7:06 p.m. That’s all, folks. GW wins 81-69 to move to 6-1 on the season. Check out the semester-ending print edition and www.gwhatchet.com for full coverage tomorrow.
7:04 p.m. Keys are jangling. GW leads 81-69 as we enter the final minute.
7:00 p.m. Topercer hits a three, cutting GW’s lead to 10 points with 1:41 to go. It’s a 79-69 game.
6:56 p.m. Harris knocks down two free throws for Navy, giving him approximately a million points today.
6:54 p.m. Great jumboscreen moment as the P.F. Chang’s fan of the game is announced – a man wearing a GW sweatshirt – and he has no idea he’s on the screen, just sitting there looking over a piece of paper. People around him alert him to the news and he suddenly looks up, perks up, and points to the GW logo on his shirt, prompting cheers from the Colonials supporters in the Verizon Center. As far as basketball goes, GW leads 77-62 with 3:21 left.
6:52 p.m. Johnson knocks down another trey and it’s 75-60 GW with 4:13 left. The Colonials are on a 14-0 run, which began on Johnson’s first three.
6:48 p.m. King shows some of his pre-injury flash and drives baseline past, between, and into defenders to lay it up and in for two, prompting a Navy timeout.
6:46 p.m. After Johnson feeds Kromah for two, Johnson blocks a shot off the backboard on the other end and GW leads 66-60 just inside the seven-minute mark. Opoku picked up his fourth foul and headed to the bench.
6:43 p.m. Johnson hits a three from straightaway centerfield, or what would be straightaway centerfield if this were baseball, and GW leads 64-60 with eight minutes left.
6:41 p.m. Or not. Alston does not enter the game as announced. Harris makes a shot to cut GW’s lead to one.
6:40 p.m. Hollis coolly knocks down a jumper, but Garcia hits another three for Navy and the Colonials’ lead is just three points – 61-58 – with 9:23 left after Taylor is called for a travel. Graduate student Jeff Alston, a walk-on and former team manager, will enter the game after the timeout.
6:39 p.m. Harris hits yet another three and makes it a 59-55 GW lead. There are 10 minutes left.
6:35 p.m. After Opoku adds another basket, giving him eight points in the game, Harris hits his sixth three-pointer of the game to cut GW’s lead to 59-52. There’s 11:23 left in regulation.
6:33 p.m. King finds senior Hermann Opoku, his former high school teammate, with a long up-court pass that Opoku turns into a dunk. The Colonials lead 57-49 with 12 minutes to play.
6:32 p.m. Kromah is whistled for his fourth personal foul with 12:48 left in the game, so he heads to the bench and is replaced by King. GW leads 55-47.
6:30 p.m. Kromah has 14 points, by the way. Not 13. My apologies. GW leads 55-46 after Sugars makes one of two free throws for the Midshipmen. There are a little under 14 minutes to play.
6:26 p.m. King finds Taylor in transition for a bucket while the latter is being fouled. Taylor hits the foul shot and GW leads 53-45 with 14:49 left.
6:18 p.m. Kromah then gets a steal near the perimeter and breaks away for a layup to put GW ahead 48-43. He now has a team-high 13 points. During the ensuing break in play, Navy’s mascot and a few GW fans just had a pair of confrontations; one Colonials supporter tried to pants the ram, or whatever it is goat.
6:17 p.m. Kromah three; 46-43 GW.
6:16 p.m. Navy’s T.J. Topercer hits a three and the game is tied at 43 inside of the 18-minute mark.
6:15 p.m. Taylor gets on the board with a pair of free throws and Katuka scores on a put-back; between those two plays, Navy hits a three. It’s 41-38 GW with 18:44 to play.
6:01 p.m. In the final seconds of the first half, the Midshipmen work the ball around until it finds Harris on the wing, who knocks down a three-pointer as Johnson jumps and flails in front of him, falling on the court. GW takes a 37-35 lead into halftime, though the Colonials spent much of the first half trying to get their offense in sync. Kromah leads GW with nine points – only three of which came from three-point range – and Hollis has eight, six of them coming on a trio of fairly long jumpers. Kromah also has three fouls.
The Colonials’ usually deep rotation of players has taken a hit from the suspensions of Bynes and Pellom, who have combined to average more than 35 minutes of playing time per game so far this season. Considering Kromah’s foul trouble, GW may find itself short on manpower at points in the second half and calling on different sources of contribution than usual; Taylor (zero points) and Katuka (two) will likely need to step it up after the break. Navy has been able to get off a lot of three-point attempts thus far and though they haven’t exactly shot the lights out, it cannot be encouraging for GW that they’ve been able to take so many.
5:53 p.m. GW takes the lead back on a pair of Ware free throws, then Kromah gets a steal and puts back Ware’s missed layup to make it 35-32 GW inside the half’s final 50 seconds.
5:51 p.m. Interesting to see Kromah stay on the floor with three fouls in the first half. Hobbs puts redshirt junior Travis King into the game, but it’s to replace Taylor, not Kromah. King then hits a three to make GW’s deficit just one point with 1:30 left in the half.
5:50 p.m. Hollis is whistled for a technical foul. I couldn’t see whatever prompted it. Harris makes one of two free throws and it’s 32-28 Navy.
5:49 p.m. Harris hits a three to regain Navy’s lead at 29-28 inside the first half’s final three minutes.
5:43 p.m. Kromah hits a pair of foul shots and then scores on a breakaway layup after getting a steal in the backcourt to put the Colonials ahead 28-26 with exactly five minutes left in the first half.
5:40 p.m. Hollis misses a jumper but freshman Tim Johnson skies and puts back the rebound to tie the game at 24 with 5:46 left in the half. It was a pretty impressive play, as Johnson was colliding with a Navy defender at the time.
5:38 p.m. Hollis scores on a reverse layup with an assist from Taylor, cutting GW’s disadvantage to two points with 7:07 on the clock. It was the fourth basket for Hollis and the first that wasn’t a jump shot from a step or two inside the arc.
5:33 p.m. Have I mentioned that Ware is sporting a rather prominent bandage above his right eye? Because I should have. He was just sent to the line and made one of two shots. He now has five points and Navy leads 22-18 with eight minutes left in the first half.
5:31 p.m. Hollis gets the ball on the perimeter and dribbles in a few steps before connecting on an awkward-looking, off-balance jumper. It’s 22-17 Navy.
5:29 p.m. Hollis and Taylor struggle to get the ball past halfcourt and head coach Karl Hobbs calls a timeout. Navy leads 22-15 with 10:11 to go before halftime. The Colonials’ offense has seemed pretty stagnant of late.
5:28 p.m. Harris hits a three for Navy and it’s 21-15 Midshipmen.
5:27 p.m. Katuka re-enters the game and misses two shots on the next possession. It seems like he’s involved on every play when he’s on the court. It’s still 18-15 Navy with just over 11 minutes left in the first half.
5:22 p.m. Verizon Center ushers are giving the Colonial Army all sorts of trouble as the members try to sit wherever they like within their block of seats; the ushers want them to sit in their exact ticketed spot. Also, Ware just hit two free throws to tie the game but Navy’s Romeo Garcia immediately hit a three to put the Midshipmen up 18-15. There’s 11:52 left in the first half.
5:18 p.m. Sugars knocks down a three for Navy to cut GW’s lead to 13-12 at th 13:51 mark.
5:12 p.m. Veazey picks up his second personal foul of the game, sending the game into an official timeout with GW still leading 9-7 four minutes and one second into play.
5:11 p.m. Kromah connects from deep to give GW a 9-7 lead at the 16:20 mark. On the possesion before, Ware had a nice score after crashing the boards and grabbing an offensive rebound.
5:09 p.m. After letting Navy big man Mark Veazey score on consecutive possessions, Katuka puts GW on the board himself. The Colonials trail 4-2 at the 17:40 mark and really seem to want to work the ball inside to Katuka.
5:06 p.m. Katuka with a big block, but he’s airballed two attempted shots long over the basket so far. No score at the 18:41 mark.
5:05 p.m. Spotted in the stands: former GW men’s basketball player Dom Green. No relation.
5:01 p.m. GW’s starters: sophomore forward Aaron Ware, senior forward Damian Hollis, sophomore guard Tony Taylor, freshman guard Lasan Kromah, and junior center Joseph Katuka.
5:00 p.m. Bynes, Pellom and Warren are all with the team, though they are wearing different warm-up jackets than the rest of the players – white and blue as opposed to buff and blue.
4:52 p.m. Just received word that freshmen Bryan Bynes, David Pellom and Daymon Warren are all suspended for today’s game for violation of team rules. Sports Information Director Brad Bower said that he believes the suspensions are only for this game and that he was not informed of the nature of the violation(s). Bynes is averaging 6.6 points and 3.2 rebounds per game and Pellom is averaging six points and 5.2 rebounds; Warren has yet to play this season due to injury. We’ll have more on this as it develops.
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Good afternoon and welcome to the live blog for today’s BB&T Classic men’s basketball game against Navy, which enters this game 4-4 after being Penn at home Friday. The Colonials are 5-1 following Wednesday’s win over George Mason. Senior guard Chris Harris leads the Midshipmen in scoring so far this season with 20.9 points per game and sophomore guard Jordan Sugars is second with a 14.5 scoring average.
The arena is largely empty with less than nine minutes remaining before tip-off; I would imagine an overlap with the Redskins-Saints game isn’t helping attendance and that most people that will be coming here for the Maryland-Villanova game that follows. We’ll be back with starting lineups and other updates as they become available and the 5 p.m. opening tip approaches.