Last night the tenth ranked George Washington Colonials had a monumental win when they beat Xavier for the first time in ten years at Xavier’s court. Xavier is the only other Atlantic 10 team that will most likely go to the NCAA tournament. Students packed the Smith Center (GW’s Arena) to watch the game on TV and when GW won in the final minutes of the game, students rushed the empty court and began to celebrate. This is the first, and most likely the only time that GW fans rushed the court this year. Why? No good… actually decent, teams will play GW at home.
It’s possible to blame GW lack of good home games on being in the Atlantic-10, a division which can easily send only the one team that wins the league championship. However, even Xavier who is in the A-10 does not play GW at home this year. Temple University, who is also in the A-10, host not only Alabama, Villanova, Maryland, and GW at home (all are currently ranked teams) but the second to last game of the season is versus Duke! GW only had the opportunity to play two ranked teams this year; Maryland and NC State. NC State was away and a sad loss, GW beat Maryland in Washington, DC but as part of a the BB&T tournament taking place in the MCI Center (home of the Georgetown Hoyas and the NBA’s Washington Wizards).
Yes, this sounds like some GW student complaining that he doesn’t get to rush the court. However, the #10 ranked Colonials are currently predicted to get a #6 seed in the NCAA tournament by ESPN’s Joe Lunardi. Lunardi was interviewed on GW radio earlier this week and responded that despite the teams ability to remain only one of three teams with one loss, they haven’t proved much given that GW’s schedule is almost too easy. Hopefully GW will show that they can beat ranked teams and make it to the Sweet 16.
Date
February 3, 2006
Sources