With just over five minutes remaining in the first half of GW’s 80-58 loss to La Salle Wednesday, sophomore Damian Hollis made a move to the basket but missed a layup. And the put-back. Junior Rob Diggs got a hand on the loose ball to send back up toward the basket, but the attempt fell short and landed in the hands of the opposition.
It was a sequence typical of a first half in which the Colonials (5-13, 1-7 A-10) connected on just seven of their 32 shot attempts while allowing the Explorers to shoot nearly 60 percent. The performance elicited scattered boos from the Smith Center crowd of 2,219 as the team made its way to the locker room at halftime trailing 38-20.
“We came out real flat,” head coach Karl Hobbs said after the game. “We could never really develop any kind of rhythm after that.”
During the game’s second half, the fans were more silent than disapproving, only mildly reacting to a dunk from Diggs that would have normally generated a more enthusiastic reaction. The stands slowly emptied over the remainder of the contest as the Colonials played mostly even with La Salle but failed to surmount their large deficit.
But as the benches steadily emptied, the Colonials set another record. The loss marked the first time in program history that GW lost to La Salle in Foggy Bottom. The perpetual cellar dwellers have typically been a punching bag for a much stronger, faster and better Colonial team.
Hollis, who finished with a team-high 14 points, said he sensed his team lagging as the game wore on.
“The energy started diminishing toward the middle of the game,” he said. “I don’t know why, I just saw it. I felt it as well.”
Senior Maureece Rice was held scoreless for the first time in 68 contests dating back to his freshman year. He took just two shots in the second half and six in the game.
“Once we couldn’t get the engines going, he just never really got involved offensively,” Hobbs said of Rice. “I thought (La Salle) did a good job of crowding him.”
Rice was not the only Colonial experiencing nearly unprecedented offensive struggles. Junior Wynton Witherspoon, GW’s second-leading scorer, registered just three minutes in the second half en route to a season-low three points. Hobbs said there was no specific reason for Witherspoon’s absence after halftime.
The loss is the team’s seventh in a row and its third consecutive at Smith Center, its longest such streak in five years. Hobbs often speaks of the team needing to reach a certain level of play in order to be successful, a level they appeared near at times during close losses to No. 13/14 Xavier and Saint Joseph’s. In Wednesday’s 22-point loss to La Salle that elusive level of success seemed to slip farther away.
“You would have to call this a setback,” Hobbs said.
The Colonials next host Dayton Saturday at 7:30 p.m. The Flyers are 4-4 in conference play and were nationally ranked earlier this season.
