of the interminalby long offseason, and so far, all is well (knock on wood).  Recruiting appears to have gone very well, as we added players to all 5 positions (including Armswood).   We will be starting the season with a 7 of 13 players now being ML recruits.  The only slight surpise in terms of personnel was I would have thought that Davis would be gone rather than Guest.  Obviously both ML and Davis see something workable here. On top of that, we are continuing to get glimpses of what should be our best OOC home schedule in a long time.  Further, conference has gone infinitely better than anticipated.  We started with the loss of Temple and the thoughts, "oh no, here it comes...what we all dreaded.  A-10 implodes and GW lands up in the America East.  Instead, not only to we grab 2 recent final 4 teams in Butler and VCU, but VCU will start play this very next season.  Atlantic 10 has solidfied itself, at least for the time being, as the best non-football playing basketball conference in the country.   Until we reach the next quarter pole (4th of July), we can anticipate the re-appearance of Thomas and Kenner League talk, followed by actual Kenner League games and reports, Italy games, and talk of the sleeper for next season.  Finally, if tradition holds true. sometime after the final pole before the start of the season (Labor Day), we will hear about a minor injury to one or more key players, followed by the inevitable "its more serous than originally thought", and ultimately we hope to have him ready for conference play.

You forgot about the late-in-the-game mysterious 5th recruit!

I will be there for the sleeper thread.  For some reason every year in late July or early August I get the random idea in my head that GW is going to be a tournament in the coming season.  

Still waiting for those Providence and NC State return games.

The games likely would have been, like that Duke game, major disappointments, and by now would long be forgotten. The rancorous debate over the lost opportunities for abysmal defeats, though, remain as vivid memories. Typical of this board, and too many GWU "fans."

Makes me yearn, occasionally, for the really good old days, when GW could count on 6-18 records, and waiting until next year's freshman became sophomores, and were eligible to play "varsity" bball; but GU always was a guaranteed win..

Its a very occasional yearning. Much like wishing we still had you-know-who (well, maybe you don't) to kick around some more.

 We did get Providence in 09/10, albeit a few years later than it should have been. It was indeed a disappointment, though, as Providence caught fire from 3 like I'd never seen before. I'm pretty sure they hit triple digits, but we weren't even all that far behind.

Just checked: they went 16-29 from 3, outrebounded us by 9, attempted 11 more FTs (and made 13 more) but somehow still only won 110-97.

NC State seems like a lost cause, though.

Let's be fair.  Unlike Providence where we were contractually promised a return game which was postponed but later played, NC State never promised GW a  return game.  What we were promised, according to BS, was enough money to schedule another opponent at Smith Center who otherwise would not schedule this game.