It’s Wednesday afternoon and the GW women’s basketball team, which just returned to Foggy Bottom after a 59-47 victory over Texas A&M in the second round of the NCAA tournament in Los Angeles, is hard at work in the Smith Center.
As the squad gathers at center court, junior Sarah-Jo Lawrence takes a shot from behind the arc and watches as it bounces off the rim. She turns toward the circle her teammates have formed, but coach Joe McKeown turns her back toward the hoop and tells her to take another shot. Another miss – in and out. After many attempts, one finally swooshes and her tutorial ends.
Lawrence’s ability to hit those shots will be important as the fifth-seeded Colonials face top-seeded North Carolina Sunday in the Sweet 16, the program’s first appearance in the second weekend of the tournament in 10 years.
Scoring is something that plagued GW in the opening minutes of its second-round game, when they were down 16-8 midway through the first half, and in the closing minutes of the Colonials’ first-round game against Boise State, where the Colonials were outscored 29-13 in the final seven minutes of an eventual 76-67 victory. All season, while the Colonials seemed defensively sound, getting the ball in the hoop has caused a problem for GW at some point almost every game.
“You have to score, that’s the biggest thing in these types of games,” McKeown said. “You’ve got to find ways to score. We’re both really good defensive teams, but you have to find ways to find points.”
Against the Aggies, junior Kim Beck had 18 points. Lawrence scored 12 points. Sophomore Jessica Adair added 10. The Colonials have been a team with scoring spread out among multiple players, with at least two players scoring in double figures every game, but an average of 67.5 points per game does not match North Carolina’s 85.5 points per outing.
After trailing to Texas A&M, the Colonials went on a 9-0 run to take its first lead of the game. If GW finds itself down again, a similar run will become necessary.
“I thought we did a good job not letting (a scoring drought) carry more than a couple minutes,” McKeown said. “I thought, when we were down by eight, we felt a little out of sync. We need to make sure we don’t dig ourselves a hole. Against North Carolina, they could keep you down in that hole too.”
Ninth-seeded Notre Dame held the Tar Heels to 60 points in the second round and even led for a good portion of the game before a scoreless six-minute stretch in the second half, in which North Carolina scored 15 points, gave the Tar Heels a lead that the Fighting Irish never overcame.
Senior Kenan Cole said that her team will use that game as a guide for its own on Sunday.
“Watching the game, we could see some of (North Carolina’s) weaknesses that Notre Dame took advantage of, and some of the things that Notre Dame could have improved on that we’re going to look to do,” Cole said. “But we’re going in with a lot of confidence.”
