Don't let that final score fool you.  Tech got mauled in this one.

 

Hokie fans and the media are fond of saying that Syracuse's Carrier Dome is a "chamber of horrors" for Tech's football team.  Well, I'm here to say that the Carrier Dome is nothing compared to GW's Smith Center for basketball.

In Tech's last three football losses at the Carrier Dome, Tech was in the game right up to the fourth quarter, and sometimes even later than that (heck, sometimes until the last play of the game).

But when Tech visits the Smith Center, it gets ugly early.   Coyote ugly.  And things go downhill from there.

After a few minutes of this one, it was tied at 9, and then GW put the Hokies away, going on a 34-14 run that put the Colonials up by twenty, 43-23.   Ball game.  Time to start looking for something else to do, and around my house, where there's a new baby, there's plenty to do.

Ugly statistics abound:  at one point, GW was outrebounding Tech 34-13, demonstrating that the Hokies were just flat getting outhustled by a GW team that undergoes some sort of transformation when they play at home into an unbeatable giant of a team.  GW eventually outrebounded Tech 44-34 for the game, but Tech rolled up a lot of rebounds after the game was no longer in question.  The Colonials snared 20 offensive rebounds.  It was simple - if they missed the shot, they rebounded it and followed it up.  Repeatedly.  Until one of them went in.

Tech hacked their way to 30 fouls, and three Tech players fouled out:  Rolan Roberts (26 minutes), Russ Wheeler (16 minutes), and Dennis Mims (16 minutes).  With Tech's three inside players playing musical chairs on the bench, Tech was unable to muster any consistency offensively or defensively.  GW benefited from the high Tech foul total and outshot the Hokies from the free throw line, 48 to 22.   The Colonials didn't exactly torch the nets, though, making just 28 of their FT's, to Tech's 13.

Among all the hideous statistics was one line of stats that can only be described as bizarre.  Amid the carnage, Tech's popular but, eh, not very talented backup center, Alvaro Tor, scored a double-double.  That's correct.  Tech's affable Spaniard had 16 points and 11 rebounds ... in just 19 minutes.  Weird.  Who are you, and what have you done with the man known to Tech fans as, "Toooorrrrrrr!!!"?

Also lost in the wreckage, Andre Ray continued his domination of the man known to Tech fans as "Websterrrrrr!", Shawnta Rogers.  In the prior meeting, Andre held Rogers scoreless over the last six minutes of the game, and in this one, the diminutive dribbler only had one point in 31 minutes.  So in the last 37 minutes of game time against Sting Ray, Shon-tay has scored one point.  One.   Scratch your ear, and you're likely doing it with one finger.  Just one.

Alas, I'm pretty sure that doesn't matter when GW's own Herman Munster, Yegor Mescheriakov, is throwing down 28, and GW proved it.

With the loss, and La Salle's win against UMass on Tuesday night, Tech now falls out of third place in the A-10 West.

Time to chalk this one up as another bad experience, and time for the Tech staff and players to start asking themselves if next time, they would just rather save the bus fare to GW and phone this one in as a loss.

USA Today box score