Despite being selected in the top-four of the Atlantic 10’s preseason men’s basketball poll for the first time in Chris Caputo’s tenure, it’s been a roller coaster ride of a season for the Buff and Blue.
The Revolutionaries emerged as one of the conference’s hottest teams with five straight wins to start 2025-26, including a tightly contested battle with South Florida and steamrolling others like American, Old Dominion and UMBC.
However, Caputo and Co. were quickly cooled with neutral court losses to McNeese State and Murray State, before eventually falling to Delaware two weeks later, then ranked 274th in the nation.
Though George Washington opened A10 play with a decent 4-3 record, things changed on Jan. 27 as the Revolutionaries took then-No. 21 Saint Louis to the wire on the road. A last second Billiken three from Robbie Avila was all that separated the two sides, 79-76, despite senior center Rafael Castro with 12 points, 18 rebounds and four blocked shots for GW.
Following a positive performance against a nationally-ranked opponent, the Revolutionaries were quickly dragged back down to earth with a significant stroke of bad luck. Castro was spotted in a walking boot just days later and missed the next six games as Caputo’s team managed just two wins during an injury-latent stretch.
In fact, luck has actually had a ton to do with George Washington’s 2025-26 struggles. The Revolutionaries are dead last nationally in KenPom’s “Luck Rating” which measures the gap between a team’s actual wins and what their efficiency would suggest.
“Against teams like [George] Mason and VCU, we certainly could have used [Castro] in either of those games,” Caputo said. “It stunk to go through [injury troubles], but I think we learned something about our team as that process was unraveling.”
As Caputo is quick to point out, there’s been growing pains, but the Revolutionaries have had different players step up to keep things afloat in Castro’s absence.
In the midst of a four-game losing streak heading into early February, veteran forward Luke Hunger dropped a then career-high 21 points on 7-of-11 shooting to lift George Washington over Rhode Island, 75-70. Three days later, he surpassed that mark with 31 points and grabbed 10 rebounds to complete the double-double, handedly defeating George Mason, 72-53.
In his last five games, Hunger is in the 99th percentile with 22.6 PPG. His offensive metrics are off the charts, in the 96th percentile for true shooting percentage, the 93rd for 3-point percentage and the 91st for effective field goal percentage, all according to CBB Analytics.
Caputo, a New York native, has developed an affectionate nickname for his emerging 6-foot-11 and 6-foot-10 front court combo.
“The twin towers were good together,” he said. “We played that lineup a bit in the George Mason game and then a little in the Saint Louis game, two pretty good performances on both ends for us. Then [Castro] gets hurt so we haven’t been able to look at it again, but it was apparent with Luke’s play that we should go back with [that pair].”
There’s other pieces to the puzzle too like Jean Aranguren, who after some inconsistent performances in the non-conference, is finally finding comfort in his new role since arriving this past offseason.
Aranguren tallied just the second triple-double in program history and its first since 2007 with 18 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists on Feb. 7 at Duquesne. He followed that up with a double-double of 16 points, 10 rebounds and six assists in the aforementioned win over George Mason.
As Castro returned to the court for the first time in a month this past Wednesday, everything finally came together for George Washington in a refined offensive performance.
The Revolutionaries raced out a 104-77 win over La Salle with a plethora of contributors involved to set the program’s new single-game A10 scoring record. Led by 20 points from Hunger, 19 from the sporadic Trey Autry, 16 each from Castro and Aranguren and even 10 from Bubu Benjamin in his injury return, George Washington put the conference on notice.
“In the first maybe 18-20 games it was trying to find what the best combinations of those nine guys were,” Caputo said. “It’s challenging when you have nine guys, but I think ultimately, the juice is worth the squeeze if you can find the right group of guys. The two bigs lineup is certainly something that’s emerged and I think Jean Aranguren’s play has emerged during this time [as well].”
But there’s simply no denying how much better this team is with a likely all-conference first team selection on the floor in Castro. By CBB Analytics, George Washington is in the 91st percentile for offensive rating and the 90th for overall net rating when he’s present in the rotation.
The current metrics have the Revolutionaries most likely to finish as an eight seed heading into the A10’s conference championship, but this team doesn’t have the makeup of a bottom-half roster. As George Washington begins to find its identity heading into March, shaped by a variety of offensive weapons and one of the league’s premier big men, Caputo and his staff know their best basketball is ahead.
“There’s a whole other dimension to our team here in these last few weeks of the season and into the postseason,” Caputo said. “It’s unfortunate it maybe took a little long and we certainly would have loved to have [Castro] in some of those games that might have put us in a better position in terms of the league. But one of our coaches said ‘Hey, it’s like an NBA team towards playoff time. You [have to] start to try and find yourself as a team.’”
