Items of interest on BU's opponent - George Washington

Bradley plays their 2nd true road game at George Washington University in Washington, DC on Thursday, December 15.
It is one of only two games scheduled for a THURSDAY this season (we also play Michigan on Thursday) - and we didn't have ANY Thursday games last year - except of course the one in St. Louis on March 3 - not one that we actually scheduled nor wanted.

Here's an odd fact -- you have to go ALL THE WAY BACK to Thursday January 18, 2007 to find the last game we had that was scheduled on a THURSDAY -- and even way further back - to Thursday December 30, 1999 to find the last non-conference game that was on a Thursday.
Even then, that was a tournament game (Rainbow Classic in Honolulu) so you'd have to go even further back (Thursday November 20, 1997 - at Butler) to find the last time we actually scheduled a game with a non-conference opponent on a Thursday.
Does anyone know why Thursdays are so routinely avoided? I noticed that women's basketball also seems to avoid Thursdays but not nearly so much as men's basketball does.

I read one blogger who felt that the reason for this was kind of the same reason why high schools preferentially pick Fridays for their basketball and football games.
It is because of academics and the frequency & likelihood of tests being administered by teachers on Fridays!
.....Any games scheduled from Mondays through Thursdays would cut into the students' evening study time. However - historically teachers are more inclined to give tests and wrap up study plans on the final day of the week - Fridays - and this is especially true at the college level - so that scheduling games on Thursday nights became somewhat taboo at both the high school and college level.

If anyone else has an explanation - LMK....

Anyway -- George Washington -- finished 17-14 last year, 10-6 in the Atlantic-10 Conference, RPI 145, SOS 150. They were only 9-7 at home!! They actually had a better winning percentage in true road games than they did at home!
..ending their season with a bad loss on their own home floor to one of the LOWEST SEEDS in the A-10 Tourney - to 11-22 St. Joseph's.
They did not play in the post-season.
Home losses to Harvard & St. Bonaventure were their low points and a regular-season ending win over Dayton was their best quality win.

They shot poorly from 3-pt range - only 33.6%, and only 62.7% from the FREE THROW line! Those numbers would have placed them 8th in the Valley in 3-pt shooting and dead last by a wide margin in FT shooting as the worst Valley team was Drake at 68.5% on FT's!
They have a new head coach like BU does - Mike Lonergan who was hired from Vermont.

Their best scorer, guard Tony Taylor, returns as a senior. They also return sophomore Forward Nemanja Mikic who was the only good 3-pt shooter they had at just over 42%. They will need to rely on several sophomores and one player, guard Lasan Kromah who returns from injury redshirt year.

Here are a few other notes of interest regarding George Washington basketball...

-Their home press says this about their game with Bradley -
"while Bradley struggled last year, it ranked in the top 105 of the RPI (per collegerpi.com) in each of the previous five years"
http://www.dailypress.com/sports/teel-blog/dp-teel-time-good-bad-and-ugly-of-acc-basketball-schedule-20110824,0,2442359.story?track=rss

-They do have one other notable male basketball player - but this is really controversial and has been discussed on BradleyFans.
They have a player on the women's basketball team who is going to convert to being a MALE via surgery and hormone manipulation -- and won't be able to play on the women's team. I sincerely doubt that this player, Kye Allums would even entertain the tiniest thought of playing on the men's team.
You decide, but I think this is an interesting topic but will leave any "politically correct" conversation to you.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/02/sports/ncaabasketball/02gender.html
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?t=16621

-George Washington's schedule is quote strong this year with every single one of their non-conference opponents coming off a year with RPI better than 100 -- except Bradley and Loyola.
Bradley would appear to be their weakest non-conference opponent.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog/d1scourse/2011/aug/12/basketball-schedule-strength-increases-at-gw/

-a really top player, Isaiah Armwood - just left Villanova and is transferring to George Washington, but won't be eligible until next year. We'll see Armwood in Peoria next year -- he's a really good player.
http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/college/recruiting/2011/08/isaiah_armwood_talks_george_washington_pledge.html

-George Washington's best year in recent memory was the same year that Bradley had their best season - 2005-2006. They were ranked as high as #18 and got a #8 seed but lost to Duke in the NCAA Tourney......
as another "George" - George Mason - stole the spotlight that season.