On this day eight years ago, the men’s basketball team suffered a 79-58 defeat at the hands of North Carolina State. It was the Colonials first loss of the season. 
That 2005-06 Colonials squad, led by then-head coach Karl Hobbs, is the most storied team in recent GW basketball history – the last to win a game in the NCAA tournament and the last to start a season 11-1.
Until now.
After its 69-58 victory over Hofstra Saturday, the 2013-14 Colonials are drawing some comparisons to that ’05 team, and rightly so. It’s still yet to be seen if this years team will go on as remarkable a run – these next two non-conference match ups against Kansas State and Georgia should give some signs – but the comparisons alone are giving fans something to cheer about.
For a deeper look at the one-loss 2005-06 GW team, here’s a run down of what helped them achieve so much success at the halfway point of its season.
Big win against Maryland
Dec. 5, 2005: In a nationally televised game at the then-MCI Center (now the Verizon Center), GW defeated rival Maryland, 78-70. Guards Maureece Rice and Danilo Pinnock led the Colonials with 19 points apiece. Like this year’s defeat of the Terps in the BB&T Classic, the ’05 matchup was a close one, as GW led just 63-62 with six minutes to play. An 8-1 run sparked by a Pinnock layup, though, put the game out of reach and gave the Colonials their biggest win of the season thus far.
A sterling backcourt
Rice, Pinnock and junior point guard Carl Elliot made up the GW backcourt that was named the seventh best in the country by Sports Illustrated at the time. Pinnock was averaging a team-high 15.6 points per game, while Elliot was shooting a team-best 51 percent from behind the arc. Rice would end the season averaging 12.6 points per game, second on the team and a nine-point increase from his season before.
A balanced offense
With senior Pops Mensah-Bonsu and center Omar Williams patrolling the paint, the ’05 Colonials put forth a very balanced offense, that by season’s end, averaged 78.7 points per game. That offense was accompanied by a defense that would force a total of 534 turnovers, while holding opponents to 42 percent shooting.
Unblemished A-10 play
Following its loss to NC State, GW would go on to defeat its first A-10 opponent of the season, Temple, less than a week later. That started GW’s run of 18 straight wins to clinch the regular season A-10 title. The team would fall to Temple in the first round of the A-10 Championship before making it to the NCAA Tournament and losing in the second round to Duke and its star shooting guard J.J. Reddick.
