What: GW (18-10, 8-7 A-10) vs. Davidson (20-6, 11-4 A-10)
When: Saturday, Feb. 28 at 7 p.m.
Where: Belk Arena, Davidson, N.C.
The Colonials make their first trip down to Wildcat country to take on Davidson as an Atlantic 10 rival Saturday, under different circumstances than they might have imaged at the beginning of the season.
Picked 12th in the A-10 preseason coaches poll in their first season after leaving the Southern Conference, the Wildcats and head coach Bob McKillop have played their way to a tie for first with VCU, Rhode Island and Dayton.
GW, on the other hand, sits in seventh place in the conference after being picked second in the preseason. One early prediction, however, just came true: After snapping a four-game losing streak against St. Bonaventure on Wednesday, the Colonials have all of the “core four” juniors scoring in double-figures. With just three games left in the regular season, they’ll head down south looking to prove they are who everyone thought they were.
The case for the Wildcats:
Davidson was able to beat the Colonials in the Smith Center, so it seems logical that the friendly confines of Belk Arena would only mean an easier victory.
That’s only augmented by the struggles GW has had on the road, where the Colonials are 3-8.
The Wildcats are on a six-game winning streak, and McKillop said after the team’s win at GW that exceeding expectations has given the players a trust in each other and in him that will be hard to break, especially with Jack Gibbs (15.5 ppg) getting back to full strength to complement Tyler Kalinoski’s 16.4.
But even if the Colonials can hold Gibbs and Kalinoski in check, they’ll still have to contend with numerous threats. Davidson’s two leading scorers in the win against GW were Jordan Barham, who torched the Colonials’ defense with 15 points on 7-8 shooting, and Brian Sullivan, who added 12 points.
The case for GW:
Though the Wildcats came out with the win, the Colonials were able to hold Davidson to just 65 points. Rhode Island, who suffered the same fate on their home court as GW, pushed that number down to 60. Davidson is averaging 79.7 points per game, but the scoring onslaught isn’t impossible to stop for a good defense.
Junior Joe McDonald will be coming into the game fresh off a 17-point performance against St. Bonaventure. He hinted at a triple-double with 11 points, 11 rebounds and six assists in the earlier matchup with the Wildcats, and has often put the team on his back in critical situations, so look for McDonald to have another big game.
GW has dropped in the A-10 rankings, but the free-for-all at the top of the conference leaves plenty of room for the team to make gains. Players talked about how good it was to get back to winning after the St. Bonaventure game, and if the Colonials could manage to spin that into a win at Davidson, they’d come away with something looking a lot like momentum.
