I vote Dwayne Smith Player of the game, he was everywhere and came out with a double double, 13 pts 13 boards and also 3 blocks. We held Slu to 17 points in the second half and had a 14-1 run to take the led and seal the win.

 A comeback win is always appreciated but I am distressed about the behavior of one KH and his reaction to Aaron Ware today. Ware was coming off a very good game at Xavier. He started and deserved this. At every turn  , KH yanked him and reprimanded him for some imagined deficiency. Ware spoke back and glared at the coach. If a senior might transfer, this game could be the impetus. KH behaved like a jerk. His actions seemed bizarre. Dwayne Smith scores the first three baskets in a 60 second span to start the second. Guess who gets substituted out first. Despite the win, imo,  this coach had a very bad day.

 why am i not surprised that that's what you picked up on from the game

Hobbs was also barking at Smith at times today and had to be restrained from picking up a 6 men on the floor call by his assistants (w/ Hobbs as the extra player).  Some players respond to Hobbs' brand of coaching while others do not.  

SLU was a very limited offensive team and it had to be frustrating for their fans as the Bilikins missed a bunch of bunnies today.  GW made 9-10 FTs in the 2nd half and Tony Taylor once again took over offensively down the line.  Great  offensive rebounding effort from D Smith as GW effectively utilized thier athletic superiority in the front court vs SLU.  

And yes, it you had the UNDER for 100 pts total: YOU WON!  

Don't know what to make of this game.  First and foremost, we won.  We kept it close for a sluggish 30+ minutes then pulled away at the end.  We hit the big shots at the end and they didn't, so we won the game.   Still, offense scored only 52 points, with St. Louis in a man to man most of the game.  We are just out of sync.  Spacing is poor, too much one on one.  8 assists on 19 made baskets.  Heck, we only had 41 shot attempts for the game, and that low number is not because we were parading to the foul line.  We shot 48% (a good number) in the first half and finished the half with 25 points.  We had one possession in the second half that lasted over one minute (due to foul calls vs. St. Louis) and did not even get off a shot.   We had our center with the ball in parts of the court in which he had no business getting the ball.  Further, I will start offering $5.00 for anyone on GW willing to give Mikec a pick off of the ball.  Or even when he has the ball. Some of the offensive number are Bynes,2 points on 0-5 shooting and 0 assists in 28 minutes.  Yes, he played some very good defense, but we need a little more out ouf a guard that is on the court for 28 minutes.  Ware gave us 2 points in 15 minutes.  Katuka...2 points in 26 minutes.  Mikec 2 shots (both made 3s) in 25 minutes.  On defense, how can you complain when you hold a team to 46 points and out-rebound them by 9.  OK, I wil complain.  The inside remains too soft and the lane is not protected.  If St. Louis was able to finish their close in shots, we would have been in trouble.  But again...a win is a win.

It was a truly awful game,  but at least we won.  It's a game where the stats didn't lie -- SLU was, in fact, a worse offensive team than us.   SLU repeatedly got to the rim against us, but in the 2nd half they were missing around the basket constantly.  I'm not sure if that was because we did block some shots (giving the slashers something to think about, since we were altering many of those missed bunnies) or just because SLU isn't that good, but whatever the reason, we did just enough defensively to win.

The real thing worth discussing, though, was how bad our offense was.  I'm not sure I've ever seen less ball movement in the Smith Center.  It seemed like possession after possession were just one guy, usually Taylor but sometimes Bynes (or Guest during his few minutes) just dribbling for at least 10-15 seconds, frequently ending in a turnover or a missed shot. We had several possessions where the shot clock got under 10 seconds with no more than 2 passes during the possessions.  I think part of the problem was that SLU was trying to deny the ball to the players off the  ball, and our guys (and our offensive scheme) just isn't designed to get guys open against that kind of D.  It was like someone would cut to help the ball handler, be guarded, and then just disappear for the rest of hte possession.

I just can't for the life of me figure out how we could play with such movement (ball movement and off-the-ball movement) against X, and then be stagnant today, like we've never been coached. to run an offense. 

Fortunately, as noted above, Tony Taylor was clutch and Dwayne Smith was the best, most active player on the court.  And Cutis, I noticed that too - that Smith came out with fire, dominated the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half and was the only guy doing anything, and then gets taken out.

Oh, and as for guys like Ware and Pellom and others constantly getting pulled after a mistake, I get the feeling that Hobbs is coaching like a desperate man, throwing stuff against the wall and hoping something works. But that lack of confidence has clearly rubbed off on the team.

Anyway, at least we won.  

Free, I was thinking the same thing (about pulling Smith after he scored GWs first (and only) 3 baskets of the 2nd half.  However, in watching the TV replay when I got home, they showed a shot of Smith on the bench after being pulled, and he was out of breath and definitely tired.  So, I will formally retract my statements at the game.

 Like others said a tough game to watch. It was nice watching the team pull it out in the end though.

I know this will get written off as pointless negativity, but the lack of hustle from this team has been bugging me. It seemed for a while that SLU was always diving for loose balls and running things down and the same effort wasn't there from GW for most of the game. Also the body language from their bench was a stark contrast to ours. Can't remember the last time I saw the whole bench get off their feet and cheer after a big play. Write this off as complaining for complaining's sake but it's what I took away from the game.

The TV production was decent - good announcers.  It didn't look like a great turnout on TV though.  Are the students that busy on a saturday afternoon in January that they can't show?  Some thoughts are:

1. SLU had one of the worst halves (2nd half) of offensive basketball that I have ever seen.  They couldn't buy a basket.  I will go ahead and give GW's defense some credit.  But for 20 minutes in the second half SLU just played terribly.

2. I have some confidence now that GW will end up the season in the middle of the A-10.  I think we are better than the bottom 4 teams in the conference and will hold our own somewhere in the middle.

3. Smith and Pellom are the glue to this team on defense.  Pellom really anchors it and when he is not in the game I don't think we have a guy down low who can play physical and block shots and grab rebounds.  Pellom's offense is limited to dunking, but that's ok with me as long as his defense stays on the floor.  Smith hustles and plays like he wants to win.  We need more guys like that.

4. I think this season is what it is, but I do look forward with some optimism to next season.  Assuming Pellom, Smith, TT, Kromah, Copes and Mikic are all healthy and keep improving their games, I think we have a decent shot at being a top four or five A-10 team.  I just want JK and Hobbs to schedule a couple of OOC games against top 25 teams (on their floors) next year to see if we can make some noise by knocking one of them off.  I also think that Hobbs needs to hire an assistant who can run some better offensive schemes.  The team still passes it around too much with no idea how the ball is going to get into the basket.  We need some more x's and o's type offense.

 I agree with most of what was said about the game...definitely ugly and sloppy. This is how Saint Louis plays though. 59-57 loss to URI, 57-53 loss to Temple, 61-59 loss to Georgia...you just have to survive and we did that. There's no question this looked nothing like Xavier but  I'll take 4-3 in conference with tough road losses to Xavier and Richmond at this point after the start of the year. 

At the end of the day, a win is a win.  Every conference game is a battle and in keeping with the mantra of the team, outside of the Bonnies we've defended our home court thus far in conference.  Kudos to the team for gutting out a victory on a day when the offense didn't play well.  Watching the game online, one thing I found interesting is that the SLU defenders were overplaying our guys on the wings.  At one point Byron Kerr even noted that and mentioned that one would think there would be some backdoor opportunities.  If another team down the road tries that tactic, that should be a coachable fix for KH and the offense.  It may speak to the assertion of some on this board that we don't really have a true point guard that can exploit an overplaying defense.

By the way, we can all laugh about this now, but how about Dwayne Smith committing the offensive foul of the year trying to add an exclamation point at the end of the game.  He was great today but is quickly becoming the unofficial king of the offensive fouls.

Oh, and I almost forgot, kudos to Tony Taylor for not only playing a great game, but for bringing back the KH special "Egg-xavier" pronounciation in the post-game press conference.

Taylor did have a great game.  and along with smith and pellom, he is why we won.  and yes our fortunes are tied to taylor.  if he plays well we have a chance. most games he is our best player on the floor.  his ability to dribble kept their trapping at bay at the end.

this was an ugly game mostly because they play a smothering deny, man to man defense.  it took extraordinary individual efforts for us to overcome.  we had no offensive schemes to counter or exploit this defense just one on one effort.

i too thought this was a terrible game for hobbs.  he was out of control and very erratic.  its not the first time he's chewed out a player (ware) while the game was progressing to the extent that he took the player out of the flow of the game.  and yes he pulled smith after about 2+ minutes of the 2nd half after smith scored all 6 of our 2nd half points.  at one point in the 2nd half he went out on the floor and actually grabbed smith around the waist and physically tried to move him across the floor.

got to agree with most of la fan.  i would add bynes to the defensive glue comment.  and bynes can contribute offensively when he penetrates and looks for the open 10-12 footer.  he has shown he can knock that shot down.  why we have him set up on the 3 point line is a mystery to me because he can not make that shot.

pellom's offense is limited but he's getting more dangerous inside.  he is learning how to attack the basket when he has the ball and i've seen more aggresiveness and confidence in some of his moves to the basket.

why are we choosing to play warren over edwards? 

smith's charge at the end of the game was a real bonehead play. but probably his only one.  he was unfairly tagged with a charge a couple of minutes earlier. that call could have been a game changer.

• http://www.gwsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/012911aaa.html
• http://www.gwsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/2010-2011/gw-slu.html
• http://www.gwsports.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/012911aad.html
• http://www.stltoday.com/sports/college/slu/article_2b0e1532-e58e-572d-9a3f-712523ad80c3.html
• http://dcsportsbox.com/main/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2184&Itemid=71
• http://blogs.gwhatchet.com/courtside/2011/01/29/colonials-snap-losing-skid-at-four-with-win-over-saint-louis/
• http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/29/AR2011012903164.html
• http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/2011/01/colonials-run-away-end 

 "The Colonels, however, struggled to develop any offensive flow."

http://washingtonexaminer.com/sports/2011/01/colonials-run-away-end

 after 4 in a row, a W is a W.

On Taylor, it's not only his play, but he's a general out there communicating with teammates during dead ball situations. To me, he seemed very much in command yesterday. I'd say he's an extension of Hobbs on the court but for some that would be considered an insult.

On Dwayne, you really have to love this guy as some combo of Carl, Nimbo, JJ, and others of his height and body type.

On St. Louis, that's a seriously good defensive team or we are way slower than I think we are.

On Hobbs barking, so what? Have you watched Gary Williams lately? None of the players seemed the least phased by it.

On intros, I'm really dim witted but it occurred to me yesterday that we are introducing Canada, Serbia, and Nigeria before LA and NY these days. I sort of like it.

On attendance, the student crowd was down. North side seemed pretty full. Loss to St. B's will turn out to be a very unfortunate effort and loss. And the St. Louis group wasn't real big.  

Was it me or did Kathy Orton really want you to know that she had tb be paid to watch that game.

BTW, has anyone read her book?

mikic is the laziest passer i've ever seen.  katuka's pass down low to smith was embarrassing. 

Katuka should not be handling the ball, passing, shooting or doing anything at the high post other than set picks.  That ball should not have been in Katuka's hands to begin with.

 That's a little harsh for a guy averaging 9ppg..

I wasnt sure what Hobbs was doing with Katuka...instead of posting him up he had him running around and passing out of the high post...not Joe's best

Not a slight on big Joe as he is having a good year but let him do what he does well.  Get the ball on the right block and make a move to his left for a baby hook or drop step to the basket.  There's nothing productive for him to be doing with the ball in the high post.  It's not his game.

 At one point late in the game, he actually ended up receiving the inbounds pass after a SLU basket!  He started to dribble.  I stood up from my seat and screamed -- "Nooooooo!"  Then he passed the ball to Taylor.  OMG -- what a breakdown.  Anyway -- I am a huge Joseph fan.  I love how he has gotten stronger and more athletic every year.   Clearly, Roland Houston has coached him up -- a lot.  We have seen some impressive performances.  The SLU game was rough for him -- he kept getting caught on the wrong side of his man.  I expect him to be a big part of the game plan against Duquesne.  They have no true center and no one over 6'8"n (and only 3 players 6'7" or above).  

http://www.billikens.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=20301 

Serbian refugee?   Xenophobe much? 

Perhaps after watching the ball get slapped out of Joe's hands for the third or fourth time while positioned in the lowpost, KH decided to try him out high.  Unfortunately, his pick setting and passing left a bit to be desired.  Joe has had some solid games this season but he clearly woke up on the wrong side of the bed on Saturday.

The SLU fan sure gives poor marks to the Smith Center renovations and KH.

SLU has room to make remarks.  When I lived in St. Louis the school had no real campus and was a buffer zone between the somewhat dangerous north side, western edge of a very laughable core downtown, the stylish central west end, the world famous Forrest Park and the highways (40 and 44) . . . there was no true campus and it was kind of a pitiful place (marked with really good academics and professional schools).  They say you cannot make new land.  You can in St. Louis (as I bet Detroit will soon discover).  Acres of abandoned housing, apartment buildings, store fronts, warehouses, and small factories were razed and the school built a very nice arena, fields, dorms, housing, offices, quads, walking malls, school gates, retail and the like.  Further, the neighbors to the north accepted the school and the somehat dangerous north side is like Logan Circle, Shaw or U Street now.  With that said, they should not be revisionists and remember when there was no campus, no arena and the team played downtown at the old Kiel Auditorium and Opera House (in an usually empty but really cool arena) which was partially razed for the Scottrade Center.