Men’s basketball (14-12, 3-10 A-10) narrowly lost to St. Joseph’s (17-10, 7-7 A-10) in a thrilling game on Wednesday night in Hagan Arena 79-75.
The Revs suffered their ninth-consecutive loss as redshirt freshmen Darren Buchanan Jr. and Garrett Johnson sat out due to injury.
The game started with an offensive surge as senior guard James Bishop IV scored all of the team’s first 12 points, but St. Joe’s kept up. Bishop’s 12 points were scored after converting two drives to the basket into layups, two 3-pointers and a jumper. It wasn’t until a little over six minutes into the game that another Rev added a basket on a 3-pointer by graduate student forward Antoine Smith Jr.
The first half saw a close contest, with the Hawks getting out a lead of eight with seven minutes left in the first half. The Revs brought the lead down to one thanks to five of Bishop’s 22 first-half points.
The Revs captured a 5-point lead with ten minutes remaining in the second half but lost the lead after missing their next nine field goal attempts. With just under three minutes left in the game, GW was down 74-68 before Bishop netted a 3-pointer and a layup to bring the score within one. A pair of free throws from St. Joe’s gave the Revs the ball down 76-73 with 30 seconds left.
Bishop had the ball working on his defender before rising for a 3-point shot with a defender in his face, causing Bishop to pass the ball, which sailed out of bounds. GW fouled to force two free throws, both of which St. Joe’s nailed. But the Revs got the ball back with 14 seconds left and a fastbreak jumper from freshman guard Jacoi Hutchinson put the team back within 3. GW took a timeout and Head Coach Chris Caputo took out Hutchinson and brought in big man Babatunde Akingbola to play defense.
At the end of the dead period, GW fouled again to force another freethrow, but a rebound dead ball led to another attempt from behind the charity stripe, which they knocked down to go up by 4 points with 4 seconds left to seal the game.
Bishop finished the game tying his season high of 32 points, eight coming from free throw attempts, along with four assists and one rebound in 39 minutes of action. Bishop shot 6 for 10 in the first half and 4 for 12 in the second. Freshman guard Jacoi Hutchinson was the only other Rev to score in double figures as he tallied 12 points on 5-9 from the field and recorded five assists and seven rebounds.
GW struggled to stay out of foul trouble for most of the game as they finished with 21 fouls committed, more than double the amount of the Hawks. St. Joseph’s made 20 of their 27 free throw attempts, a byproduct of the fouls, compared to GW’s 11 of 13 from the foul line.
Despite the loss, the Revs’ shooting slump was seemingly over after netting 44.4 percent of their 3-point attempts in the game on a 12 for 27 split, their highest percentage since the team’s win over Davidson on Jan. 13.
The nine-game losing streak is the most since an 11-straight skid during the 2008 to 2009 season. GW falls to second to last place in the A-10 conference. The Revs will travel to St. Louis, Missouri, to take on the Saint Louis Billikens in the Chaifetz Arena on Feb. 24 at 3 p.m.
