George Washington may have been a little full of itself when the season opened on Dec. 2, Jervay Green said.
The Patriots and their junior swing man were full of expectations for 2015-16, especially after showing so much promise a season ago with a roster dominated by underclassmen, then being tabbed as No. 4 in the Associated Press Class 5A preseason poll.
However, the Patriots have struggled against a challenging nonleague schedule to get back to .500 in the season’s first month, including Wednesday night’s 77-61 whipping of visiting Arvada West in 5A nonleague.
Consider it a lesson learned. The Pats have settled down and more importantly have accepted playing together.
“We were thinking we were good,” Green said. “But we can’t do that. We have to keep fighting.
“We weren’t really working as a team.”
GW coach Reggie Hammons concurred, but said he has seen signs of improvement.
“Yeah, I think we’re coming around,” Hammons said of his group that has won four games in a row. “The first couple of games we were getting used to each other and now we’re getting back to playing better basketball.”
The Pats, now 5-5, grabbed the lead at 3-2, then expanded on it through various runs, mostly fueled early by Green, a wirey 6-foot-1 who darted around for baskets and passes. GW led 32-21 at halftime and had its budge reach 24 early in the third quarter.
Green scored his 16 points through three quarters.
Arvada West, now 5-3, fell victim to trying to run up and down the floor against the more-athletic Pats, and didn’t shoot or handle it well, and had bouts of poor defense and rebounding.
Plus, when the Wildcats made moves at three different times down the stretch to at least get within range of the Pats, sophomore Dayten Kountz answered with baskets and plays for GW. He led the Pats with 20 points and was followed by Calvin Fugett (17 points).
A-West senior center and 7-footer Dallas Walton, coming off last season’s knee injury, led all scorers with 24 points and he grabbed 11 rebounds, but foul trouble kept him on the bench for most of the third quarter and most other Wildcats were relegated to — and accepted firing from — the perimeter.
Luke Neff contributed 17 points for A-West.
A-West will be idle until after the holiday break, when it will open Jefferson County League play at Ralston Valley, Walton’s previous school, on Jan. 6.
GW’s ambitious nonleague schedule, which included losing its opener to defending state champion and top-ranked Overland, resumes on Saturday, when it visits Regis Jesuit in Aurora.
Arvada West 10 11 21 19 — 61
Geore Washington 16 16 24 21 — 77
Arvada West — Wittman 2 4-6 8, Maly 2 2-2 7, Walton 11 2-4 24, Kuhlmann 0 2-2 2, Neff 7 0-0 18, Martin 1 0-0 2, Erickson 0 0-0 0, Spencer 0 0-0 0. Totals 23 10-14 61.
George Washington — Kountz 6 8-9 20, C. Fugett 6 4-6 17, Green 7 2-3 16, J. Fugett 2 0-0 5, Pierce 3 0-4 6, Davis 0 3-4 3, Holmes 1 0-0 2, Speer 4 0-0 8, Johnson 0 0-0 0. Totals 28 17-26 77.
3-pt. goals — Neff 4, Maly; C. Fugett 3, J. Fugett. Technicals — Arvada West bench.
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or @neildevlin
