They don’t come here for the intimate campus. They don’t come here for the ivy-covered buildings. And they certainly don’t come here to see the football team play on Saturdays. So what does attract some of the country’s top female high school basketball players to GW?
Thirteen-year veteran head coach Joe McKeown, for one.
“It was definitely a big plus that he was here,” junior Ugo Oha said of her four-time Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year. “He was so honest when he was recruiting me and he was already so well established and successful.”
McKeown, entering his 14th season at GW, is the school’s all-time winningest women’s basketball coach, with a record of 293-108. His .727 winning percentage is also the best in A-10 history and he needs only one win to claim that title in overall victories.
Though McKeown’s modesty prevents him from taking too much credit for his success, his peers recognize his abilities as a coach.
“Joe’s a great competitor and does a wonderful job,” said Dayton head coach Jaci Clark. “His teams are always prepared, competitive and he brings them ready to play every night.”
While the players he recruits, such as Oha, have tremendous raw talent, McKeown makes sure that talent is realized. The Colonials’ 6-foot-4 center is a tremendous force in the paint, but her defensive game was not always so strong, she said.
“Last year he would keep me after practice and just work and work. I’d be tired and want to go but he’d insist that we stay. I’m much better off because of it,” Oha said.
When sophomore Spaniard Anna Montanana was having trouble transitioning from European-style basketball and having difficulties with the language, McKeown worked with her extensively to help her make the switch.
“His patience is really good,” Montanana said. “When I first got here it was difficult, but he stayed after practice and helped me through it.”
As much credit as his players give him for the team’s success over the past 13 years, McKeown throws it right back. All the credit, he says, should go to the people around him.
“We’ve been fortunate to recruit some great kids who come here as good students and good athletes,” he said. “My staff has done a great job packaging the University and college basketball in a way that great players want to be a part of it.”
While it can be easy to spend extra time in the gym at the expense of academic success, McKeown insists that his team is also successful in the classroom.
By stressing the student portion of the “student-athlete” equation, during his tenure, the Colonials have received A-10 Academic All-Conference recognition 14 times. Four players have been named GTE/CoSIDA District Academic All-Americans. Jen Shasky (’93) was a Rhodes Scholar nominee and Kristin McArdle (’92) received a Fulbright Scholarship. Colleen McCrea (’97) received the GW School of Business and Public Management Distinguished Scholar Award after posting the highest grade point average of all graduating business students.
“We have to let them be students,” he said. “Basketball is not ahead of education and we try to be as flexible as we can. There are tremendous demands on both commitments.”
A Dismal Program’s Revival
McKeown came to GW in September 1989 after three years as the head coach at New Mexico State University. The year before he arrived in Foggy Bottom, GW finished 9-19 and at the bottom of the A-10 conference. In McKeown’s first year, the Colonials finished 14-14, a finish he said that could have been better had it not been for key injuries.
“I saw GW as a great opportunity,” he said. “It was a sleeping giant in one of the top leagues in the country. The team could only go up.”
And they did. Just one year later, McKeown was named an All-American Coach by the American Women’s Sports Federation and received his first A-10 Coach of the Year honor.
Three years later, GW charged into the national spotlight, reaching No. 6 in the Associated Press Top 25 women’s basketball poll. The Smith Center hosted its first ever NCAA tournament game in March, when GW knocked off the only undefeated team in the country, the University of Vermont, in the first round.
Since then, McKeown has produced eight consecutive 20-win seasons and five consecutive A-10 regular season championships from 1990 to 1998. He has never failed to reach the post-season.
In their run to their fifth straight NCAA tournament appearance in 1995-96, the Colonials posted their second straight 26-win season and captured their third consecutive A-10 regular season championship. Their 15-game winning streak was the longest in the nation.
One season later, the team won 22 consecutive games and broke its own record with 28 wins. The Colonials dominated conference play, earning a perfect 16-0 record to capture their fourth-consecutive regular season conference championship. GW’s season ended with an Elite Eight appearance.
“Going undefeated in 1997 is one of my favorite memories at GW,” McKeown said. “As a head coach, I have to be proud that we’ve been good every year. We’ve always managed to put a competitive team on the floor.”
