Princeton ---home

UMBC-home

Oregon St-home

Providence-home

East Carolina--C-USA---away

UNC-Wilmington-CAA-away

towson away

Yeah looking at Navy's schedule last year, they do seem pretty tough and they do play a really tough schedule which couldn't be cluttered with the likes of GW.

http://www.navysports.com/sports/m-baskbl/sched/navy-m-baskbl-sched.html

GW/Navy leading up to Maryland/'Nova.

Wow, after all this talk of improving our schedule, a real sign that we're a major undercard to everyone in the District.

The BB&T has been a great venue for GW over the years and has allowed us to play programs above our level at a semi-home location.  But GW vs Navy doesn't help GW out at all.  This is what UMD must feel like when they see Terps vs GW in the BB&T comming up on their schedule.  It's just not why we signed up for the tournamen.

I'd much rather play Navy (my local school), home and home than waste an opportunity in the BB&T.  Maybe someone good dropped out of the tournament or maybe GMU is now the recognized #2 program in the field, but if its going to be GW vs Navy/Howard/American in the future, we may want to reconsider our commitment to the BB&T.  And you can tell John Feinstein I said that.

There's something about a sailor ... never mind.

Look on the bright side.  (a) This strongly suggests that Oregon State will be playing us at Smith Center and (b) This will be a chance to get a flying start in the Atlantic 11 (the Sports Bog poll, for those of you not into obscure references).  Navy played a pretty strong game against Va. Tech in the BB&T last season.  And god knows, if they bring the usual crew of Middies, it'll be more like a home game for them than us.  It's too bad their best player graduated. 

Have there been confirmations of ECU, UNCW, Princeton, or UMBC?  UMBC is not hard to envision, but the others seem a bit random.  UNCW seems like it would have made more sense a few years ago.  Are these home and homes?

Just wondering what we've done lately to deserve a place in a national showcase game in the BB&T? And I'm not sure what prosperity we can't stand. For us, it looks like this schedule is very appropriate given our current standing (or lack thereof) in the college basketball world.

Well we were hoping for a game against Navy. Just not in the BB&T.

Surprised Gary doesn't want to play us again after skating to a win last year.

The Navy team that played Tech would have beat us handily last year.

Still,while glad that Navy is getting the eposure, wish we could have gotten a better BB&T draw RPI and visibility-wise.

JK says:

For practical senses we’re done,” Kvancz said. “We just don’t have the signed contracts.”

He added that ideally GW would play a full non-conference slate of 13 games, but that he is unsure if they will be able to do so. In a perfect world, Kvancz said, the Colonials would be able to schedule 13 home-and-home series, but that he may need to schedule one or two “buy games” with opponents of much higher or lower quality that will not etend in commitments beyond this season.

I say - Wait, on the one hand you say the schedule is basically done.  On the other hand you say you're unsure if GW will schedule the full slate of OOC games.  If he doesn't have 13 games "done," then why is the process over?

So now we can attract schools (to play at Smith Center) from power conferences and quality midmajor opponents because why eactly?  Is it that the locker rooms will be nicer or that fans of the road team will now be more comfortably seated?  For years here, we've been advised that  the reason was economics.  As long as we played in a 5,000 seat facility, these schools could not afford to give up a home game (or a more lucrative road game) in echange for playing at Smith Center.  To be fair, there is the chance that our ticket prices will be rising which results in (potentially) greater gate receipts.  However, this increase, if there even is an increase, is likely to be negligible at best.

Perhaps someone can answer this...why is it that schools that wouldn't consider playing at Smith Center the past 8 years are now willing to do so due at least in part to our renovations (according to JK), when we've been repeatedly told that the reason they wouldn't play here was financial-related (with this factor seemingly being unchanged)?

St. Mary's actually scheduled a game IN SEASON in order to try and qualify for the tournament last year. I know it's not very analagous (especially the part about trying to qualify for the NCAA Tournament), but for GW to say "done" scheduling in June really shows the mentality.

Good upgrades. Though, again, this is accidental and has everything to do with our weaknesses and not our strengths.

Let's be fair to Providence.  As Friar (a Providence fan) posted.  They fired the coach that reneged and this was the first opportunity that the new coach had to schedule GW.  I will accept that as the reason, not that we're more beatable.

As far as how to interpret JK's words - He says not all contracts are signed but that's a formality but I'm through looking for games.  AND I don't know if we'll play a full schedule.  SO is he's just waiting for contracts to be signed for a full schedule I'd guess he would have said that.  He would have said, I believe we'll have a full schedule this year but I don't want to promise it because we don't have all the contracts signed yet.  If I'm a Wall Street analyst or a bookie, I take his quote as saying it's very unlikely that GW will play a full schedule this year.

GWAA,

If Providence was waiting for us to suck before playing us - they could certainly have played us last year.  Again - Providence has a new coach.  He's doing things differently than the guy that got fired.  It's smart for him to honor Providence's agreement because now he wants to schedule games for himself. 

As far a JK getting the benefit of the doubt - his record speaks for itself (or should I say double-speaks).  Aysmal failure to fill a schedule for 2 years in a row.  If he schedules a full 13 games this year with the games that we've seen noted already - then I'll give him credit.  He'll do it or he won't.  I don't think that benefit of the doubt comes into play any more. 

Nice to see that JK isn't holding his breath to schedule 13 home and homes.  Considering that there isn't a single program in the country that has this.  The home OOC is unquestionably upgraded (it would have to be coming off a season with just 4 OOC home games against Binghamton, Harvard, UMBC and American).  However, if you can't play a top 25 team at home (understandably so), you had better offset this by playing a top 25-type team on the road.  And if your BB&T opponent is going to be Navy as opposed to what traditionally has been a BCS school, then you ought to be playing a second top25-type team (let's say a top 40 team) on the road.  American needs to be on the schedule (GW should play AU annually; we don't need to duck any local rivals).  It would be nice to have a 6th OOC home game as well.  So a strong scheduling scenario at this point would be as follows:  Home against Mason, OSU, Providence, UMBC, Princeton, unnamed 6th game; BB&T-Navy: Road: UNCW, East Carolina, American, top 25 team, top 40 team, unnamed 6th road game.  Ideally, the unnamed teams wouldn't be UMES-like but even if both were, you'd still come away with a credible schedule (as long as you had 13 games and 2 tough ones on the road).

Come on Jack.  I don't think you're finished yet.

My guess is folks on this board know about this site, but there are schools still looking to complete their schedules.  Many east coast schools included.  See link for Basketball Travelers Inc.

http://bti.sportshd.com/mens_schedule_board

Hold up fellas! I just re-read the article. I think Kvancz is referring to the home schedule being "done" not the total number of OOC games. He says ideally we would play 13 home and home series but that he may need to schedule one or two "buy games".  That could mean we get paid to play away but it might mean he is unsure at this point whether we can line those games up. In other words, we're not playing on the road against teams like Longwood anymore. Before we go throwing anyone under the bus perhaps we should wait until the schedule is actually finalized as I believe it is possible that only the home portion may be done.

Further, as far as I am concerned so far this schedule is appropriate for this team and therefore I think Kvancz and Hobbs have done the right thing. I know it won't matter to some who believe Kvancz is the devil and can do no right. But if you are going to criticize the man when he makes mistakes then you need to credit him when he does the right thing.

Seneca, take a look at GW's OOC schedules over the past 6 years or so.  Once you've done this, you'll understand why JK has forfeited his right to receiving any delays over being thrown under the bus.  Granted that this year's home OOC schedule is shaping up to be an improvement over past seasons although this is sort of like saying that this year's Washington Nationals team could beat last year's team despite the current record.  (Only kidding, it's better than this.) The BB&T, which I realize that JK does not control, is a big step down (if Navy is the opponent) and I haven't a clue yet regarding the road schedule.  I'm digressing but my point is that JK and KH, on the subject of scheduling, have developed an unenviable track record.  To suggest that things might be much better once the final schedule is released, or even that 13 games will appear on the schedule, gives them far more credit than they deserve given the recent past.

1)  You HAVE to schedule 13 OOC games.  There are plenty of Big Conference teams that will "let" us play them at their place.  I would rather GW lose to Clemson or such on the road that to play no game at all.  I understand GW can't play anyone they want anywhere.  But you HAVE to make a full schedule.

2)  What games we know about so far represent a significant advance from the utterly dismal schedule we played last year. 

3)  How on God's green earth could we not be returning a game to AU this year?  Are we scared of getting beat?  If AU wanted us to play them at Bender and we chose not to - JK you deserve every criticism you get about how wah wah teams won't play us.  We should be playing Mason and AU EVERY year.  Oddly enough our victory over AU, I believe ended being our "signature win" last year - the team with the highest RPI that we beat.

4) Good job apparently getting H/H's with East Carolina and UNCW.

5)  If we're left with only 11 or 12 OOC games the damnit play Longwood again - you simply cannot leave games on the table.  

Two points:

1. No one said it was impossible Free Q. I don't think kvancz or anyone else has ever said that either. I think what they have said is that there are significant constraints and that the tradeoffs necessary to make it happen have not been worth it from GW's perspective. Now one can argue that point but that is a different issue entirely than saying it's impossible.

2. I am not sure why we are obssessing over "games left on the table" ecept from the standpoint of just being fans and wanting to see more games. No one can know the effect of leaving games on the table beforehand both in the abstract (i.e. If we win the A-10 championship it's irrelevant; if we win 9 games it's irrelevant). Yes maybe the kids want to play more games but I once asked a few of them if playing 28 or 29 games really made a difference and the answer was "not really." So my answer would be in and of itself I don't think it's a problem ecept for the fact we all want to see more games rather than fewer games. But if the AD can't schedule that etra game against an opponent GW wants to play then I'm not losing sleep over it. Yes, it may bite us in the ass but is equally likely it has little or no effect as well. If you know the outcome to the season beforehand then you can answer that question.

BTW, I am not giving the AD a free pass on scheduling. I'm just saying we seem to treat the various constraints GW faces a little too lightly here and spend too much time looking for reasons to point the finger of blame.

Seneca,

This year we will have a VERY young team.  We'll have 6 freshmen, 2 sophmores, and 3 bigs that have played very limited minutes, plus King who hasn't as of yet really recovered from his knee injury and Hollis.  Young players get better from good coaching, hard work, AND playing real games.  Playing mostly shitty teams in the OOC and 2 fewer than everyone else plays, just gives them less chance to get better.  It cheats EVERYONE.  And virtually all NCAA teams play a full schedule so what do we know that they don't?  Indications are that we'll have more good teams on the schedule this year and that's good.  We still have to play the maimum games.

I don't know how long you've followed GW but it's pretty apparent that the strategy of Hobbs and JK in the past has been to avoid any "bad" losses at all costs.  That means we don't want to play even reasonable equal games on the road.  True it's hard to get good teams to come to GW and it's hard to even get middling teams to come to GW if we aren't willing to return the game.  The result is that prior to the last two years, Hobbs had a great w/l record that included a shockingly few number of wins againt quality teams outside of our conference and the BB&T where we seem to catch fire every year.  Has Hobbs won a game against a Big 6 conference team outside of the BB&T?  Have we even played any close games against them?  You don't learn to win big games if you never play in them.  And if you do have a great year we get fucked in the seedngs in the NCAA and we hurt the A-10 by dragging down the league's RPI.

Now after you lose to Longwood and Coppin State and Hawaii yeah you're better off losing to better teams, so Hobbs and JK will play some better teams this year and if they mostly lose they'll say "see we told you so."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/28/AR2006012801238.html

"We made a conscious decision to play home games, and I don't apologize for that," Kvancz said. "I can't get any quality teams to play me home-and-home. You think Maryland or Georgetown will play me home-and-home? No way. I'll play anybody home-and-home. We owe it to our students and fans to play home games."

http://media.www.gwhatchet.com/media/storage/paper332/news/2007/04/26/Sports/A10-Will.Shake.Up.Schedule-2882795.shtml

"Who is the league to dictate who the hell we play?" Kvancz said.

He added that he thought he was the "lone ranger" against the policy because GW's recent success and small gym make it difficult to schedule home-and-home games against good teams.

"It becomes an issue of arenas versus gyms," Kvancz said. "(Playing only teams with an RPI of) 200 is doable, but the problem in my opinion is we may have bitten off more than we can chew."

Eactly right, DM.

Hobbs and JK have set it up so that if we lose - we lose; and if we win - we lose.  You summed it up perfectly - we're just chicken shit.  I remember an open practice a few years ago where Hobbs said he wouldn't play Northeastern on the road "because their facility was subpar."  What bullshit - he didn't want to play them because he was confident he'd lose.  I think Hobbs' strategy was always to have a gawdy w/l record with his subpar facilities, "overachieve,' and get to a better job.  Now he sees that his reputation is seriously damaged and he's going to have to completely rebuild the program and use a completely different model.  There are some changes because frankly his career is in jeopardy.  Talent, Gimelstob, Kuester were never head coaches again.  Jarvis left on his own and destroyed his career at St. Johns and only had to be in the wilderness for 7-8 years to get a shitty low end job again.  Penders got another job based on his reputation from Teas and Houston wanting a "player" to get on the map.  If Hobbs has another 7-19 type year and gets fired - it's hard to see him getting a HC job for a long time if ever.  He doesn't have a choice now - it's sink or swim time.  I hope he swims because I want him to succeed.  But I want a success to have a higher upside the being ranked #6 in the country and being rewarded with 2 NCAA games in NC against UNCW and Duke.

"But I want a success to have a higher upside the being ranked #6 in the country and being rewarded with 2 NCAA games in NC against UNCW and Duke."

DM,

I haven't heard who might be in line for the Asst. Coach job.  I do know that Collucci is developing into a good recruiter and that GW is pleased with him.  Roland is there to work with the big guys.  So I definitely agree with you that an older, seasoned former HC would be a fabulous addition to the staff.  It's a little tricky though because I would imagine that Hobbs wouldn't want someone who he sees could step in for him if he gets canned.

DM says: "My first rule of sports is don't be chicken shit. GW and its administrators are just chicken shit. As hard as it is to swallow what happened at USC a couple of years back, at least we were there. That was a learning game. We also get much more ink and that pays dividends."

I think you're half right.  Jack and Karl have been running scared in their scheduling, but not because they've been afraid to play BSC teams on the road. Generally they've done that every year.  What they have been reluctant to do is schedule home and homes vs tough mid-majors on a consistent basis.

There's really no pressure on GW when they play @ UCLA, @ WF, @ UCONN, @ USC or even @ Auburn.  BSC schools are going to win an overwelming amount of their OOC home games every year.  GW really shouldn't win those games and no reasonable fan should be epecting them to. It's a free game for Hobbs.  Wining is great but there's no shame in losing.

But how about losing to Hofstra?  Getting beat by Costal Carolina?  Losinig on the road (or getting swept) by Georgia State is an embarassment that Karl and Jack can not stand.  So they schedule non BCS teams they feel they should beat.  Hobbs doesn't want to put pressure on his kids (or himself) early in the season and Jack is unimaginative in his job. 

No need to schedule 4 or more BSC road games in the OOC.  1 or 2 sell games (BSC on the road) will buy them 3 or 4 home buy games since the big boys pay more than GW can.  Add the BB&T and another tounament gets you 8-9 games.  If GW could focus in on the mid-major teams constantly complaing that "nobody will play us home and home", than we could get 4-5 decent home and homes vs mid-majors. 

That should be the scheule right there.  It's not rocket science or the impossible dream.  It does take the risk of not only losing the 2 BCS games and BB&T, but they could get swept by the better mid-majors.  Losing at home vs Siena and on the road vs ODU looks bad for the coach and AD.  But I say GW would win there fair share of these contests and the fans would appreciate the ecitement.

Side note:  I would also love for GW to pick up a Dennis Wolfe or Dave Leitao as a bench coach net to Hobbs.  Hobbs should realize that his job is on the line and it's better to try to right the ship than worry who his replacement might be.  He has to realize that the half court offense isn't working and that he has flaws as a bench coach.  It's a good move for Wolfe or even Leitao in that they would get a lot of credit of they could help turn things around at GW.  I think the BB world knows that Leitao can be a solid assistant at a Big East school, so doing that again doesn't get him any closer to a HC position.  But helping revieve a struggling mid-major like GW certainly would.