By: Cameron Mays
In a game that started close and ended in typical anxiety-inducing GW fashion, men’s basketball held on for a 69-64 victory over Maryland Eastern Shore on Friday night to stay undefeated at home and move to 3-1 on the season.
After a career performance with 44 points from senior guard James Bishop and 80 points total in a tough loss at Hofstra on Monday, this game was the complete opposite. With a focus on defense (for most of the game) and shots that would not fall, GW relied on getting inside the paint to score in order to hold off the Hawks.
“Just getting the ball into the paint in general, the way they play defense, they play with a lot of pressure so if you get inside they’re going to break down.” Graduate student guard Brendan Adams said of the offensive approach to the game.
In the first half GW struggled to find any offensive momentum. After the first 20 minutes the team was only shooting 42.9% overall and 25% from three. Despite early foul trouble limiting his minutes, the bright spot for GW offensively was senior forward Ricky Lindo putting up an efficient 10 points on 4-5 shooting. With back cuts that led to several dunks and alley oops that ignited the crowded student section, GW was able to pull away towards the end of the half and go up 10.
Despite a good game where he finished with 18 points and eight rebounds in just 20 minutes, Lindo was modest postgame.
“We all knew we just had to regroup and just get the win out tonight, following Coach Caputo’s plan, and just executing.” Lindo said. “It was a team effort today.”
Bishop was also solid in the first half, shooting 4-8 from the field, but only 1-4 from three.
Defensively, UMES was forced to take lots of contested shots late in the shot-clock, a testament to the defensive effort every GW player put in.
“We went back and forth from the zone to man-to-man defense and I think that helped a lot.” Adams said. “Also we knew we just had to play solid, that was kind of the plan, don’t go for too many steals, if we play solid they’ll take the shots we want them to take.”
GW came out of the half looking to extend the lead and suffocate UMES for good. For the majority of the half, that is what they did. While the shooting was still sub-par, continued looks inside allowed the team to build an 18 point lead with 6:19 left to play. Adams played a major role in widening the lead as the top GW scorer in the half. He came away with 15 points on 5-10 shooting in the last 20 minutes.
The lead came in tandem with another crushing defensive display, where GW held UMES without a field goal for over eight minutes and completely scoreless for 4:05.
Part of the equation for GW was the size difference between the teams. With the tallest UMES player being shorter than all of GW’s big men, the Buff & Blue were able to get bodies into the paint and score on more put-backs and layups than we saw last year and the beginning of this year. Of course, the paint points were more a necessity than a luxury due to poor three-point shooting.
“We had 36 points in the paint, we only made four threes.” GW head coach Chris Caputo said. “A lot of times it’s one thing to be big and it’s another thing to be able to punish people with your size. And I don’t necessarily think that’s the make-up of our team. We are normally a team that is going to shoot the three a little bit better than we did tonight.”
GW’s ball-handling was one of the blemishes on their performance in the game. With UMES executing their signature pressure throughout the game, they were able to force 20 turnovers, with 11 of those being steals. Guards and bigger players alike for GW looked uncomfortable and too casual when trying to break the press, leading to many bad passes and deflections.
“I thought for the most part we responded well.” Caputo said. “Late in the game, I thought we could have taken care of the ball better, and we have to look at the press break better.”
Up 16 points with 2:13 left to play, most thought the game was over. But UMES must not have gotten the memo because they started pressing even harder, calling frequent time-outs, and fouling when necessary. At first it was annoying because of how much it extended the game over the final minutes, but then it got scary when a combination of poor GW free throw shooting and several forced turnovers cut the lead to nine with 45 seconds left, and five with 15 seconds left.
But time ran out for UMES and GW held on for the narrow victory. The ending soured the entire game somewhat, but for the vast majority GW played effective basketball, overcoming their offensive limitations and focusing on the other end of the floor. With a cleaner finish, the negatives of the game would not be as much of a focus. As it stands, the team needs to play cleaner basketball and take care of the ball more in upcoming games.
Tuesday at home against UC San Diego will be GW’s next test, as they look to avenge an ugly 75-55 loss to the Tritons last season in California. Tip-off is at 7 PM and the game can be streamed on ESPN+ or WRGW.
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