Posted Saturday, Feb. 10, 11:32

For the first time in a few years, fans began filing out of Smith Center with time remaining on the clock. It’s been a while that a game was so out of reach that even an highlight-worthy run, one which the GW men’s basketball team always has buried in its arsenal, would not matter.

And for the first time since December 2003, when most of this Colonial team was still in high school, GW is the losers of three straight. Xavier snapped GW’s 24-game home winning streak – the fourth longest in the nation – with an 87-58 romp in front of 4,848 at Smith Center.

Karl Hobbs, the architect of the resurgence of this program, found some solace in the loss, which was the second worst loss in his tenure.

“This is a new experience for us and that’s quite amazing isn’t it,” Hobbs said of his team’s losing streak.

But at GW, the bar isn’t set too high.

“The great part about being the coach here at GW, no one is asking me to win the national championship here,” Hobbs said.

Senior Carl Elliott and junior Maureece Rice were the only Colonials (15-7, 6-4 Atlantic 10) in double digits. Elliott had a team-high 13 and Rice put in 12. Elliott had four of the team’s 18 turnovers. Senior Dokun Akingbade had eight points and freshman Travis King had six points.

The Colonials shot 42 percent on the game, including 25 percent in the second half. GW’s 18 second-half points is the least it has scored in one half this season.

Stanley Burrell led Xavier with 17 points and Brandon Cole had 16 points and seven rebounds. Drew Lavender had 15 points including two three pointers. Justin Cage made all five of his shots from the floor en route to 14 points.

“Pure and simply, we lost to a better basketball team,” Hobbs said.

GW plays Saint Joseph’s Wednesday night at 7 p.m. in Philadelphia.

Check out Monday’s edition of The GW Hatchet and www.gwhatchet.com for more coverage.

var uslide_show_id = “1a7025fd-dd21-44fd-9e5c-b714c2ce1a28”;var slideshowwidth = “468”;var linktext = “”;