On an autumn night in the middle of Virginia, Mike Lonergan knew he had a special squad. He walked down the sidelines toward the locker room and glanced at a scoreboard reading "26-22". The unheard of, under-appreciated George Washington Colonials were 20 minutes away from an early season upset over a top-ranked squad.
George Washington basketball is slowly earning the acclaim it deserves
Currently third in the Atlantic-10 and 14-4 overall, the Colonials could be a sleeper come March. Coach Mike Lonergan would have it no other way.
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George Washington had jumped on undefeated Virginia, and their coach believed it was the beginning of a special season for the Colonials. And though they dropped the decision to the top-ranked Cavaliers, Lonergan was pleased with how far they’ve come since last season. It was the beginning of something new with Lonergan’s club.
If they could play with Virginia, he said, they could play with anyone in the country. And though Lonergan’s club doesn’t always get mentioned with the big dogs, he’s fine with that. George Washington basketball is about playing gritty, about going to work with a chip on your shoulder.
"We were expecting to win the game. We felt we didn't even play that great the first half," Lonergan said from a bus on his way to New York for a game with Fordham Wednesday afternoon. "The last 12 months we've beaten teams from power conferences. We've done a pretty good job... I don't really read the internet, though. I don't really read the articles and think we need more respect. Our guys know we are going to play as tough a nonconference as anyone else to get a bid."
It's Lonergan's unconventional thinking and passion for winning that propelled George Washington to March Madness last season. They cracked a hot shooting, ranked Creighton squad last season, holding Doug McDermott to seven points and 10 missed shots. The Colonials beat up on eventual Atlantic-10 champion Saint Joseph's the same year, boasted wins over a Manhattan team that took Louisville to the wire last March and Maryland, plus Shaka Smart's VCU Rams.
This year it’s been no different. The 63rd ranked team in the nation, per KenPom, upset ranked Wichita State, forcing them to 40 missed buckets, cracked last year’s A-10 champ again and have sprinted to a 5-1 start in conference play. Lonergan’s style of winning was harnessed from the likes of winning coaches throughout his tenure in college basketball.
Some of it, came from his friend, one of college ball’s big faces.
"It's the system we try to put into place," Lonergan said. "It takes time. When I got here, we had to get guys that fit the system and we weren't successful my first year. We really believe in our system, the program and the culture. We have really good young men. These are true student athletes, and other students on campus and professors respect them. I've taken it from Gary Williams when I was at Maryland, Jack Bruin when I was at Colgate and my best friend Mike Brey and others I've learned from and brought that here. Our guys know if they come play for me, we are going to push them."
Their wins have come in bunches, with 24 last season (22-1 record at home since last January). Their triumphs over Colorado and Wichita State in the Diamond Head Classic marked the team’s eighth and ninth over Top 10 Conference RPI teams since the start of 2013-14 (ACC 2x, Big East 2x, the American, Big Ten, Missouri Valley Conference, SEC, Pac-12).
Defensively, the Colonials are one of the stingiest teams in the nation, allowing only 59.4 points per contest (31st in the NCAA) and rank top-100 in defensive rebounds and steals per game. And this is the way Lonergan envisioned his team playing: gritty defensively, but balanced on the opposite end.
It’s something he tries to drill into the kids he brings to the program.
“We are a tough team. We always play good defense,” Lonergan said. “We accrue character as much as talent. Our guys are all about winning...We are going to get good kids and I’m going to recruit good kids and if you have individual goals ahead of team goals, GW is not for you.”
Just like Lonergan, his players carry themselves with a chip on their shoulders. He said “he’s a no name guy” and the goal is to get the program an A-10 championship, in what he considers one of the nation’s toughest conferences, whether it gets talked about or not.
Lonergan maintains one large similarity to every college coach in the country, whether it’s from the A-10 or the Big East. He, like all, just want to find a formula for success.
“We had a tough nonconference schedule but overall I’m very happy,” Lonergan said. “I look at teams in the Big East and A-10 and I always say that if you do a ‘blind taste test’ with us, we are right there with them. If you took a team and said ‘this team is in the Big East or ACC and they’ve lost at Seton Hall, at Penn State at Virginia, they beat Colorado, they beat Wichita State,’ people would look at it differently.
"We're 14-4 but we've played a real schedule and have been in some close games," he continued. "A lot of teams don't do that. But that's not us. We don't hype our program. We don't hype our recruits. We just try to win."
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