We Must Protect This House: The GW Preview

Today is the day we get to find out if the performance at the Terrier Tip-off worked. Coach Chambers can scream all he wants to rally the students, but if they still don't come to fill up The Greek tonight for GW, you have to wonder if they ever will.

I remember vividly the first game at Agganis Arena, a hope-filled win over Vermont seen by over 5000, a number that hasn't been matched since. Here's hoping today brings us back to that first game.

GW and I go back a long time. As they're my local team now and knowing quite a few alums, I attended quite a few Colonial games in 07-08, and flirted with sub-fandom for a while. I even have GW t-shirt. But it was a love/hate relationship, and ultimately the inferiority of the First Ladies dance team and the creepiness of the mascots pushed me to Howard instead.

However GW is a team that should be doing better. Long-time readers will know that a frequent target of mine is "Little George," who was described thusly by a blog ranking the 25 worst college mascots:

For some reason, the Colonial reminds me of the Norseman, McKinley High's mascot in "Freaks and Geeks." Both are unintentionally terrifying, with their gigantic heads and soulless eyes. While the Colonial isn't sporting a spine-tingling grin, somehow his look of placid indifference is even scarier.

The bad mascot news doesn't end there those. GW features an odd mix of several miscast mascots (see chart).


Now, there fantastic news for Colonial Nation, as Little George has been retired. I guess they got tired of re-painting his papier-mache face every year (really..) and replaced him with a much, much, much better version of Little George. Now they just have to puncture the 10-foot tall inflatable Big George and we'll be in business.

Damian Hollis has been my favorite Colonial for a while, mostly because he constantly looks like he's about to fall asleep. He comes from a long line of tall, athletic GW forwards like Rob Diggs and Pops Mensah-Bonsu, but has never achieved on the level of those two - again, mostly because he's about to fall asleep.

Hollis is the best player, and I'm not sure what to expect from the rest of the team. GW sucked last year, but still beat us.

I do know that BU is going to have to cut down on fouls and turnovers this game. The shots will fall eventually. Hopefully, many will be there to hear it. Hmm, there's a tree-falling-in-the-woods analogy somewhere in there...