By: Katie Yancey
Despite a strong team start and a third consecutive 20-point performance from redshirt junior Rafael Castro, the George Washington Revolutionaries fell to Saint Joseph’s Wednesday night in the Charles E. Smith Center.
Following a 74-67 win at Davidson last weekend, the Revolutionaries returned home and got hot early with back-to-back dunks from Castro for the first points of the night. GW continued to build a lead as large as seven, seeing contributions from graduate students Sean Hansen and Gerald Drumgoole Jr.
Castro, who leads the Atlantic 10 in double-doubles, secured a layup plus the and-one after a foul by the Hawk’s Rasheer Fleming to put GW ahead 15-8 seven minutes into the contest.
“His motor runs so high,” head coach Chris Caputo said on Castro’s performance. “I made a little bit of an adjustment to his free throw, so that’s been very, very consistently good.”
Castro shot 80% from the line in the match against the Hawks.
The Revolutionaries’ defense, on the other hand, faced difficulty against Saint Joseph’s full-court press and turned the ball over five times in the first five minutes of play.
Saint Joseph’s struggled from deep early, with missed threes from Fleming, Derek Simpson, Xzayvier Brown and Erik Reynolds in just over a minute.
Reynolds managed to find his footing and led Saint Joseph’s with 14 points in the first half, maintaining his reputation of historically strong performances against GW, as he averaged .
Dasear Haskins and Xzayvier Brown both recorded a layup to tie up the score, and a dunk from Simpson put the Hawks ahead 19-17. Their 8-0 run for over 3 minutes was finally snapped with a pair from GW’s Dayan Nessah that evened things up once again with 7:32 to play.
True freshman Ty Bevins, averaging just over 9 minutes per game, got in off the bench and made the most of his time on the court, sinking back-to-back shots from deep for GW’s first two threes of the night and setting GW back in the lead 27-23 after 14 minutes of gameplay.
Caputo commented on what the freshman has brought to the Revs’ roster:
“Ty Bevins loves basketball. He doesn’t love the things that come with basketball, he actually loves basketball.”
Reynolds remained a problem for Bevins and the Revs, though, going to the line for two good free throws and tallied his 10th and 11th points of the night. Bevins responded a minute later with another huge three assisted by Jacoi Hutchinson and gave GW the edge at 31-29.
After a battle from deep with several made and missed threes by both sides, the first half ended with Saint Joseph’s on top 39-36. Still, GW hit 4 out of their 5 last threes and Bevins finished 3-4 from the field and 3-4 from deep.
Sophomore guard Trey Autry got things started for GW after the half with a layup that cut the deficit to 39-38, but any momentum the Revolutionaries could have had was squandered by a 7-0 Hawks run.
Castro stayed strong defensively with a huge block against Reynolds and offensively with a trip to the line that ended the Revs’ 2:46 scoreless run.
Yet, GW continued to lose steam throughout the second half, seeing Buchanan miss a dunk and Drumgoole losing a race against the shot clock with a shot from deep attempting to end a nearly two-minute scoreless streak.
Double-teaming the ball handler proved to be an unsuccessful defensive strategy for the Revolutionaries as Fleming and Brown were left wide open and combined for 17 of the Hawk’s points in the second half, which also saw 4 of Brown’s 6 assists.
“That’s a thing we do often in most games; the issue is Fleming’s a good shooter,” Hansen said regarding the defensive plan. “Fleming, we left him open for too long.”
Some contributions from Anthony Finkley, Haskins, and a massive slam dunk from Simpson in the 30th minute extended Saint Joseph’s’ lead beyond GW’s reach.
Despite cutting the deficit to just seven with five minutes to play, an unfortunate combination of missed threes by Autry and Christian Jones and a few unsuccessful attempts at the charity stripe left GW unable to get back in the game.
The Hawks had topped GW 79-68 at the final whistle, improving to 16-10 while the Revolutionaries fell to 17-10.
The only bright spot for GW seemed to be Castro’s impressive 11th double-double with 20 points and 11 boards.
Coach Caputo and his squad will look to make some changes defensively as they prepare for a chance at redemption against Massachusetts this Saturday at home. The Revs will tip off at 6 p.m. and WRGW will have live radio coverage.