Hey, Joe: McKeown Hits No. 400

The 34 banners that hang from the rafters at Smith Center serve as a visual timeline of the George Washington athletic program's achievements through the years, chronicling conference titles and postseason appearances dating from 1974. Of those, 14 were placed there honoring teams coached by Joe McKeown. None of those banners existed before McKeown, and when he took over the women's basketball team in September 1989, there wasn't much reason to think they ever would.

"Everybody told me it was a terrible job, don't take it," McKeown said, remembering back to when he took over a 19-loss team less than two months before the season was to start.

McKeown found himself reminiscing about the old days yesterday, shortly after his No. 12 Colonials routed Massachusetts, 61-48, allowing McKeown to walk off the court a winner as George Washington's coach for the 400th time.

"The essence of that becomes all the great players we've had over the years and the support, being able to recruit that terrific student-athlete," said McKeown, long the school's all-time winningest women's basketball coach. "And really I think what we're really most proud of is that we really have never dipped."

In 18 seasons at George Washington, McKeown has never had a losing season, and the Colonials offered more evidence that perhaps another banner is in the offing.

After U-Mass. (10-8, 0-3 Atlantic 10) was down only five points at halftime, George Washington opened the second half by outscoring the Minutewomen 17-7 over the first 7 1/2 minutes. The Colonials opened a 15-point lead on a straightaway three-pointer by Kimberly Beck with 13:21 left and George Washington maintained a double-digit advantage the rest of the way.

Senior guard-forward Kenan Cole scored 14 of her season-high 19 points in the second half and sisters Jazmine and Jessica Adair combined for 24 points and 15 rebounds.

"I thought that, especially in the second half, we did a lot better job of moving the ball around and we were getting wide open looks both from the outside and the inside," Cole said.

The Colonials took a 25-20 halftime lead despite shooting just 9 of 29 from the field. But after starting the game by missing 13 of 16 attempts, George Washington got hot, hitting four of its next five attempts to power an 11-1 run over the next three minutes.

The Colonials pushed the lead to 17 points in the second half, on the way to reaching another milestone in school history, going 14-2 to tie McKeown's 1999-2000 team for the best start in school history.

"We're just playing basketball," Jessica Adair said. "Right now, that's not taking any effect on the team."

The 863 fans at Smith Center gave McKeown a standing ovation as he left the court. While he said he was more concerned with continuing the Colonials' perfect start in the Atlantic 10 -- now 3-0 -- than about reaching No. 400, McKeown allowed himself to look back at the start of his time at George Washington, when he used 6 a.m. practices and mandatory conditioning runs to the White House and back to turn the fortunes of the program.