(Photo courtesy of Maddie Washburn)

SUNRISE, FL – Facing off against No. 18 Florida, the reigning national champions who are primed to repeat after a busy offseason in the transfer portal, was always going to be a tough task for George Washington. Especially coming off of a shocking 70-58 loss to Delaware on Wednesday, which GW head coach Chris Caputo described as “a mystifying, strange performance,” and Florida head coach Todd Golden described as “an aberration,” even staying competitive with the Gators was going to be a challenge for a struggling Revolutionaries team.

GW looked up for the task for the majority of the Orange Bowl Classic on Saturday afternoon. Technically a neutral-site game, GW was playing in front of a majority pro-Gators crowd at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise, Florida, the home of the NHL’s Florida Panthers. Despite the unfriendly environment, GW matched Florida’s physicality for the most part in the first half, ending the first 20 minutes down just three, 27-30. But GW’s promising start was not enough, with Florida ending the game on top 80-70.

Caputo’s game plan against Florida was clear from the start. He was going to dare his opponent to shoot threes. Going into the game, Florida was the 13th-worst three point shooting team in the country, hitting their threes at a 27.3% clip. Whenever Florida tried to get the ball inside, especially to preseason junior forward Alex Condon, they swarmed him with double-teams, forcing him to pass the ball out to the perimeter. Florida made GW pay early, with junior forward Thomas Haugh and senior guard Xavian Lee nailing the Gators’ first two threes of the game. But, water found its level, and Caputo’s risky defensive strategy began to pay off.

After those first two threes from Haugh and Lee, Florida missed their next five. Florida’s first eight field goal attempts were from three. They ended the half shooting 4-19 from three, validating GW’s decision to concede more threes in order to protect the rim.

“We wanted to make sure we were in the gaps and keeping them off the rim,” senior forward Tyrone Marshall Jr. said after the game when asked about GW’s early defensive strategy.

With about eight minutes left in the first half, junior guard Jean Aranguren found senior big man Rafael Castro cutting to the rim for an open layup. Aranguren hit Castro in stride, giving GW an 18-17 lead, their first of the game. Florida punched back with a basket from senior backup center Micah Handlogten to make it 19-18. GW went back to Castro, who worked his way close to the hoop and converted a highly-contested hook shot to once again give GW the lead, 20-19.

GW’s next defensive possession was reminiscent of former head coach Jamion Christian’s signature “mayhem,” with all five Revolutionaries flying around the court and disrupting Florida’s ball movement, eventually forcing an errant pass from Handlogten that was intended for an open Haugh on the perimeter. After the turnover, Castro was once again in the middle of everything for GW, this time operating at the top of the key and finding a rolling Marshall Jr. for an open dunk to put GW up 22-19. 

That would end up being GW’s last lead. Florida went on a quick 8-0 run to go back up 27-22. GW made it a one-possession game going into the half after a three from graduate guard Tre Dinkins, but that was as close as it would be the rest of the way.

Florida blitzed GW coming out of the half with an 11-0 kill shot, with all of their points coming at the rim or the free throw line, going up 41-27 before Caputo was forced to call a timeout.

“That 11-0 run really set the tone for the rest of the game,” Caputo said. “Not good enough if you’re going to beat a team like this.”

When asked about what he told his team at half that led to Florida going on the game-changing 11-0 run, Golden said he did not want to change too much and was not overly concerned about his first half performance, mentioning that his team had five “kills” (three stops in a row), were plus-seven in the rebounding battle and only turned the ball over five times.

“We’re up three, we probably played to the level of being up 10 but we weren’t,” Golden said. “Just making sure that we didn’t allow that to cause a hangover coming out in the second half. I thought our guys did a great job coming out on the defensive end, on the glass.”  

Florida would then go up 54-34 later in the second half for their largest lead of the game. GW responded to that 20-point deficit by going on a quick 9-0 run with five points from Marshall and four points from Castro to make it competitive again. But, a sequence featuring three straight dunks from Haugh and sophomore guard Boogie Fland extinguished any hopes of a GW comeback.

GW played the foul game and got some late shots to make the final score of 80-70 a bit closer than what it could have been, but Florida never really had to worry after their 11-0 run at the start of the second half.

Junior guard Trey Autry, who had six points during GW’s late push, led the team in scoring with 15 points. Marshall had 14 points and a team-high seven rebounds and three steals. Castro had 12 points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals. 

One of the biggest problems for GW was the performance of their bench. Most notably, redshirt-junior forward Garrett Johnson, who has arguably been GW’s best player this season, only scored five points while shooting 2-9 from the field and had a game-low -20 +/-. Johnson missed practice before GW’s loss to Delaware on Wednesday, but did not have any sort of injury designation ahead of Saturday.

After the game, Caputo provided some more clarity on Johnson’s status going forward.

“It’s always a little day-to-day there, trying to think about what a two-day prep looks like versus a one-day prep, getting on a plane, all those things,” Caputo said. “There are just different concerns for him than maybe there are for the person who hasn’t been through what he’s been through.”

Johnson missed over two years, and had his redshirt-freshman season end early because of a benign tumor on his left hip. He also tore his ACL last offseason and missed the entire 2024-25 campaign.

Dinkins, who was named to the preseason All-Conference Second Team, began the season as one of GW’s most consistent scoring options, but has since cooled off. After scoring just three points against Florida, he has now gone six straight games without scoring in double-digits. Dinkins shot 1-5 from the field, 1-4 from three and had a -13 +/-.

Even though GW was not able to pull off the upset against Florida, there are still a lot of positives that can be taken from their performance against one of the best teams in the country. 

They were able to match Florida’s physicality, especially with their supersized frontcourt of 6’10”, 250-pound Rueben Chinyelu, 6’11”, 236-pound Condon, 6’9”, 215-pound Haugh and 7’1”, 260-pound Handlogten. 

“We just had to make sure we kept them in front of us,” Marshall said about his matchup with Florida’s frontcourt. “They set a lot of ball screens up top, so we just had to not let them get in their groove, get into them, make them settle for shots.”

Caputo also spoke about how playing a team like Florida at a professional arena in a neutral-site game with a raucous crowd felt like “an NCAA Tournament environment.” While it was a very pro-Florida crowd, there was still a significant GW contingent. Former head coach Mike Jarvis and former players, Damian Hollis, Joe McDonald, Isaiah Armwood and Bryan Bynes were all in attendance, along with a host of alumni both young and old. 

GW has just one more game, a matchup against Division III St. Mary’s (MD) before conference play begins against Richmond on Dec. 31.