Colonials Relish Role of Underdog
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Sunday, March 30, 2008
As Sarah-Jo Lawrence and Kimberly Beck stood in the corner of Smith Center on Thursday afternoon, roughly 24 hours before they traveled to Greensboro, N.C., for today's region semifinal, the George Washington seniors were neither angry nor annoyed by the lack of national coverage concerning their game.
Both women were calm and pragmatic, more like analysts in a television studio than players on a participating team.
"I think people are already looking at the [potential] Connecticut-Rutgers matchup [in the region final], and that's okay," said Lawrence, whose buzzer-beater on Monday against California sent the sixth-seeded Colonials (27-6) into today's game with No. 2 seed Rutgers (26-6).
"That's to be expected because Rutgers is a great team and they've proven it by going to the championship game last year."
Said Beck: "I don't think anybody's giving us a chance, but honestly, that's fine. We don't play for them."
Top-seeded Connecticut (34-1) will face No. 5 seed Old Dominion (31-4) at noon, with GW-Rutgers slated for a 2:30 p.m. start.
Beyond Rutgers's runner-up finish in last year's NCAA tournament, the Scarlet Knights are favored because they throttled GW -- in Foggy Bottom, no less -- by 25 on Nov. 18.
For all of the Colonials' success against power-conference teams during the careers of this senior class, which has beaten Kentucky, Virginia, Villanova, Auburn and Cal this season alone, the loss to Rutgers continued a string of double-digit defeats to the elite tier of women's college basketball.
GW's last three seasons have ended in the NCAA tournament against North Carolina by 24 points, Tennessee by 13 and North Carolina again by 14 in last year's region semifinals. The Colonials also lost to Tennessee by 16 and 30 points and to Maryland by 25 during the past three regular seasons.
Like a few of those losses, this season's Rutgers game seemed to get away from GW quickly and snowballed into a disaster. At one point midway through the second half, the Scarlet Knights led by 35.
"It was just one of those breakdowns that was from head to toe," GW Coach Joe McKeown said. "Coaching, execution, the whole deal. You just want to burn the tape."
Even that would not erase a lopsided box score that McKeown has no interest in revisiting.
