AU and Howard here we come! Damn.

 Umh, let's play some actual games on a court before we declare any demotions.

 Uh no. This team with Kromah back will still be very good next year. It sucks if we lose the recruits but that is still one of the best backcourts in the A10. 

My point was we will clearly be behind Mason probably for the foreseeable future.

 We'll see. If Hancock is gone then it's pretty even with Kromah back. We beat their asses two seasons ago and they beat us last year. Again, GMU has done VERY well the last five year. The last 10 years? Nothing. The last 20 years? Next to nothing. Stick around a while and then we'll talk.

 Also, I think Turgeon is a great coach (from MVC country, so I've been following him for a while), but the talent level as of now is not all that great, especially given who is entering the draft. I still think this team has the talent to kick some serious a** next year.

I fear no one in the A-10, and expect a top 4 finish. No joke. This team oozes talent and potential.

Better than UVA and VA Tech? Cool, maybe the Post will cover the away games now.

Herve - historical returns are not reliable predictors of the future. Right now, which roster would you rather have (and I am assuming Copes at GMU)? If you say GW you are either biased or haven't been paying attention.

With the defections of Copes and T. Davis we are in serious trouble not only for this coming year (post play and point guard behind Taylor) but for the next year as well - we will be starting over with freshmen at the point and in the post. Do you sleep well at night with Pellom, Edwards and Warren up front? ML must be having nightmares being a guy who emphasizes rebounding.

Not to mention, it pretty much appears we will lose all our recruiting for next year.  With Marshall gone, highly doubt we get his son or Jack.  And have to start all over for Jamal Lewis.  Perhaps, the right play in the long term but this team will certainly struggle in the near future.  ML is not a big name hire and just when students were starting to show up, kids knew about Copes, etc.  Now we really are back at square 1.

 I don't think it is fair to say all the way back to square one. Square one would be where we were two years ago, rebuilding after two straight abysmal seasons. Despite the losses in recruiting, we do return the core of a team that just finished tied for 4th in the A-10. Is Mason going to have a better roster than ours next year? Yes. Should we be panicked that everything's going to go downhill next year? No. I believe Lonergan is an improvement at a game coaching level, and considering what other teams in our league lost and where we finished last year without Kromah, this team should still be able to contend for third in the league next year. Then we just have to hope ML with Sutton's help can reload the roster.

Yeah, those guys pretty much exhaust the list of players who GW will pursue under Lonergan and his new assistants.

Of course, Lonergan will go after different guys.  But recruiting for a mid major must be done years in advance.  Just look at Copes.  Sure you will get some late signings but for the most part, you have to get in on the top guys early like Copes b/c the longer the guys stay unsigned the more valuable they become to better programs filling needs. 

And what does our frontcourt look like next year?  After Jabari, (who as much as I like is sitll a big question mark) we are relying on Warren?  Then we need to bring in a PG to replace TT and get viable big guys.  Yes, the A-10 is rebuilding so it gives GW some hope but in reality, next year could have been a special year, now not so much.

 Not negating that, just saying it wasn't fair to say we're going all the way back to square one. While, this program could've been in a better position, it could've been in a worse position as well. We at least have some quality players in the program right now who could have the best season we've seen since 06-07

 Class of 13 keep your head up (but tuck-in your chin) - I think some head shots are headed our way.  This will be recruitment fodder.  "Of course you can trust the coach . . . that's not the problem, the AD and administration runs it over there and you cannot trust them - what do they know about hoops?  The AD never played and  the Veep sure did not, and the pres is from a LAX school.  This is too important Ms. Mother of the recruit, they let the last coach make promises they knew he could not keep because they were about to fire him - so really those same guys lied to that family  and they are still there and run it, he's your only child, take the sure thing."  That's going to be the tune for about 2 years of lost chances for GW.  Further, GW had a good team last year but I only saw about 3-4 games they lost but should not have.  I saw about the same number of w's they stole from the jaws of defeat.  So I think we are talking about a possible 2-3 game bump based on Lasan's return and that is optimistic given the schedule.

Dont think it's quite that dire on the recruitment front, notta. ML and his assistants have developed their own networks of contacts and trust and I seriously doubt that your scenario has quite the impact you are suggesting. Sutton would appear to have inroads everywhere and I wouldn't think that whispers about the AD and the veep would have much effect. After all, if others were really in charge wouldn't they have insisted that a condition of hire was to retain the assistant that ensured the #50 recruit would be coming to Foggy Bottom? As for the schedule, that has probably been the most consistent area of complaint from everyone. Part of playing that schedule was logically going to be losing more games than we would lose playing MEAC and AE schools. But I do agree that many people like Class of 13 are reacting way too quickly to the bad news as if no good news is forthcoming. ML didn't just drop off a turnip truck and GW officials understood and accepted the consequences of this action. Time will tell on their judgment.

Sorry Class of '13, should have said Top 68.

I'm pretty sure these guys have seen players they thought were out of reach for VT, but can take a shot on with GW .

 poog, my son is a recruit for D-I football.  For the last 24 months I have listened to the conversation.  They no longer attack the coaches.  They attack the schools, the admin and the boosters.  Please do not be as naive to think that a young man - many times without a father in his life will not be swayed by his mother.  My son has not heard any of the sub rosa messages being delivered by the recruiters, but mom and dad have heard them clearly . . . . if you cannot trust the admin then your coach has no clout and no stability.  Coach K delivered that angry message after the Duke Lax matter.  He indicated that it hurt him because the determination about suspending the team, the players etc., was made by the administration before consulting the coach or listening to the other Lax coaches or the coaches from the other programs.  I doubt Coach K was being a shill for the Lax team or resorting to hyperbole.  His message was: if he recruits do not believe the coach is running his program and it is being run by some "suit" the parents and recruits have not met, they are not going to sign.

Fair enough, notta. But I'd guess that ML's friends and network in this area and Sutton's wide reach in basketball circles are counters to those concerns. Turner has a first great name, an alum sister, and played at Louisville so I have no reason to think that he's not a great addition to the coaching staff as well.  If they have to work that much harder to overcome whispers on the trail, I fully expect they will do what it takes. I'm not going to make any assumptions that the wealth of players GW will need to recruit come from households without fathers in their lives but if that's the case, I suspect that ML, Turner, and Sutton all have the ability to make very favorable impressions with mothers, much as KH and Pikiell and Broadus did before them.

Wasn't the running storyline that Hobbs couldn't recruit the way he wanted to thes last several years and was being hampered by the administration? That makes it hard to believe that other schools weren't using that against him in recruiting too. At least Lonergan is coming in as the school's choice and has their confidence right now, even to the extent of losing a prize recruit.

Back to the "we are fourth" theme.  Got news for you...we were behind GMU even with Copes coming to GW.  They are coming off of an NCAA tournament (including a win) and were getting mention as preseason top 25.  Even before the Copes defection, we were not.  With the change in coaches and AD, hopefully we can now start pulling ourselves out of 4th place and become relevant once again.  If the new coaching staff can indeed open a local recruiting pipeline, then losing Copes may ultimately be a small price to pay.

 The good news is that George Mason has history of sustaining success.  Maybe Hewitt capitalizes on the recent success and builds something that is more than just a tourney team every 4 or 5 years, but there's no reason to believe this is anything more than a temporary blip that has them ahead of us. 

Well GMU is possibly losing Hancock as well as Cam Long.  So if Copes had stayed, I think GWU might have surpassed GMU already.  They would have had to replace a lot and not had much coming in but that changed.

 If GMU loses Hancock they will have very few scorers next year. Their fans underestimate how much losing Cam Long will hurt. THey will be big and push people around but I would take our 1,2,3 players over theirs any day of the week.