With the college basketball season more than half over, February is considered a time for teams to come together and make a run in preparation for the NCAA tournament. GW’s men’s basketball game against Xavier saw two teams going in different directions: the Musketeers have won five of their last six games, while the Colonials have lost three straight for first time since December 2003.

GW may have lost to what head coach Karl Hobbs called “a much, much better basketball team,” but few could have expected Xavier to win by 29 at Smith Center, where GW had won 24 straight games. The game was close throughout the entire first half and the two teams were separated by just three at halftime, suggesting that the 44-18 second half score came down to one team’s superior execution and effort.

“Wherever there was a big play to be made, they made it,” Hobbs said. “Whenever they needed a big stop, they got it. Whenever there was a loose ball, they got it.”

The numbers are as ugly as one would expect: the Colonials shot just under 27 percent in the second half and had 18 turnovers in the game. Hobbs said fatigue played a factor in the team’s performance, but his team had not played a game in a week after coming back from a long road trip to the Midwest. Sophomore Cheyenne Moore said Wednesday that he thought the week off had helped the team recover from the trip.

“My main concern now is physically trying to get through the rest of the year,” Hobbs said. “But at the same time you have to find a way to win basketball games.”

Now tied for fourth in the conference, GW is faced with trying to stop a losing streak, a situation that most of its players are unfamiliar with. Before the season, coaches and fans pointed to this current stretch of five games, of which four are on the road, as crucial to the success or failure of the team. With just one of the five games left – the Colonials play Saint Joseph’s Wednesday – the team is 1-3 and looking for answers.

“(I don’t think the players know what to do) at all,” Hobbs said. “They’ve never been through before, even the veteran guys.”

Although he said it does not give him any comfort now, Hobbs is quick to point out that he considers this a “rebuilding year,” similar to the one that last year’s seniors, such as Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Mike Hall, went through during their freshman year.

With six games remaining, the team is still just one and a half games out of first place in the conference; even a short winning streak could put GW in position to get a bye in the first round of the Atlantic 10 Tournament. There is not much room for error, however.

Said Hobbs of his players: “They know that their back is against the wall.”