George Washington struggled to get traction after losing Garrett Johnson to injury late last season. The Revolutionaries have little choice but to try to fare better under the same conditions this year.
Johnson, a redshirt sophomore wing, was a four-time Atlantic 10 rookie of the week last season while averaging 13.4 points and 5.6 rebounds. Soreness linked to a benign tumor in his hip cost him the final eight games, but the Oakton, Va., native was ready to go when summer workouts began.
Less than a week in, he suffered a torn ACL and was lost for this season.
“It stinks,” coach Chris Caputo says. “There’s no other way to say it, but we have to move on. It happened early enough for us to be thinking about how we had a plan going into the offseason and it doesn’t totally change, but there’s things you have to adjust to. I fully believe if Garrett was healthy, we’d have two guys on the all-conference teams.”
Instead, George Washington has one. And to be clear, redshirt sophomore Darren Buchanan Jr. is a problem. He landed on the A-10’s All-Rookie Team and was also honored as the league’s top freshman four times in weekly awards last season.
Buchanan averaged 15.6 points and 6.6 rebounds after sitting out the year before at Virginia Tech, bursting onto the scene while handling the power forward spot for the Revolutionaries. He’s a second team preseason all-conference pick this season.
But like everyone else in GW’s program, he’s thinking of Johnson --- who already dealt with nine chemotherapy sessions even before he took the floor last season.
“Losing a guy like Garrett Johnson, he’s 6-8, he can shoot the ball, can put it on the ground --- what more can you ask for from a guy like that,” Buchanan says. “I tell Garrett all the time when I see him that this season, I’m definitely playing for him.”
Caputo’s roster was all but set when Johnson was injured; GW’s only addition afterward was Swiss freshman Dayan Nessah. But there’s promise in the sophomore class even beyond Buchanan, and the Revolutionaries added significant experience in the transfer portal in the hopes of moving back to the middle of the Atlantic 10 this season.
“I still think the future is bright for us, and it’s bright in the near future,” Caputo says. “We just had to change some of the things as we go into planning.”
A look at the Revolutionaries:
Coach: Chris Caputo, third season at George Washington, 31-33 with the Revolutionaries and overall.
Last year: Things looked good on Martin Luther King Jr. Day after GW led wire-to-wire against local rival George Mason. The Revs had already won at VCU, were 3-1 in the Atlantic 10 and 14-3 overall. But Buchanan missed a few games, Johnson was lost for the season and GW dropped 14 of its last 15 to finish 15-17 overall and last in the A-10 at 4-14. The year concluded with a 61-60 setback against La Salle in the first round of the league championship.
They’ll miss: The No. 3 scorer in school history, for starters. James Bishop IV totaled 2,103 points over four years at GW and was a third team All-Atlantic 10 pick last season while averaging 18.3 points and 4.3 assists as a senior. Maximus Edwards (12.4 ppg) transferred to Duquesne, and Babatunde “Stretch” Akingbola is out of eligibility after matching Yinka Dare’s single-season blocks record by swatting 84 shots as a graduate transfer.
Impact returners: Buchanan figures to be the centerpiece of GW’s reconfigured roster, and he is a multifaceted option. GW badly missed his passing out of the post when he missed three games in conference play, and he’s also worked steadily on his outside shot during the offseason while not making his work on the perimeter a central focus of his game.
“He’s found the balance of ‘Hey, this is who I am, and if you leave me open there will be times I bury those shots, but I’m still going to stay with what made me successful,’” Caputo says.
It will also be a big year for sophomore guards Jacoi Hutchinson (7.3 ppg) and Trey Autry (5.4 ppg). Both started part of last season, with Hutchinson averaging 30.2 minutes in conference play.
Newcomers of note: Four incoming transfers are likely to be part of the rotation, a group that includes guards Gerald Drumgoole Jr. (Delaware) and Trey Moss (William & Mary) and forwards Rafael Castro (Providence) and Sean Hansen (Cornell).
“It makes a big difference,” Buchanan says. “All those guys bring different things to the table. Gerald is a nice playmaker and can create his own shot. Trey Moss has a high motor and is super athletic and definitely shooting the 3 well. Sean is a playmaking big who can shoot the 3. And we have a true lob threat this year with Rafael.”
Reasons to be optimistic: Last year, GW had four freshmen in its rotation. This group should be older, a bit more polished and perhaps less likely to endure a rough stretch like the one the Revs went through late last season.
X factor: Buchanan says there has been an emphasis on defense since May, which is little surprise. George Washington’s offense was far ahead of its defense when Caputo debuted two seasons ago, and the gap narrowed only a little last winter.
The best explanation Caputo could offer amid last year’s defensive breakdowns was the need to recruit better defenders. He’s done that, and GW should be more advanced at that end of the floor.
“We’ve added more size, more speed, more athleticism, all those things that go into being a better defensive team,” Caputo says. “Last year when you have nine new players and six freshmen, it’s going to be hard to do that. I think we’re trending in the right direction.”
Circle the date: The Revolutionaries’ lone game against a power conference opponent is Nov. 22 when it meets Kansas State in the opening round of the Paradise Jam. There are two notable home games in February; George Mason crosses the Potomac on Feb. 5, and VCU visits the Smith Center on Feb. 12.
Bottom line: It’s safe to assume George Washington would have been picked a little higher if Johnson wasn’t lost for the season. This will be a different Revolutionaries team than Caputo’s first two years, in part because Bishop’s potent scoring presence is gone. The nonconference schedule affords GW an opportunity to grow, and if Hutchinson and Autry improve and some cohesion is quickly built with the four freshmen, the Revolutionaries could be a handful in the second half of the season.