Falcons Routed. Orr: "We had a lot to do with that"

The Falcons were thumped by the George Washington Colonials last night on their own floor.  GW rode 61% shooting to the 77-56 victory.  The Colonials will have fond memories of the Stroh, as they are now 3-0 on that floor, sweeping through the CBE sub-regional.

Coach Orr referred to it as our worst defensive game of the season.  That's true, but probably not taking the whole thing far enough.  BG gave up 77 points in a 61 possession game...the 1.26 points per possession for GW was very similar to what Duquesne hung on BG last year, and only slightly worse than the Kent and Akron games.

More numbers.  GW shot 65% in the second half.  A team that doesn't like to shoot 3s shot 65% for the game and made 11 of them.

With a game like this, you sometimes wonder:  was it just hot shooting, or was it poor defense?  Coach Orr left no double about that.  He said that "we didn't do anything to slow these guys down" we "lost our man, we didn't rotate."

Here is the key thing.  This is a team that makes open shots.  So the only way to beat them is to "make them miss" and BG didn't do that.  The Falcons gave them open looks and they knocked them down.  Coach called it a "reality check."

The Falcons were complimenting the poor defense with their second worst offensive game of the season.  Scott Thomas had a pretty heroic 15 and Craig Sealey added 9, but there was no scoring from the inside game and the Falcons shot 29% in the second half.

The Colonials dominated much of the first half and led by eight with four minutes left, but BG switched to a zone which seemed to throw GW off and the Falcons were able to get into a little run and head into the locker room down only by one point.

GW is a good team, though, and well coached, and when BG came out of the locker room and went back to the zone, the Colonials were ready for it.  They nailed a couple of 3s right out of the box, and were up 12 before 4 minutes had elapsed.  By the midway point of the half they were up 17 and the margin hit 20 with about eight left, and stayed over 20 for the remainder of the game.

NCAA Basketball

Statistically, it was all about shooting.  GW had an EFG% of 72% and BG's was 42.  The other factors were relatively even.

NCAA Basketball

As we learn about our team, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are not going to be reliably able to score enough points to win games consistently.  If the team is going to win, it is going to have to be on the defensive end of the floor, and if that's going to be our identity, than games like this just can't happen.

For a final bit of sour taste, we can remind ourselves that our next guest at the Stroh is Temple, a better team from the A-10 than GW.