Reader’s note: This story is satirical in nature and published in a spoof issue.

After signing his seven-year contract extension, men’s basketball head coach Madeya Careagain has enlisted a group of unlikely assistant coaches to help with the Colonials’ putrid free-throw shooting.

Four brothers of Pi Beta Epsilon fraternity, who each made it to the finals of their chapter’s beer pong tournament championship, have run the men’s basketball team through a series of drills and mental coaching sessions so far this offseason.

“I watched some tape on these guys and I thought they could really have the tools to help us out,” Careagain said. “Their form is just textbook. I mean, they went 12-0 at an Apple Delta Pi mixer – that’s getting it done under pressure.”

The beer pong superstars have already put the men’s basketball team through a rigorous training program, during which they would finally learn what most basketball players were taught to do in first grade: shoot free throws.

The hires come after GW missed almost half its free throws in the NCAA Tournament loss to Memphis. All season, the Colonials sank just 65 percent of their shots from the charity stripe – forcing pundits to reconsider whether to actually continue calling it “the charity stripe.”

“The fact that we won a bunch of games and dunked the ball lots made all those new fans in the Smith Center forget that we couldn’t shoot for shit from the free throw line,” sophomore guard Cor Fore said. “Until we lost because of it.”

Careagain acknowledged that as a head coach pulling in close to a half-million dollars a year, he should be able to improve his team’s free-throw skills, and said hiring the group of frat boys was “humbling.”

When the fraternity brothers came into their first practice, they made their presence known, rolling in a rack 30’s instead of basketballs– but they knew they had their work cut out for them.

“It was hard to watch – like a couple guys getting trolled by some drunk biddies,” Nathaniel Icicle said. “They didn’t even have the right bro tanks on.”

Despite their significant beer pong knowledge, no frat bros could speak to any real basketball experience.

“I played on my middle school’s ‘B’ team a while back, but I realized pretty young that beer pong was just more of the sport for me,” Ronald Rock said.

Similarly, although they had never felt what it’s like to play in front of sold out Smith Center – much like the men’s basketball team – they felt their past experiences had prepared them with the right techniques to handle pressure.

“I remember this one game just a few weekends ago – I was down five cups on the rebuttal. My partner whispered in my ear, ‘this is your time,’” Icicle said. “I went up there and sank all five cups, the last one behind the back and sent the game to overtime. It was out of body man, out of body.”

The training had its problems at first, with the unorthodox teachers not used to the rules of the game. They ordered each player to call island before every shot and were surprised when the players didn’t ask for balls back after they somehow made both free throws.

Things quickly turned strict, though, with screams of “elbow” being called after every shot and players seen running laps around the gym without their pants after missing all of their attempts.

By the end of practice, Careagain said he felt the training was a huge success. Though his team wasn’t at all better at free-throw shooting, they were sufficiently drunk after replacing the water in the baby-blue Powerade water bottles with beer.

When asked if beer would be put in the water bottles during actual games, Careagain responded: “As long as it’s Natty.”