Being a Bonaventure fan post-snub, you deep down understand how meaningless out-of-conference games are. Yeah, we got an at-large in 2018, but we only lost 5 total games with Jay Adams and still got stuck in the play-in round. Resumes in college basketball are like resumes in the working world. They're kind of pointless and it's really about who you know in Norman, Oklahoma that can let your slacker son be a natural gas fracking executive or allow your sad excuse for a basketball program to lose to Michigan in the First Four.
All of that's to say that the real season begins now. That's especially true if you're Rhode Island, who, like in 2019, just had their tournament hopes destroyed by a team in brown. Atlantic 10 basketball has been really fun over the past several seasons because it usually shakes out like this: 2 or 3 good teams, Fordham and friends, then everyone else in the middle. When SBUnfurled did all those retro logos, he forgot to mention that the rejected A10 conference logo during the last rebrand in 2014 was the Spiderman meme.
Fortunately for the Bonnies, we start the real season with one of Fordham's friends: George Washington. The Buff (apparently 💪 is a color?) and Blue may feel like constant Wednesday Night Pillow Fight contenders, but they were actually respectable until very recently. They had four-straight 10+ win seasons in the A10 from 2014-17, an NCAA Tournament appearance and an NIT championship (not as meaningful as ours). After that, however, everything fell apart for GW in 2017, like it did for prominent former SUNY at Amherst student Harvey Weinstein.
Deadspin (Rest In Power) chronicled this scandal wonderfully, so while I'll give you the short version, you need to read that whole story, especially if you're one of our friends from the other A10 schools in the DMV. Basically, former coach Mike Lonergan was pushed out by athletic director Patrick Nero, a guy who still cares about Snapchat streaks in 2020. This Nero guy burned GW's athletic program to the ground and they're still picking up the pieces more than 3 years later.
Let's move to a lighter topic: politics. Being in the heart of DC, which is an actual and metaphorical swamp, GW has had more than its fair share of swamp monsters. I mean, Foggy Bottom literally means nighttime swamp, folks. This shouldn't be a surprise. BIuesTraveler on Twitter actually compiled a list of 50 evil GW alums and it doesn't even include Kellyanne Conway, which is what you get when a yellow tennis ball is chewed up by a dog that lies for treats. It's ironic that someone who created "alternative facts" went to a school named after a guy who could not tell a lie, folks.
The list includes Roger Stone, a man with a Richard Nixon tattoo on his back and who dresses in steampunk suits. There's no joke there, those are actual facts. You would think GW is the only A10 school with a Trump associate who will rot in prison, but there's a Mike Flynn-Rhody connection we will definitely explore before the URI game on the 25th. Maybe Attorney General William Barr will be in prison by the time the Colonials come up to the Reilly Center. Probably not, democracy died in darkness.
If it weren't for its penchant for creating some of America's favorite war criminals of yesterday and today, GW would just be expensive Hartwick College. You know what really sets G-Dub apart? Bonnies. That's right. St. Bonaventure graduates single-handedly keep Foggy Bottom Med School afloat with the Bonnies Without Borders program. This program allows future doctors to go to an awesome school at Bonaventure for undergrad. Then, in grad school, those Bona alums graciously help out GW students learn things they didn't know like how to apply a Band-Aid.
Seven Steps to Victory
1. Red Auerbach went to George Washington, so Schmidt better break out a victory vape with about 3 minutes left.
2. It's 2020, so Osun needs to spend less time playing fewer than 20 minutes because of fouls and more time putting up 20-20 games.
3. GW only has one international player when they usually have like 6, so that means fewer Euro steps to defend imo.
4. George Washington wears wooden mouth guards, so we need to catch fire early.
5. I really like Winston, but he's a 3 or a 4 and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WE ARE WORSE THAN CHICAGO STATE IF HE IS OUR 5.
6. Some people on the former home message board of Bonnies basketball called the Bona administration "Fort Duquesne," which is exactly where George Washington suffered his most humiliating loss. Couldn't even cover the spread smh...
7. Stay along the sidelines in the middle third of the court, in case the scoreboard falls again...
Bona Bandwagon Commenter's Score on #a102k20: Bona's 92, George Washington 75
Unrealistic 2k Stat of the Game: Despite getting dominated, the Colonials only had 4 turnovers and 6 fouls. (I struggled to find an unrealistic stat in this one. It seemed pretty normal. Just wait for the recap of 3OT thriller I played when GW returns to Bona's next month though.)
Bonnies A10Talk.com Forum Quote of the Day: "I like this forum. I once thought the BW could be saved...The extreme ignorance and provincial views of some posters openly expressed in the Men’s basketball!! section were just wrong. I know for a fact that some players in the last decade would check that place out (along with a certain Blog). It’s embarrassing. Hell, my chainsaw forums have a better tone of tolerance and acceptance than the BW. A solid game thread here that I actually re-read today despite the loss."
George Washington Message Board Quote of the Day: [when Justin Mazzulla transfered to Vermont] "In the bigger picture, I don't think any of this makes a real difference because the next few years will likely be terrible. It's going to take some time for [head coach Jamion Christian] to build up what had been erected by Nero (no pun intended)." [the pun was intended and that's also not even the right way to use the non-phallic meaning of that word]
Let's chop down some cherry trees in Foggy Bottom to start off 2020.