George Washington Mens Basketball

A century in Foggy Bottom

George Washington has played basketball since the 1912-13 season and carries an all-time record of 1,325-1,109. Home is the Charles E. Smith Center, a 5,000-seat building two miles from the White House, and the conference has been the Atlantic 10 for decades. The programme dropped the Colonials nickname in May 2023 and has competed as the Revolutionaries since.

The record book is front-loaded. Eleven NCAA tournament appearances have produced a combined 4-11; the deepest run came in 1993, when a side built around Yinka Dare reached the Sweet Sixteen. Atlantic 10 regular-season titles arrived in 1954, 1956, 1999, 2005 and 2006, the last of those attached to a 26-2 campaign in 2005-06 that carried the team as high as sixth in the national rankings. The most recent trophy is the 2016 National Invitation Tournament, won with a 76-60 victory over Valparaiso in the final at Madison Square Garden.

Alumni who went on to the NBA include Dare, Pops Mensah-Bonsu and Yuta Watanabe, whose years in Washington remain the reason a chunk of the programme's following sits in Japan.

The coach and the climb

Chris Caputo was born on 22 June 1980 in Elmhurst, New York, and played four seasons at Westfield State between 1999 and 2002, finishing as captain. He joined Jim Larranaga's staff at George Mason in 2002 as director of operations and video coordinator, moved up to full assistant in 2005, and was on the bench for the Patriots' run to the 2006 Final Four. When Larranaga left for Miami in 2011, Caputo went with him, and spent eleven seasons there through the 2013 ACC regular-season and tournament double and the 2022 Elite Eight.

He was named head coach at George Washington on 1 April 2022, replacing Jamion Christian. The first two years were flat: 16-16 in 2022-23, then 15-17 in 2023-24. The following two moved the needle, 21-13 in 2024-25 and 19-16 in 2025-26, leaving him at 71-62 overall in Washington. The 2024-25 side went 9-9 in the league, beat Fordham 88-81 in the Atlantic 10 second round, lost the quarter-final 80-65 to George Mason and then exited the College Basketball Crown 89-59 against Boise State.

The win that broke the drought

Last season ended 19-16 overall and 8-10 in the Atlantic 10, a tie for eighth. Rafael Castro led the team in scoring and rebounding, with Garrett Johnson, Duquesne transfer Tre Dinkins and Northwestern transfer Luke Hunger alongside him. The best non-conference nights were a 99-95 win over South Florida and a 96-73 win over Old Dominion; in the league, the team swept Richmond and beat George Mason in the second Revolutionary Rivalry meeting. The conference tournament ended in the quarter-finals against Saint Louis.

The season's one lasting result came on 18 March 2026 in Orem, Utah. George Washington beat Western Athletic Conference regular-season champions Utah Valley 79-78 in the opening round of the NIT, Castro scoring 22 and Tyrone Marshall Jr blocking a Jackson Holcombe layup at the death. It was the programme's first postseason win since 2017. Four days of goodwill followed before New Mexico ended it 86-61 in the second round.

A roster rebuilt from scratch

Almost nobody came back. Castro graduated; Hunger and Christian Jones left through the portal. In their place Caputo brought in twelve newcomers, seven of them transfers down from Power Four programmes. The frontcourt additions are forwards Dylan James and Lovro Urbiha plus juniors Andrija Vukovic and Malachi Arrington; the perimeter group adds sophomore Omari Witherspoon, graduate Terrance Arceneaux, junior Felix Kossaras, senior Andrew Phillips and sophomore forward Ryder Frost, with freshman Promis N'Landu behind them.

The stated plan is a different team from last season's. Where 2025-26 leaned on offence, Caputo has built for size and defence and described the group as more adaptable than his previous sides. He has also been blunt about where that has to land: the team, he said in late October 2026, has to take one more jump and get into the top 50. The numbers do not yet agree — George Washington opened outside the KenPom top 100, and the NET formula remains unkind to schedules built at this level.

Aranguren, the only one left

Jean Aranguren, a 6ft 3in senior guard from Valencia in Venezuela, is the only returner who played meaningful minutes last season, which makes him the connective tissue for thirteen new team-mates. He started at Iona in autumn 2023, appearing in 33 games at 21.9 minutes and 8.1 points, then started all 33 at Hofstra at 32.7 minutes and 14.2 points before arriving in Washington through the portal.

His first GW season was a slow build. He came off the bench early, passed 30 minutes for the first time on 7 February against Duquesne with 34 minutes and 18 points, added 16-point games against George Mason and La Salle later that month, scored 20 at St Bonaventure on 4 March and started the Atlantic 10 defeat to Saint Louis, finishing with 11 points in 33 minutes. Across all 35 games he recorded 119 assists.

On 19 October 2026 the league's coaches and media named him to the Preseason All-Conference Third Team, the only George Washington player honoured, and placed the team fifth in the preseason poll with 207 points, behind VCU on 308, Saint Louis on 307, Dayton on 279 and George Mason on 240. Aranguren's own reading was shorter: the team can compete with anybody in the Atlantic 10, and his job is creating plays.

What the season looks like

The non-conference schedule runs to fourteen games — nine at home, four at neutral sites and one road trip to an ACC opponent. It opens against Navy at the Smith Center on 2 November, then Hampton on 7 November, Elon on 10 November, Harvard on 13 November and Ferrum on 16 November. The Greenbrier Tip-Off brings UAB on 20 November and Western Kentucky on 22 November, followed by UMBC on 27 November, South Eastern Louisiana on 1 December, LIU on 5 December and American on 9 December. The first leg of a home-and-home with Boston College is at Chestnut Hill on 12 December, and the Texas Legends College Classic pairs San Francisco on 19 December with Mountain West champions Utah State on 21 December. Three of the opponents — Navy, UMBC and LIU — won their conference's regular season last year.

Conference play is eighteen games split evenly home and away, with eight nationally televised. It starts at Loyola Chicago on 30 December, then Saint Joseph's at home on 2 January, La Salle away on 6 January and VCU at home on 9 January. The Revolutionary Rivalry with George Mason falls on Martin Luther King Jr Day, 18 January, at the Smith Center, with the return leg at Mason on 6 February. Dayton visit on 16 February, Saint Louis on 27 February, and the regular season closes at home against Loyola Chicago on 6 March 2027.