Dear Season Ticket Holder:

Now that we have finished the non-conference portion of our 2009-10 Men’s Basketball schedule and happily start the New Year with a 10-3 record, I want to thank you for your role in what has been a great fan turnout at games.  As our team prepares to face their Atlantic 10 competition, we hope that you will bring the enthusiasm and spirit that you have brought to each home game. 

Our team and coaching staff are working tirelessly to give us eciting basketball and a team performance in which we can all share in Colonials pride.  Let’s keep the momentum going together and make the newly renovated Charles E. Smith Center a spirited and intimidating venue for visiting teams!

As a fan, you might find it interesting that conference play starts with the following non-league records for our A-10 competitors: Rhode Island (12-1), Temple (11-3), Charlotte (10-3), Dayton (11-3), Richmond (11-4), Duquesne (9-5), Saint Louis (9-5), avier (8-5), LaSalle (7-6), St. Bonaventure (7-6), Massachusetts (6-7), St. Joseph’s (4-8), and Fordham (2-10).  Given that ten of these teams have records above .500, we have a lot of great, competitive basketball ahead of us. Our first conference and televised home game is against avier this Sunday, January 10 at noon.

On another positive note, we have begun to plan our 2010-11 schedule.  Start spreading the word: GW will be playing in the NIT Season Tip-Off in November 2010. We are grouped with Boston University, Marist and Villanova.  We will keep you posted at a later date confirming times and opponents, but for now the dates for the first and second round games are November 15, 16, and 17; consolation rounds are set for November 22 and 23; and the semis and finals are in Madison Square Garden Thanksgiving weekend, November 24 and 26.

Meanwhile, we still have a few games to schedule for 2010-11, and in addition to the pre-season NIT appearance, we have every intention of scheduling up to 27 games. So far, our home games will include University North Carolina at Wilmington, Holy Cross, East Carolina and Towson; preliminarily it appears that Navy would like a rematch in the BB&T Classic. We have away games scheduled at Oregon State, Howard and the Battle of the Orange Line will continue net year at George Mason. No dates and times for our games in 2010-11 are set yet.

That’s it for now. See you at the Charles E. Smith Center…and Happy New Year!

Jack Kvancz

Athletic Director

Well that was unepected and welcome. It does not say where the NIT games will be, but I assume they will be in Philly since 'Nova is the biggest draw of those teams. No mention of a second game on the Oregon road trip, I will assume that is because the scheduling has not been finalized.

Am I getting overly optimistic or is the program really improving?

No, Jack K and GW is finally on the right path regarding scheduling.  Forget the BCS teams.  They will generally not come to GW (this year's teams obvious eceptions) so it's road games only vs the BCS.  There's 8 games on Jack's scheule so far (including the NIT) so maybe 1 game vs a top BCS team would work, but generally these are road blowout losses. Doesn't help GW's tournament changes at all and ussually not much to learn developmentally in blowouts anyways.

HOME AND HOMES VS TOP MID-MAJORS.  That's GW's path forward.  I think some of the teams GW's faced in the OOC have faired below epectations and previous seasons.  HC, UMBC, Princeton and others were competitive in recent years but are down in 2009.  GMU is a good program and UNCW has been to the Big Dance (and won again tonight).  ECU is in the C-USA.  Any match ups vs C-USA, CAA, MVC or MAC would be welcome.  Generally these teams should be in the RPI top 150 by season's end.  Add in the 7-8 A10 teams that could wind up in the RPI Top 100 and GW has a schedule. 

The only way GW was able to schedule and beat BCS teams in the past was at the BB&T.  That ain't happening anymore.  So the choices are get killed on the road vs BCS and then have to "buy" some home games vs shit-ass teams (Darthmoth) or schedule home and homes vs better mid-majors.  I say the choice is clear.  Hopefully GW will get a shot to play a BCS at a neutral sites at pre-season tournaments like the NIT.

These return games on the home and homes (ECU, HC, OSU, etc) are locked in from this year's agreements.  GW could try to be like some other BCS teams and not honor our commitments, but that would be dishonest and unprofessional. 

Holy Cross has traditionally ruled their conf and has often sent teams to the NCAA Tourney. Hopefully, their bounce back net year in their new head coach's 2nd season.  Towson is a local game - every team schedules some of them to ease travel.  As long as GW avoids the obvious RPI killers they used to scheule (Longwood, etc) scheduling will improve.

Blah blah blah!  Rah Rah rah! 

Fact remains mentz-   baby steps.   You have said it countless times before- (paraphrase) i just our Ad to give a shit about us.  to communicate with us.  to eplain their vision so we get the idea.  Etc. 

This is a huge Baby step.  like the one where your boy puts "Dada" and "me" in the same sentence together.   "Dada me!"   Oy were those the days.  But i digress. 

I'm quite pleased by the correspondence and am also aware of the shitty OOC we seem to always schedule.  I'm satisfied with the first major baby step that JK has taken.  G-d only knows how many false steps we have seem him make before.  He must be weening off the breast  

Bobo, glad to hear that you're so pleased with the 288th strongest OOC schedule in the country.  This roughly translates to 85% of Division 1 teams having more difficult OOC schedules than GW.  As this team improves with age, so should their competition but I know you want no part of that thinking.  I'm sure that Charlotte is kicking themselves for scheduling a game at Louisville this year.  Or Richmond for playing in Florida.  Or William & Mary for visiting Comcast Center.  Or the College of Charlston for scheduling a three game series against UNC in which only 1 of the games would be played in Charlston.  Imagine how ripped off those guys must feel about now.

It would be helpful for you to understand that David vs. Goliath is a big part of college sports.  With all the reasons to hate the BCS, their most egregious offense this year was pitting TCU against Boise State.  It was a blatant means to spare the potential humiliation of their big ticket schools should they have played and lost to one of these teams.  Any educated fan was pissed.

As a GW fan, we are a David in a world of Goliaths.  I do not want to be denied the opportunity to see GW spring a major upset.  Scheduling 2-3 such opportunities per season is more than reasonable.  Scheduling zero such opportunities serves to deprive fans (not to mention the players who, by and large, would crave such opportunities).

GWAA, I've backed off the schedule talk for a while now and also acknowledged that this year's schedule meant absolutely nothing since there would be no NCAA tournament hopes to speak of (and unless we go 13-3 or better in conference, there still aren't).  I read as posters described this year's schedule as "perfect for this team" and didn't argue.  But as long as you and others write things like, well, Oregon State might be much improved net season, to suggest that net year's schedule will be just fine if it was a virtual duplicate of this year's schedule (and by the way, the preseason NIT is a tournament so I'm guessing that we will not be matched up with Villanova in the first round, unless ESPN wants that matchup like they did a few years ago when we began the season at Wake Forest, meaning that there is no guarantee that we will even play Villanova), then the answer to your eclamation of "here we go again" is yes, here we go again.  A game at Oregon State is nice but it will not draw the attention of any committee member.  We need to give ourselves a couple of opportunities at gaining some attention-getting wins.  And, these will have to be on the road.  And, they may very well result in losses.  But just remember the St. Joe's team that went 14-2 in conference but failed to make the tournament because of their lack of quality wins.  Particularly in a conference like ours, you need at least 1 attention-getting win.  This year's schedule did not allow for any such opportunities.  Let's hope that net year will be different in this regard.  And to those who made it this far, yes I'm relaed, yes I'm immensely enjoying this season, etc., etc.

I think everyone's in favor of facing as many top BCS team at neutral sites, like the NIT and other tournaments.  That's a given.  But chasing the BCS teams in "sell" one and done road games should be limited. I would schedule maybe 1 per year. If you've been following GW ball in the last 20 years, we know what that ussually means: GW beatdown.  Fine, take you're wupping and move on.

But trying to schedule 3 road BSC teams/year in one and dones doesn't advance the ball. 90% chance of 3 losses.  Does not help GW's NCAA chances.  The problem with those 3 "sell" games is that it puts pressure on the rest of the schedule.  Assuming Hobbs and GW will want to play some home games as well, GW will have to "buy" some home games (one and done) against to dregs of the college basketball world.  This is where we see GW bring in UMES, Darthmoth, Norfolk State...teams that are so bad they're willng to take a road game for small $$ vs GW. 

So the overall SOS isn't improved: RPI 24 (vs BCS road game) RPI 324 (shit-ass home game)/2 = RPI 174.

Fortunately, the Selection Committee actually watches the games - almost all the games.  There's no need to "get their attention".  There's members on the committee folowing the A10, C-USA, CAA, MAC and all the top mid-major confereces closely.  There's probably someone on their that knows GW better than 90% of the people on this board.  So beating a VCU, ODU, W Michigan, Ohio, UAB, Tulsa, Wichita St, Siena, Harvard, Utah St, Houston, W&M, Illinois St, Akron, Hofstra, GMU and others like them DOES GET NOTICED.  Scheduling, playing and beating those teams (especially on the road) advances GW's NCAA prospects considerably.  7-8 games vs solid mid-majors should be the goal.

Note: the changes in the BB&T have hurt GW's scheduling ability significantly.  Used to be GW could get up to 3 BCS games out of it a year: 2 at Verizon and 1 road return.  One game vs Navy is a serious downgrade.  FQ is right that GW's received much more benifit from the BB&T than we'll ever return, but let's hope 2010 is the last time GW gets stuck with Navy.  Even 1 BCS in DC with a road return would help GW's schedule.

And I don't thing the A10 had barred all "sell" games.  Florida is not coming to Richmond and I don't think SU will ever venture to Olean.  I also doubt these A10 teams are doing it for free - their getting paid to go.  But it seams the A10 has limited the amount of "sell" games scheduled.  1/yr soulds good.

1 more note:  7-9 (RPI 197) Seattle Redhawks beat Oregon State @ Oregon State last night.  Final score: 99 - 48.

WTF?  Losing by a half-a-hundred to Seattle in your own building? Political leanings aside, let's hope that Barack Obama stays away from the Smith Center for the remainder of his presidentcy. 

What about SMU and Portland (or Portland State)?

Brad Dougherty was crowing a while back about upgrades to SMU's schedule that he said included a home and home with GW. Are those games still on?

And how about Portland? When the OSU away game was confirmed for net season, somebody posted that GW also would play at Portland, to make the trip West more cost effective.

Since Jack now is reading GWhoops and getting all of his ideas respecting scheduling, marketing, advertising and public and alumni relations from this board, maybe he or his people (the ones who are authorized to sign his name), can post again, and confirm or deny those two opponents.

That would still leave one game to schedule.

A warm weather, big name opponent would be nice.  

Notta, what I said had nothing to do with backing out of contracts.  GW is still allowed to play anywhere they like without a return game.  They just can't receive a guaranteed payment for doing so. (They can still receive a percentage of the gate, for eample.) 

Bobo, you are living in a dream world.  I'm looking forward to the net time that GW is on the NCAA bubble and Digger Phelps says that GW can't receive an at-large because they didn't play anyone, only to have someone in your dream world say, "well, GW did beat both Boston University and UMBC, quality midmajors."  The same committee that knows all about all teams gave a 26-2 team a #8 seed because they hadn't played anyone OOC (aside from getting destroyed by NC State and beating Maryland).  Hard to believe that the wins that year over Marshall and Longwood didn't impress them more.

I didn't know Digger's now on the Selection Commitee.  Thanks for the scoop, MV.

The Selection Committe does pay attention to these games, even if the media (Digger) or the casual sports fan (MV) does not.  They know that Longwood and BU are not good this year but UMBC was solid 2 years ago.  Moreover, they are fully aware that teams like ODU, VCU, Wichita, Hofstra, Siena, Houston, Tulsa, St Mary's, Pacific, N Colorado, Cornell, Davidson, Maury St, Ohio and Mizzu St have good teams.  Much better than the dogshit teams GW scheduled in 2006. 

Notta,  one last point: There is no value whatsoever in playing BCS teams.  There is only value in BEATING BCS teams.  Committee looks at

Who'd ya beat?

Where'd ya beat them?

Any bad losses?

RPI 1-50, RPI 51-100, RPI 101-150  B/W the A10 and quality mid-majors GW can get lots of home/homes vs RPI 51-150 and look to avoid anyone below RPI 250 .

I wouldn't disagree that a win over Syracuse trumps a win vs Harvard.  But I would still rather schedule a home/home vs Harvard ODU than a road game vs SU followed by a home game vs Wagner.  That's the options GW has to choose from.

I will also contend that smart basketball people (like commitee members) recognize that Richmond's win vs ODU is just as good as their wins over Mizzu and Miss St.both same tournament).  The FL win is better and I would play 1 of those sell games/year.