Sunday, January 22, 2012

Observations from George Washington

WASHINGTON -- Observations from the 49ers' 60-52 loss Saturday against George Washington, Charlotte's third straight Atlantic 10 defeat:

-- There never is a good time for a three-game losing streak in the league, but the timing of this one is particularly tough for the 49ers (10-8, 2-3) with Atlantic 10 heavyweights Temple (Wednesday) and Xavier (Saturday) coming to Halton Arena next week. So what's been the problem? Finishing: Each game was winnable in the second half.

49ers coach Alan Major continues to say the 49ers are learning how to stay tough and to play a full 40 minutes. His team has been tied or ahead in the second half of each of the three losses -- 25-22 to start the second half against GW (and tied 45-45 with 5:18 left); 47-46 with 9:03 left against Saint Louis and 69-68 with 4:47 left against UMass.

The 49ers surrendered those leads quickly and never got them back on all three occasions.

-- Not sure what the status of Pierria Henry (dislocated right index finger) will be for the Temple game. He was hurt on a bizarre play in the first half when George Washington guard Dan Guest, who had just come in the game, was being hounded defensively by Charlotte’s Pierria Henry. Guest appeared to complain to a referee that he had been fouled, and while he was doing that, had the ball stolen by Henry. As Henry drove to the basket with the ball, he was fouled intentionally by Guest. Henry hit the floor hard and came away with a dislocated right index finger. Henry got it taped up and returned to the game; Henry stayed on the bench the rest of the half.

-- Chris Braswell (17 points, 13 rebounds) was the focus of a 1-3-1 zone by George Washington. Braswell banged around with GW defenders for much of the night and got popped in the left eye in the second half. At one point, he got the ball at the top key and backed a defender all the way down before scoring.

-- George Washington is located a few blocks from the White House. The Colonials’ dance team is called the First Ladies.

-- The 49ers’ Ilijia Ivankovic and George Washington’s Mikic Nemanja played in high school at Charlotte’s United Faith Christian and were teammates on the Charlotte Royals’ AAU state championship team in 2009.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey David, try to find out if you can, why Thorne and Ilija never play, especially when we need a center. If Thorne is never going to play, we should just redshirt him if that's possible. However, I'm not sure what that suggests about his talent level, if he can't contribute right now on this mediocre team. For the life of me I don't see why we haven't given Ilija any minutes. What's the point in giving a scholarship to a 2 year player if they end up sitting out an entire year?

Anonymous said...

This team has talent we just don't have a coach that know how to use the talent. Did we hire him to perform experiments each game or to WIN? Major and his staff seems to be clueless on who to put in the game at the right time. A boss who does not know his personnel will be a "MAJOR" DISAPPOINTMENT!

Anonymous said...

Hey David, can you also try to find out why Duece and Derrio are never on the court at the same time. I have seen a lot of combinations of players this year for the 49ers but I don't recall seening those two together.

Anonymous said...

Punkrockcowboy,
You do not redshirt a player until the end of the year. The reason for this is what would happen if the starting five all were badly injured. Those players that they were "planning" on redshirting would be required to play. They do this at the end of the year. If you notice Marshall Plumlee and Alex Murphy for Duke. The plan is to redshirt them, but things happen.

Anonymous said...

You do not redshirt until the end of the year? First time I heard of that.

You can easily remove a redshirt in case of injury.

Anonymous said...

punkrockcowboy: Ilija > Gokhan Ilija can set a screen like a hall-of-famer and can give us 5 fouls.

Hopefully this team can find itself a shooter.

Anonymous said...

If Ilija could help us he would play. He is not a player who can do anything but become 5 hard fouls.

Yesterday, we learned how silly it was that we did not recruit a kid(Mikic?) from a local school because we recruited another Maryland school kid (Sirin). That's on Lutz's staff (Moxley and his MD connections). Our weak players that Major signed have not yet been identified. But if Illija plays, I'd be shocked. He is the definition of "Can not score."

Oh well. Major will have to figure out how to not let Mikic beat him three more times the next two years, maybe 5 more times. He sure as hell had no idea how to do that yesterday.

Play Terrence Williams often. He's much tougher than some.

Anonymous said...

I've seen enough to know tht we don't have a coach that is ready for a Division I team. He also doesn't seem to have a sense of the BB tradition of winning.

I watched him sit on the bench while a 14 point lead disappeared - no timeouts, nothing. Also, I don't see an offense other than let's throw the ball around and see what happens. Not good !!

Anonymous said...

We should have hired Rick Majerus when he was available. We keep hiring nice guys who are wonderful assistants who cant get the team read to play full games. As soon as the athletic dept. decides they will not go with a name, we are sentenced to mediocrity.

Anonymous said...

Who needs to troll with this crowd. Major has been a head coach for less than two years. He needs to learn as well as recruit quality players. His philosophies have yet to result in consistent wins, but he is only about 5 months in with his only real recruiting class. Many forget how bad this team was when Major took over. I can see differences in how the niner's play today vs. 2 years ago and I like the defensive style. He needs to get a couple of more scorers on the team and we'll start to win some of these close games. I'll start to worry if players quit on him, but I don't see that happening.

Anonymous said...

If Majors knew how to coach, we would win with the players we already have on the team. If he wasn't ready for the job then he shouldn't have been hired.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:16 - your post becomes nothing but drivel when you misspell the coach's name. I't Major, not Majors.

6:02 is right; you have to give a college coach 4 years before you decide he's trash. It takes that long to establish an entire roster of players he recruited. Last year he literally only had half a team, and this year we have a full team that will probably finish around .500. Would you rather have the half-team and 7-20 record or the .500 record?

Also, if he can't coach, how did we beat a top 10 team last year with only 7 scholarship players?