GW Hatchet Video: Predicting the Season

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We took a chance to chat with students, staff members, area businesses and alumni about their predictions for how well the Colonials will do this season. By and large, everyone thinks the team will repeat the successes from recent years.

Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game against the University of the District of Columbia did not count in the standings, but freshman Xavier Alexander looked like he cared as he rolled on the floor and fought for the ball amid a sea of red jerseys as time expired in regulation.

Alexander’s intensity was a departure from much of the game, when the Colonials looked discombobulated and uninterested. Fans waited for the team to put together a 20-point run, like they always seem to do against inferior opponents, but it never came. Instead, the team turned up its energy and won, even though it was not pretty.

“We saw the good, the bad and certainly the ugly,” head coach Karl Hobbs said.

Hobbs took advantage of the opportunity to use players he normally would not and prepare others for different roles. Walk-on sophomores Johnny Lee and Peter LaPlante both played. When the team was down two points with two ensuing free throws after UDC’s coach was called for a technical foul, junior Noel Wilmore – not Maureece (Reece) Rice, the team’s only senior and best free throw shooter – took the shots.

One would think that rustiness could be understood, if not allowed, during these games, but junior Rob Diggs was visibly angry after the game. The forward was upset with the team’s play as a whole. After all, needing overtime to beat a Division II team at home is probably not a good sign.

Both Diggs and Hobbs said this team was “really far behind” and that it will have to address a number of other issues, including conditioning, in the days leading up to the team’s regular season opener Nov. 10 against Mount Saint Mary’s at Smith Center. That this game won’t show up in the standings did not seem to matter much either to Diggs or his coach.

“It always makes a difference. If they’re keeping score, it makes a difference,” Hobbs said.

Regular season games make more of a difference though. Despite all the team’s flaws and miscues, Hobbs and Diggs both said they were excited to start playing games that count to everyone, not just coaches and players.

“Of course, of course, of course, I can’t wait to get started,” Diggs said. “We just have to get back in the gym.”