After struggling through much of the season, junior Greg Collucci broke out of a slump with nine points on 3-for-5 shooting from three-point range Sunday. The shooting guard had not made more than one three-pointer in a game all season and was shooting 20 percent from behind the arc going into Sunday’s game.
“I still believe I can shoot it,” Collucci said. “It’s been difficult ,but you have to keep plugging away. I’ve been shooting them since I was a little kid, so I’m not going to stop now.”
Collucci’s baskets against Richmond came at key moments in the game. His three-pointer with 8:21 left in the first half gave GW an 18-16 lead and the Colonials never trailed again.
“If you look at his playing time, it’s been the same every game,” head coach Karl Hobbs said. “I still believe when he goes in and shoots the ball that it’s going in the basket.”
Despite starting GW’s last seven games, sophomore Tamal Forchion is still receiving limited playing time. After a broken ankle sidelined the forward until late November, Forchion is averaging less than two points and two rebounds in nine minutes per game.
Forchion made a remarkably speedy return to the court after the injury, which occurred last August, but Hobbs said the long-term effects on Forchion’s career are serious.
“He just hasn’t regained that explosiveness he had before the injury,” he said. “He’s not 100 percent, and in terms of that explosiveness he may never be 100 percent again. I don’t know. I don’t know what it’s like to play with screws in your ankle.”
With only five games left before the Atlantic 10 Tournament, Hobbs said this win was huge in the standings, since the first round of the tournament will be played at campus sites for the first time this year. If GW, which is only 1.5 games behind fourth-place La Salle, can move up one spot, they would likely host Temple, St. Bonaventure or Massachusetts in the first round of the tournament. If they remain in fifth place, however, they would probably have to play on the road against one of those three teams.
-Brian Costa
