Joanna Shapes

Matt Allbritton will definitely be coming to GW next year, his coach confirmed Friday afternoon. Garland Christian Academy basketball coach Jeremy Bjornstad told The Hatchet that Allbritton signed a National Letter of Intent with GW on April 16 and will arrive in Foggy Bottom in early July.

The University announced earlier in the year that Tony Taylor has also signed with GW for next season. With the addition of those two players, every scholarship for next year is now taken. For another player to earn a scholarship (The Hatchet reported earlier this month that Aaron Ware also verbally committed to the school), a player from the current roster would have to lose his scholarship.

Keep an eye out for more information on the men’s basketball team’s recruits.

The women’s basketball banquet was last night, and Alex Byers and I were both invited. The event was held in the City View room at 1957 E Street, which offers a nice panorama of some of the monuments and downtown D.C.

The banquet lasted a couple hours and included a full dinner, awards presentations and a video montage of the whole season, which can be found on gwsports.com.

The winners of the awards were, for the most part, not surprising. Senior Kim Beck, who was conspicuously absent because she is in Seattle working out for the WNBA’s Storm, was named the team’s MVP and also took home the award for strength and conditioning. Classmate Sarah-Jo Lawrence was the academic player of the year and senior Whitney Allen the defensive player of the year for the second straight season. Junior Jazmine Adair won the most improved award, classmate Jamila Bates took home the unsung hero award and sophomore Ivy Abiona, who was sidelined the whole season with a knee injury, was given the courage award. Freshman Erica Rivera was named the newcomer of the year.

Senior Lora Mitchell, who won the unsung hero award the past two seasons, was named the Abbie Oliver Smith award recipient. Unlike all the other awards, in which the names pretty much explain the award, the Abbie Oliver Smith award is given to someone who displays the intangibles, such as a positive attitude, strong leadership skills and a good work ethic.

The seniors who were there also each spoke at the end. They all talked about how much their teammates and coaches mean to them and Lawrence spoke on behalf of Beck. The four as a unit won 101 games in their tenure, including four regular season Atlantic 10 conference championships, four NCAA tournament berths and two Sweet 16 appearances.

Many people have noticed men’s basketball player Damian Hollis walking around with a huge cast around his right hand. Hollis had started wearing a brace on his shooting hand during the team’s Feb. 3 loss at Temple and kept it on through the end of the season.

Sports Information Director Brad Bower told me this afternoon in an email that Hollis “sustained a sprained ligament in his right thumb during a practice prior to the Feb. 3 Temple game. He underwent surgery following the season to repair the ligament and will wear that cast for approx. 6-8 weeks.”

Hollis wouldn’t comment on the situation when I asked him about it yesterday. He’ll most likely be fine to play come October, when practice for next season officially begins, but it’ll be interesting to see if the time off the court will have any impact on him. His statistics stayed pretty consistent while wearing the brace this season and had one standout game (17 points against St. Bonaventure Feb. 16) during that period.

The Honolulu Advertiser is reporting that GW will be one of eight teams in the Rainbow Classic, an annual tournament hosted by the University of Hawaii in Honolulu every winter. Other participants include Clemson, Coppin State, Colorado, Colorado State, Pepperdine and Vermont.

The Associated Press named senior Kim Beck an honorable mention All-American for the second straight year. She is the fourth player in the program’s history to be honored as either an All-American or an honorable mention for two consecutive seasons.

Beck is also one of nine finalists for the Nancy Lieberman Award, which recognizes the nation’s top point guard. Beck finished her career at GW as the program’s all-time assists leader with 717 as well as the single-season assists record holder (205), which she set this season.

Update, 4:25 p.m. — Final will be 53-42, Rutgers. Check www.gwhatchet.com for more in an hour.

Update, 4:24 p.m. — With 40 seconds left, Rutgers is up by 11. Looks like the ballgame.

Update, 4:20 pm. — With free throws from Essence Carson, the score is now 51-42 with 1:38 left.

Update, 4:17 p.m. — Rutgers ball, 49-42, 2 and a half minutes left. It’s now or never for GW.

Update, 4:12 — Jessica Adair goes to the line for the first time today and hits both. 44-40, with 4:30 remaining.

Update, 4:08 p.m. — Beck is back in. Lead is only four, 42-38. Seems like GW is getting fired up with all these tough calls.

Update, 4:01 p.m. — Kia Vaughn just sat on Kim Beck for about 5 seconds. Kim’s out of the game for a bit with trainer Chris Duncan.

Update, 3:58 p.m. — The lead is back to 10, 42-32. At least now GW knows they can make a run against Rutgers.

Update, 3:54 p.m — 5-0 Rutgers run and the Knights are back up 8 again. GW with a little more life though.

Update, 3:50 p.m. — An 8-0 for GW gets the Colonials within 3. HUGE momentum swing.

Update, 3:47 p.m. — Rutgers will go to the line still up 33-22. An official just called a blocking foul on GW a good second and a half after the Rutgers’ shot had hit the rim and fallen away. Again, McKeown was quite upset. He seems to be relatively cool now, though.

Update, 3:41 p.m. — 33-22 Rutgers three minutes in. GW has hit a few shots, but has been unable to stop Rutgers from making baskets. The Colonials could really use some momentum.

Update, 3:18 p.m. — 28-16 Rutgers at the half, as GW is unable to get a shot off on the last possession. GW will likely need a quick run to start the second half, or they might fall to far behind.

Hard to say what McKeown is saying in the locker room right now. Obviously, some gameplay adjustments must be made, but a mental turnaround is necessary too. And to quote Brent Musberger in ‘The Waterboy,’ this coud be the last game of the year–you can’t hold anything back.

Just saw GW went 0-for-6 from three in first half. That will surely have to change.

Update, 3:15 p.m. — 28-16 Rutgers. GW with a chance now to cut the lead to 10. McKeown is certainly going to have words for the Colonials at halftime.

Update, 3:08 p.m. — 26-12 Rutgers. While GW isn’t exactly helping themselves, they’re not getting any from the officials either. Jessica Adair was just called for a loose ball foul on a rebound that seemed pretty weak. Needless to say, coach McKeown was not at all pleased.

Update, 3:01 p.m. — It’s now 24-10, and while the Colonials are certainly not playing their best ball, it really seems like there is simply a talent discrepancy at times. Whether it’s Kia Vaughn’s rebounding and low post moves, or the speed with which Rutgers’ guards can move with the ball and quickly take a jumper, GW just can’t seem to match it. As good as Kim Beck and the rest of the Colonials are, Rutgers is doing some things that I just can’t see a GW player doing.

Update, 2:56 p.m. — GW down 17-8 now. The Colonials’ shooting has been quite off the mark the past few possessions, and had a rough defensive breakdown on Rutgers’ last basket. A big turnaround is need.

Update, 2:49 p.m. — Rutgers now leads 12-8. GW ran into a little trouble with back-to-back travels, but just drew a foul from Essence Carson. Jaz Adair is now in the game and guarding Kia Vaughn. She’ll need all the physicality she can muster to slow down Vaughn, who goes to the basket harder than any women’s player I’ve ever seen.

GW has a sizable crowd here to cheer them on. The fans, along with the band, will certainly need to be loud to keep the Colonials in the game momentum-wise.

Also, we’ve heard that head men’s basketball coach Karl Hobbs is in the building. Word is that Hobbs will be on WRGW’s halftime show, which can be heard at gwradio.com

Update, 2:41 p.m. — Colonials up 6-2 after the first media timeout. Jessica Adair has four points and Antelia Parrish has two. So far the Colonials have looked fairly solid — defending and causing turnovers. Against Rutgers though, it’s gonna take 40 minutes of this kind of play to secure the victory.

Hello again from the Greensboro Coliseum, where the sixth-seeded GW women’s basketball team will be facing second-seeded Rutgers. I apologize for not getting something up on the blog sooner, but we were having some technical difficulties with the Internet in the arena.

The starting lineups are being announced right now. I was watching Rutgers warm up a few minutes ago and noticed how short its bench is. They’re missing two girls to injury but are a small roster to start. Only eight girls were in uniform shooting around.

Greetings from a rainy and overcast Greensboro, N.C. Today was media day at the Greensboro Coliseum, site of one of the four women’s NCAA tournament regionals and where sixth-seeded GW will face second-seeded Rutgers tomorrow afternoon. The game will be on ESPN2 at 2:30 p.m., after the conclusion of the first contest of the day, which pits top-seeded UConn against fifth-seeded Old Dominion.

We arrived after Old Dominion was finished with its practice and media session and right as UConn took the floor to practice. The Huskies are the overall No. 1 seed in the tournament and are certainly a daunting team to even watch practice. They were extremely loose but somehow focused at the same time. They started with a somewhat out of tune and yet thoughtful rendition of “happy birthday” for freshman Lorin Dixon. The squad then made her skip all the way around the perimeter of the court while it did some sort of alternative birthday chant that I had never heard. She looked slightly embarrassed.

I had to leave for most of the UConn practice in order to attend the GW press conferences (more about that below) but got back to the court for the final 10 minutes or so. By this point, the Huskies were playing an interesting version of knock-out, the basketball game where a player shoots and if she misses, she has to chase down the ball and make a basket before the player behind her does. If she doesn’t, she is eliminated. UConn was playing a half-court version, where the initial shot was taken from the center circle.

What was interesting about it was at least a few girls made the half-court shot, with Kalana Greene, by my count, hitting three. Head coach Geno Auriemma, one of the most well-known head coaches in women’s basketball, spent a lot of the practice talking to ESPN broadcaster Mike Patrick.

The WRGW guys and I went over to talk to Patrick when he was finished with Auriemma. Patrick is a GW and WRGW alum. He spent at least five minutes talking to us and telling us his tricks and how he prepares for games. He said the toughest part about doing the women’s tournament is that there isn’t as much general knowledge about it as the men’s, and that broadcasters have to appeal to both those who don’t follow the game regularly as well as those who do. He was a really nice guy and told us when we called him “Mr. Patrick” to just call him “Mike.” Sideline ladies Rebecca Lobo and Doris Burke showed up a little bit later.

Now onto the press conferences. GW’s was pretty typical, with coach Joe McKeown acknowledging how good a team Rutgers is and how tomorrow is going to be a very tough battle. Seniors Sarah-Jo Lawrence and Kim Beck and junior Jessica Adair were made available after McKeown, and Sarah-Jo said there is some extra incentive because of what happened the last time the two teams met: a 25-point Rutgers drubbing at Smith Center. Lawrence said that was not GW basketball and she and her teammates are eager to show the country what Colonials basketball really is about.

The Rutgers press conference was more interesting than GW’s. The Scarlet Knights’ head coach, C. Vivian Stringer, barely acknowledged GW in her opening statement nor in her answers to reporters’ questions. When she was finally asked to directly asses the Colonials, she acted like the two teams had never played before and barely knew anything about the squad. She called Beck Peck at first before correcting herself, referred to Sarah-Jo as Mary Jo and only used Adair’s name once before referring to her as the “big girl” every time. She didn’t have much else to say about the match-up.

While I don’t want to read too much into it and it would be dumb to do so, considering Stringer has more than 800 wins under her belt and has been to 21 NCAA tournaments, it did seem a bit like she was overlooking the Colonials. Her team will likely have to play UConn if it makes the Elite 8, and the Scarlet Knights might be looking forward to that already. But they’re too seasoned to completely ignore GW and Stringer just might not be good with names or might be more focused on her team rather than her opponent.

The three Rutgers players who were made available, point guard Matee Ajavon, shooting guard Essence Carson (who once scored 113 points in a high school game) and forward Kia Vaughn, also had very little to say about GW and focused more on themselves. They were loose and joked around and seemed friendly with the New Jersey media, which was out in full force. Also among the press: the New York Times, New York Post and Hartford Courant.

That’s about it from media day. We’ll be back tomorrow with live updates from the game.

The women’s basketball team had an open practice Friday afternoon from 10 a.m. to noon. It is the squad’s last chance to practice in Smith Center (see photos below) before hitting the road for Greensboro, N.C. The team bus leaves the outside of Smith Center at 1 p.m., with an open send-off at 12:45 p.m.

I’ll be traveling down to Greensboro this afternoon as well, so The Hatchet will be with the team almost every step of the way. Open practice and press conferences are tomorrow afternoon, so please keep checking both the blogs and the website (gwhatchet.com) for full coverage of the weekend and Sunday’s game against Rutgers, which is at 2:30 p.m.

We wanted to get these into today’s paper, but there just wasn’t space with our extended coverage of the women’s basketball team as well as a story on the Nats’ new baseball park and the softball team’s double-header against Georgetown. So here’s what’s happening with some of the other sports:

Baseball: The baseball team throttled the University of Virginia Wednesday by a score of 17-5. After beginning Atlantic 10 play last weekend, the Colonials now have a 12-9 record. Tuesday, GW beat Towson 11-5, earning head coach Steve Mrowka his 100th win at GW.

Lacrosse: After starting the season with five straight losses, the lacrosse team has won two of its last three games, and now sits at 2-6. The Colonials fell 13-11 at the University of California, March 20.

Golf: The golf squad had its best finish of the year last weekend, placing second out of 20 teams at the GW Invitational in Bethany Beach, Del. The Colonials’ “B” team placed sixth at the event. Sophomore Lewis Sturdy shot GW’s lowest score with a 181 for 45 holes.

Men’s tennis: The Colonials beat Duquesne 5-2 last weekend for their 11th victory of the year. Senior Mustafa Gencsoy is the current A-10 player of the week, while Yan Levinski currently holds rookie of the week titles.

– Alex Byers

The women’s basketball team will play Rutgers in the Sweet 16 of the NCAA tournament Sunday at 2:30 p.m. The game is at Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C. UConn and Old Dominion are in the first game of the day at that venue, at noon.

Rutgers and GW faced earlier in the season at Smith Center, with the Scarlet Knight heading home with a 25-point victory. Rutgers is one of the most talented teams in the nation and really knows how to exploit that talent. They also play in the ultra-competitive Big East and aren’t afraid of any opponent. But GW senior Whitney Allen told me after her team’s second-round win over Cal that she thinks her team is ready to better its result from last season, a Sweet 16 loss to North Carolina.