After failing to even reach 10 wins this season, George Washington has announced they will be parting ways with head coach Maurice Joseph after three seasons. In three seasons at the helm in Foggy Bottom, Mojo led GW to a 44-57 overall record. In his first season, the Colonials 20-15 (10-8) in 2017, but only reached the CBI 2nd Round with a roster that included two future NBA players in Tyler Cavanaugh and Yuta Watanabe. In Mojo’s second season, GW went 15-18 (7-11) in 2018, including a backbreaking loss to Rider early in the season.
George Washington finishes the 2019 campaign 9-24 (4-13), their worst finish in over two decades. This season saw losses to Stony Brook, Siena, Princeton, Valpo. In addition, the Colonials saw long stretches of losing this season, at one point dropping 12 of 14 games entering the Atlantic 10 Tournament. This was the second-worst season in program history, behind the infamous 1-27 team in 1989.
In the month of February, GW went 1-6 with an average margin of defeat of 20.3 points. This season saw the Colonials fall to KenPom #300, lowest in program history.
Out of 351 D-I NCAA men’s basketball teams, George Washington ranks 337 in points per game, averaging just 63.8 per game. Here are some more stats:
More stats:
GW is 318th in field goal percentage at 41.2%
326th in rebounding margin at -4.3,
330th in scoring margin at -8.0
306th in total rebounds at 958 total
325 in offensive rebounds at 7.83 per game
294th in assist-TO ratio at 0.88
324th in win-percentage at 27.6— Daniel Frank (@n1a2v3y4) March 7, 2019
Sadly, in three seasons, GW has gone from a 20-win team to a 20-loss team. There is rumored to be a short list of coaches the Colonials have their eye on. It will be interesting to see where the program goes from here.
Yeah, the blood is really on Nero’s hands as well as the University brass who didn’t have the backbone and character to stand behind Mike Lonergan when Nero was trying to get him fired. Lonergan was the best coach in the program history–taking a team at a low point and completely rebuilding it into a tournament team and an NIT winner in just a couple of years, while on a very tight budget. He also found success when the A10 was at its peak in terms of competitiveness–when the conference featured coaches like Shaka Smart, Archie Miller, Bob McKillop, Dan Hurley, Phil Martelli, Bob McKillop and Will Wade mostly together over a short period of time. Not only did the University lose an incredible coach when they fired Lonergan, but they set a bad precedent and destroyed their culture by leaving such a predator in charge. Suddenly, a bunch of great players transferred who went on to great careers elsewhere–Collin Smith, Jordan Roland for instance–while many decent recruits turned their back to GW not wanting to enter into a bad situation.
Mojo was actually handed a really good team. He had Tyler Cavanaugh–arguably the best player in program history–along with future pro Yuta Watanabe, current star Jordan Roland, really good clutch guard Matt Hart, veteran transfers Jaren Sina and Patrick Steeves along with a group of promising young players in Collin Smith, Arnaldo Toro and Jair Bolden. Couldn’t do better than a loss in the CBI.
He’s a good guy, but he wasn’t prepared to take this team. It was a mistake to fire Lonergan, and it was a mistake to thrust a promising but inexperienced assistant coach in Mojo into a demanding GW head-coaching role.