With less than eight minutes left in GW’s men’s basketball game against Xavier Sunday, the teams headed toward their respective benches with the Colonials ahead by 10.
When they re-took the floor, the Musketeers’ Jordan Crawford added a quick layup under the basket to cut GW’s lead to eight. The play seemed relatively innocuous at the time, just another basket in a game that had already featured plenty, but it proved to be the start of something more.
Beginning with that score, Xavier went on to dominate the game’s next seven minutes, scoring 20 points to GW’s one, and take a firm lead they would convert into a 76-69 win over the Colonials.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever been around a game where the momentum swung in the last seven minutes like it did today at the Smith Center,” Xavier head coach Chris Mack said.
After taking a 60-50 lead on senior Hermann Opoku’s free throws with 8:24 left, GW (11-4, 1-1 Atlantic 10) went more than five minutes before they scored again.
“It seemed like we were on that 60 for a long time, every time I looked up,” head coach Karl Hobbs said.
During the draught that proved to be their downfall, the Colonials missed all seven of their shots from the field and made just one of three free throws.
It wasn’t until the game’s final 40 seconds, when senior Damian Hollis hit a three-pointer, that the Colonials hit another field goal, but at that point the clock was their enemy, and time soon ran out on any GW comeback.
After shooting 59 percent from the field in the first half, the Colonials made only nine of 29 field-goal attempts after halftime. Hobbs said the team’s lack of scoring was fatal because a team as talented as the Musketeers, a perennial A-10 power, is unlikely to be shut down completely on offense.
“You’re just not gonna stop them five, six times in a row,” he said. “We just needed to score and we just weren’t able to make those baskets.”
One source of scoring that dried up in the second half was the Colonials’ scoring off turnovers. GW spent much of the first half picking off passes and forcing Xavier to cough up possession, turning 11 such instances into 17 points.
But the Colonials forced just one turnover after halftime, depriving them of the ability to create the easy transition baskets that had propelled them to a double-digit lead in the first palace.
“I think when you look at [Xavier’s] level, you look at how talented their players are, you’re not gonna turn them over all game,” Hobbs said, praising Musketeers point guard Terrell Holloway in particular. “They’ve got some terrific basketball players and you’re just not gonna turn them over.”
Also contributing to the cold stretch was Xavier’s switch to a zone defense, which Hollis and sophomore Tony Taylor both said made GW uncomfortable on offense.
“The zone kind of forced us to slow down a little more,” said Hollis, who scored just six of his game-high 23 points in the second half. “Once the zone comes around we slow down a little bit. We’re just not as comfortable, which is something we’re working on.”
All of these changes were tangential, Hobbs said, to the real difference: rebounding. The Colonials won the battle on the boards 14 to nine in the first half, but were outrebounded 30-19 after the break, with Xavier senior Jason Love grabbing 12 second-half boards himself.
The Musketeers grabbed a total of 13 offensive rebounds after halftime, 10 of which continued a possession that ultimately resulted in points.
“I think it was the offensive rebounds, clearly,” Hobbs said. “It’s not really that complicated. I thought we defended them very well and it came down to their ability to get offensive rebounds.
“I thought that was the difference,” he continued, seemingly as a means of emphasis. “That’s what the game really came down to.”
GW’s season continues Wednesday with a trip to Philadelphia to play La Salle. Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m.
