Two straight road losses have dropped George Washington men’s basketball team back into the pack in the Atlantic 10. The Colonials are yet to win in conference play away from Foggy Bottom, but an electric, nationally-televised showdown with Xavier (Saturday, 8 p.m., ESPN2) awaits before they get another chance to solve their road woes.

Q In the Colonials’ most recent five-game win streak, your players always seemed to be able to make plays and hold things together in the late stages. Why haven’t they been able to do that in the last two losses?

A I’d like to think that it’s just tough going on the road. We just have difficulties on the road, and I’d like to think we’re going to play a lot better at home. Just look at our conference, where only two teams have winning records on the road. Winning on the road is one of the most difficult things to do in college basketball.

Q Did the team’s poise during those five wins create a false sense of security about how they would fare on the road?

This story continues below
Advertisement

A The one thing about Coach Hobbs: He never gets lulled into a false sense of security with this basketball team. We’re not a complete team and our margin of error is so thin that we can’t sustain any blows, meaning if we don’t rebound, we can’t sustain. If there’s a critical call that can go either way and doesn’t go our way, we have a difficult time sustaining.

Our rebounding has been the thing that has really hurt us in both of our last two away games. Secondly, we also have not done a good job of getting to the foul line. In the last two games, we’ve only had 10 free-throw attempts.

Q The rebounding problem happened earlier in the season. Is it frustrating to have to revisit it this late?

A It’s very frustrating, but I don’t get into why things happened. I get into how to correct them. Rebounding is something we’re spending a lot of time on correcting, getting ourselves back to the point where we’re doing the fundamentals. That’s what we’re working on all week to get ourselves prepared. To me, there’s no other way. You always have to go back to basic fundamental basketball.

Q How difficult to is it to boost team morale for Xavier after two tough defeats?

A The guys know it’s a home game; they know it’s Xavier; and they know the significance. They’re excited and can’t wait to play. Any time you lose, you want to hurry up and get back on the court.

Q Maureece Rice missed four of his final five shots against Saint Louis, and was held to 4-for-16 shooting from the field. Have the players become overly reliant on him for offense?

A They all have got to be able to make those tough shots when they get them, but it’s still a game of percentages, that’s why we go to Maureece in certain situations, because it’s what the statistics say. The thing that we have to get back to is boxing out and getting key rebounds and key stops when we need to.

— As told to The Examiner’s Craig Stouffer