir Valiant Brown and Mike King.)

Maine for their part took advantage of some lax defense all game long by driving the lane with relative abandon, though GW did block 9 shots. The Colonials allowed way too many easy lay-ups and putbacks, plus some other defensive lapses.

But those are nits to pick, considering the generally solid game: there were five GW players scoring double figures, led by Creek's 19 and Kethan Savage's 18, and eight Colonials played at least 15 minutes. Rebounding was another big plus for the good guys, with GW outrebounding the Black Bears 49-36. Kevin Larsen, Isaiah Armwood and Savage had 9 boards each! Two games into the young season and Savage is averaging 7.5 boards per game, behind only Armwood's 10.5. Early, sure, but nice to see a lot of rebounding.

And like last game, the halfcourt offense was a little tough to understand but seemed to work: they scored a ton, so we'll have to see what it's like against a more solid team.

It seemed that Coach Lonergan was doing some experimenting with lineups early, doing hockey-style five-man line changes, which was interesting. I guess it's a good game to do it, give the youngsters some time to play. And mostly they looked alright: Miguel Cartagena had seven assists and five points, but all from the line -- he's quick and got to the basket with some nice moves, but had a hard time finishing. Paris Maragkos scored a quiet 7 while we only briefly saw Nick Griffin and Skyler White. White shot it as soon a he got the ball towards the end of the game, with the crowd going "aww" when he missed it both times. He seems to be the guy the crowd loves to see get into the game.

The only main disappointment, however, was that crowd -- official attendance was only 1,448 and the student section, while rowdy, was pretty small. The students who saw GW vs Radford but missed this game really missed out, it's not everyday you see 108 points, and there were a lot of highlight-worthy dunks and blocks by Isaiah Armwood and Kevin Larsen and tons of big threes. It was a fun game to watch.

Can't understand why they didn't
put this one on the jumbotron

However, partially due to the turnout, the fan of the game honor goes to the heckler from Maine. There was a goofy guy in some kind of Maine hockey or lacrosse jersey sitting behind the basket on the west end of the stadium who would yell something during GW free throws, which actually seemed to work. He seemed to do it in good fun though, and when I saw him at the snack bar during the game he was thoroughly enjoying himself, despite his team getting clobbered. So, good for you, Maine superfan. Glad you had a good sense of humor about the game.

Here's the box score and official GW recap with some tweets.

GW's next game is Saturday at Manhattan at 7 pm. It'll be on 1050 am and WFED.com.

Dunk photo by Endrit Demi, other two by me (not of me)