I went to the Colonial Invasion event at the Smith Center.  It was well orchestrated and even President Knapp attended.  A female basketball player (forgot her name) and Aaron Ware were the "MCs" and there were dance numbers by the Spirit Team and the cheerleaders and the GW band played.  The score featured the "Chicago Bucket Boys" -- a troupe playing plastic buckets real well.  The new scoreboard video is outstanding.  The Chicago Bucket Boys were introduced by Tim Johnson.

The mens and womens basketball teams each did a hiphop dance routine when introduced one by one.  Every one of them threw a shirt or two to the audience (lots of shirts flying around).  They even came out with free burritos wrapped in foil and I thought Oh my God, they're not going to throw the burritos (think beans and rice flying around from exploding burritos).  They passed those around, thank goodness.  Aaron Ware was great as an MC.  Lasan and Tony doing a hiphop dance were great.

It ended with singing the GW fight song plus the alma mater.  One thing though:  the event was sparsely attended -- less than half the Smith Center's capacity.  I recall Hobbs' first year as coach, following two disappointing Pender years, the Midnight Madness event filled the Smith Center.  Where have all the fans gone?

 http://plixi.com/p/50887023

You'd think with all of the dough Hobbs is making that he'd have a better camera.

To answer the question "Where have all the fans gone?":

I am a senior and have been to 90% of the mens games since my freshman year, and every year we got worse until last year. The students in the stands last night have never seen a good season at GW and the conventional wisdom is that GW is not competitive at basketball. No student, in the stands yesterday, has an ounce of emotion for the 2004-2005-2006 seasons. They know GW basketball as the breakdown of Rice, a walk-on start at point guard (Lee was fun to watch-don't get me wrong), and discussions of Hobbs getting fired. That conventional wisdom is going to stick when the team has not accomplished anything in the last 3 years. I see it changing this year though if we don't go backwards, and especially next year with someone like Copes.

It was a good showing for the two teams.  The show was great....  so many pu$$ies on here

JP makes an excellent point.  The team needs to show its an exciting and winning team for the students NOW.  Incoming freshman were in junior high school for much of the Pops, Mike, Omar etc. era.  Frankly having the stands a little less than half full with students for midnight madness (I interpret as over 2,000 students) seems pretty good.  The good part of all of this is that if the team does well it can win over a lot of students immediately. 

 Anyone who was at both: how did the attendance compare to last year's event? It seemed to be pretty full last year, but it sounds like the turnout wasn't as good this time around. Is that true?

I thought that the event was really well put together this year! They only used half the smith center this year because it seems like they needed the other side in order to do a lot of the special effects... with that said the whole side they used was full to the top with fans and the audience seemed really enthusiastic and supportive throughout the entire show. I think it is a great start to what looks like a potential great season for both womens and mens basketball!

After 10+ years of posting here, it looks like another JP has finally decided to add his monicker to this site.  Herve, that doesn't mean I need to change my poster name to "JP1", does it?

http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2010/10/18/Sports/Colonials.Invasion.Rocks.Renovated.Smith.Center-3946061.shtml 

Sorry original JP. You definitley get seniority rights. I'll go by JordanP

Any word on Travis King?

GW posted some shots from the event. 

http://www.gwu.edu/~newsctr/10/photogalleries/1017_Colonials_Weekend/

Also, the post had a write up on Georgetown's and Maryland's MM events. 

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/10/gary_williams_in_top_gun_jtiii.html#more

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/10/gary_williams_in_top_gun_jtiii.html#more

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/dcsportsbog/2010/10/gary_williams_in_top_gun_jtiii.html#more

JordanP,

Thanks, brother.  I really wasn't upset.  I was just trying to figure out how they were going to fit us both on here.  Now, we could also both post under JP and then have an argument with each other and really freak everyone out.  However, since something like that happened on this board once already (no kidding - check the archives), I guess we'll just stick with two different names.

Thanks again, dude. 

JP

I just saw the picture in The Hatchet of the hippo "perfoming". I thought that shameful vanity item was going to go the way of subprime mortgage bundles.