New series: This Week in Mayhem by Ryan Puleo

Colonial Hoops is happy to introduce a new blogger who should be well known to A-10 Twitter: Ryan Puleo! Ryan is in his second year at GW. Welcome Ryan, who will be writing recaps, updates and other fun stuff going forward.

Jeff Neubauer Fired By Fordham

In what can only be considered the most expected event of the season so far (aside from SLU being in last place), Fordham has parted ways with Head Coach Jeff Neubauer. The Rams have been one of the worst teams in the A-10 for the past several seasons yet shown little improvement. Last year, their highlight was getting three lucky wins against the always tough GW team but did not manage to win that game this year. The Colonials downed the Rams 71-47. 

The bright spot for Jeff, in what was his last win as a Ram, was an upset against reigning A-10 regular-season champions Dayton. Much to the dismay of the rowdy Dayton Twitter community, the Rams pulled out the stunner and dealt a significant blow to the Flyer’s at-large bid chances as a result. Mike DePaoli has taken over as head coach for the time being and lost his first game to the Duquesne Dukes this past Wednesday.

Dayton vs. Saint Louis

The Arch Barron Cup, the second most important game of the A-10 Regular season aside from GW vs SLU, took place this past Tuesday. SLU came into the affair ranked 22nd in the nation despite not playing a game for the previous 5 weeks. An in-depth analysis of the situation reveals that SLU was attempting to delay their season just past the heavily-anticipated matchup with GW in which they certainly would have been obliterated. 

Ultimately, that plan did not work and the Billikens had to play an inconsistent but challenging Dayton squad. Jalen Crutcher asserted the Chaifetz Arena as his vacation home with an amazing performance that built on his last-second game-winner last year. Here, SLU took a major hit in their search for an at-large bid as their mayhem levels remain at all-time lows.

 

GW Still on Pause

COVID-19 tests have forced the most feared team in the A-10 into hibernation for at least 3 weeks as the GW program has extended its pause until February 6th at the earliest. One notable winner of this situation is Saint Louis, who is able to dodge their frightening matchup with mayhem this upcoming Saturday. 

GW will look to make as many games as possible, but in this challenging season, every game is played with added difficulty. We can only hope the program resumes as soon as possible, so we can continue to see the upward trend the team has put on display since our rocky start.