Atlantic 10 Conference Basketball

George Washington vs Charlotte Basketball Recap

George Washington 75, Charlotte 70

An old song that people over 55 would likely remember is "Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte." While the Charlotte 49ers have almost certainly never heard of that decades-old ballad, the 19- and 20-year-old kids from the Carolinas must face up to that grim reality. Their NCAA Tournament hopes have been silenced.

It's been a nightmarish February for Coach Bobby Lutz's boys. They entered the month at 6-1 in the Atlantic 10, but they'll leave it with a 9-5 conference mark and the burden of four losses in their past five contests. Saturday evening in Washington, D.C., this fading team had a chance to restore order and mount a late-season surge in pursuit of an at-large bid, but instead, it crashed and burned against the George Washington Colonials.

The section of our nation's capital city which houses George Washington University is called "Foggy Bottom." That's an incredibly appropriate name, given the fact that Charlotte's unraveling season basically hit rock bottom in this game.

Real human darkness applies to what's happening in Haiti and now Chile, but within a sports-specific context, one of the gloomiest moments you'll ever see is when a college basketball team so full of potential and promise suddenly nosedives and misses the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. The instant when an NCAA dream turns from reality to pipe dream is a time when a coaching staff and a gutted roster feel the stomach punch they desperately tried to avoid over the previous three months of games, and many more months of offseason preparation. Charlotte's basketball family has met this moment, and there's little use in trying to contest the point.

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The 49ers didn't have any margin for error as they took the court against the Colonials, who were 5-8 in the league and represented that most undesirable element for a bubble team such as Charlotte: a potential "bad loss." It was undeniable that if Coach Karl Hobbs could lead his GW crew to victory at the Charles Smith Center, the 49ers' bubble would burst. Now that the deed has been done, the only thing Charlotte can now do is gear up for the A-10 Tournament and try to win the event. That's the only way this team can make the NCAAs; the at-large ship has sailed, and the 49ers won't be on it.

What's extra painful for Charlotte is that it can't point to anyone other than itself for the predicament it currently faces. After a game in which they hoisted 30 3-pointers and made only 10, the 49ers must realize that terrible shot selection was the primary reason for their demise. While George Washington took only 13 threes and was reasonably judicious in its own use of the ball (the Colonials hit just under 50 percent of their 2-point field goal attempts, at 19 of 39), Charlotte showed no such discretion, and when shot selection suffers, losses normally follow.

So do NIT bids for teams that once had visions of a spot in the field of 65.

By: Matt Zemek
A10-fans.com Staff Writer