George Washington’s inconsistent play from half to half nearly mirrors the trends of the team’s two biggest playmakers: Carl Elliott and Maureece Rice. The Colonials (10-3, 1-0 Atlantic-10) need 40 solid minutes in their biggest road game so far at Massachusetts (11-4, 1-0) in Amherst.
Q The pregame notes distributed by UMass say tonight’s game is “huge.” How big is this contest?
A I think it’s a little too early for that. I think it’s a big game. I think it’s a statement game for them, but I think it’s a bigger game for us than for them. They’re a little stuck thinking it’s last year’s team, that we’re coming in there ranked No. 10 in the country.
Everybody has their way of motivating themselves, but the reality of the situation is that they were picked higher in the league. We were picked No. 5. They were second.
Q If that’s the case, are the Colonials overachieving at this point? There’s got to be an increased sense of belief following last week’s come-from-behind win over Marshall.
A When you look at our margin of wins and what we’ve done physically, clearly we’re overachieving. Part of it is when we play at home, when we get down, we seem to play with a sense of desperation. In the second half against Marshall, we played like a desperate basketball team, which we were. I just wish we’d started the game like that.
Q Talk about Carl Elliott and Maureece Rice: they’re headed in opposite directions. Elliott is in a full-fledged scoring slump (averaging just 7.3 points in the last three games) while Rice is on fire (second double-double of the season — 23 points, 10 rebounds).
A Carl’s thinking about it a little too much right now. He just has to continue to take good shots, let the ball fly because they’ll start to fall if they’re good shots. He’s too good of a player.
Maureece is just playing. It’s nothing new to him. He’s used to scoring, and he doesn’t make a big deal out of it. He’s almost nonchalant and doesn’t actually realize what he’s doing.
Q What’s the game plan against Minutemen, especially big men Raushaun Freeman (16.9 ppg, 8.1 rpg) and Stephane Lasme (11.9 ppg, 9.5 rpg, 4.9 blocks per game)?
A Most of it is limiting the shots from those big guys, and we’ve got to defend James Life, who’s a great 3-pointer (42.7 percent, 41-for-96), and then we cannot let the point guards get into the teeth of our defense in transition.
— As told to The Examiner’s Craig Stouffer
