2023 A10 tournament - Game 33: #5 GMU vs #4 St. Louis.

[BBride]

Season over.

 

[Falco]

fun end of season. Fell just slightly below expectations.

I thought we finished top 4 and 20+ wins.

Unsure what to expect for next year.

 

[DRK331]

Damn

 

[masonhoops1984]

Yes, the last 7 games, before today, was great fun. I was even thinking perhaps a NIT bid might be in store with another win or two. But....
All in all I would have to say the season was a disappointment. Too many early season and conference "shoulda wons" that we didn't, and then today's debacle.
I'm really hoping Kim can get some top flight recruits and not depend so much on the portal. That just hasn't really worked.
I'd rather have a young team (along with Josh and Ticket) that he can develop. Two more contract years plus a one year extension seems reasonable if he goes that route. If he insists on being primarily a portal guy, and we don't get any better, then, well, I don't know. Two?
And no to the CBI. This team is too old to benefit.

The issue is his high school recruits haven’t exactly been very good. Dinkins is entirely too small, Peter isn’t a d1 player, NNaji was entirely a wasted season. No clue there, Jones isn’t an A10 player. Fernandez has serious question marks on if he wants to play D1 basketball at mason. He was a giant disappointment in his toughness. It was never there, he took a forearm to his face and did nothing. That moment told me everything about him. He wants to shoot, play zero defense and not rebound. It’s concerning. I think he has to hit portal hard and if he doesn’t, mason looks like the least talented team on paper in the A10 next year.

 

[phoenix-arizona]

Time to root for Fordham and a CBI bid.

 

[GreenLantern]

Oh well, hanging up my OT sign til November

 

[Jack Strop]

The issue is his high school recruits haven’t exactly been very good. Dinkins is entirely too small, Peter isn’t a d1 player, NNaji was entirely a wasted season. No clue there, Jones isn’t an A10 player. Fernandez has serious question marks on if he wants to play D1 basketball at mason. He was a giant disappointment in his toughness. It was never there, he took a forearm to his face and did nothing. That moment told me everything about him. He wants to shoot, play zero defense and not rebound. It’s concerning. I think he has to hit portal hard and if he doesn’t, mason looks like the least talented team on paper in the A10 next year.

Disagree. On the vast majority of balanced teams, unless a freshman is seriously talented, he barely sniffs the floor. Coach L rarely played Freshmen. Josh Oduro was not very good his freshman season, but played solid minutes out of necessity. Fernandez got good minutes over the last third of the season to take over for injured Ticket and VBJ—and Fernandez improved. But, again, he played more out of necessity. Dinkins... necessity. All will improve into next season.

I have good vibes for CKE. The main reason that Mason rattled off seven straight wins to close the season is that his players finally bought in to CKE's system.

Next season might be a developmental one and we take a step back. One problem is Mason's rising junior class consists only of Blake Jones (and he is one who may transfer). But that opens the door for the Soph's and Freshmen to get good game experience. Next season could be filled with many growing pains.

But all that can change with today's transfer market, both in- and outbound. I wouldn't be surprised if we have a surprise transfer out—we'll see. I would prefer that CKE use the transfer portal to bring in one or two Juniors max. The rest need to be solid Freshman recruits (we have three right now, with possible room for two more.)

We have a LOOOOOOONG off-season to watch and wait.

 

[Jack Strop]

Time to root for Fordham and a CBI bid.

...and St. Louis to beat vcu. That might give the A10 two bids to the NCAA tournament. The more the merrier.

If vcu wins the A10 tourney then the A10 is a one-bid conference for the NCAA tournament. Two out of Fordham, Dayton, and St. Louis will likely go NIT. Mason will not.

Let's stay out of the CBI. Mason's players need to decompress and get on with their personal development.

 

[JimP]

Ugh - tough pill to swallow today. After being reminded here by someone that Mason's last quarterfinal appearance was a blow out loss, I thought "that won't happen again." Boy, was I wrong.

20 wins is nice number, but the next couple years are gonna be telling as far as KE's ability to make GMU nationally relevant again.

 

[Falco]

I wonder if CKE will make any staff changes

 

[DRK331]

I am interested in seeing if Blake Jones transfers

 

[GSII]

We offered 5'10 pg Jordan Marsh, 6'9 Elijah Strong and another big from Ohio. If they didn't commit upon the offer, is the offer still good??

And where would two Schollys come from? Peter? Blake? Ginika?
 

 

[GMUgemini]

We offered 5'10 pg Jordan Marsh, 6'9 Elijah Strong and another big from Ohio. If they didn't commit upon the offer, is the offer still good??

And where would two Schollys come from? Peter? Blake? Ginika?
 

If someone like Strong is ready to commit you Dambrot it and let the chips fall where they may.

Marsh might be more of a contingent offer (if we have a spot…). That’s just a guess.

 

[KAOriginal]

I wonder if CKE will make any staff changes

After just watching Dave Paulsen dancing in the Fordham locker room (TV guys made a point about it)....I guess he's off the table.

Man everybody that leaves Mason does better......

 

[mkaufman1]

Just got home and there's a lot I want to say and I just don't know if I'll word everything right. I probably will miss a lot of things but whatever. I'm tired.

1) I don't know what the hell we were doing on defense but SLU came ready. They made us run around through screens and by the time our guy got thru a screen the ball was already gone.
2) We didn't get a few calls to go our way and we let it get to our head on defense. We had it tied around 25-25, and next thing we knew were down 20.
3) No matter what, there was no way we played to our defensive standard today. I know I already hinted to it in my first point, but when the other team shoots in the 50s all game, you aren't going to win. Not only that but they had 26 assists on 33 field goals. Good. Grief.

As far as wondering whats going on for next year, we'll have to see what transpires. Usually most programs have anywhere from 2-4 leave in a given off season, and I would not be surprised to have us have the same turnover. I'm not going to play "guess who stays and goes" right now, but I suspect by the end of March we will have a pretty good idea. Will we get a covid year from Ticket and Josh? One? I don't really know.

Today was incredibly disappointing. I hate losing. I hate watching mason be blown out in the quarterfinals of the A10 tournament. I guess the good thing is that it came from SLU and not vcu. Ha.

That said, I am still 100% behind Kim, we need as a collective fanbase/alums/donors to find a way to give him EVERYTHING he wants for the program. We need to be PATIENT (Its hard, I really hate losing and its been 12 really long years of it). Its very hard but now that we achieved 20 wins, we need to raise the bar further than 5th place and a 20 win season with 11 conference wins.

I think we also need to look at getting him more time because we are already heading into the 3rd year of his deal. We are not where any of us want to be, but this was a solid step in the right direction and I have full confidence the program will continue to go in the right direction. I am not going to worry about next year because we have a good 5 months of roster building.

That's enough from me right now.

I HATE LOSING.

 

[GMUSSTN]

My folks are in town visiting and I had a pass to put off our activities until the game was over today. We went out to do stuff at halftime. Soon as I saw SLU hit 40 points I knew the jig was up.

It sucks but I'm still all in on CKE. That 7 game streak was enough. We peaked a little too soon (did anyone really think we had a 10 game streak in us? Then win an NCAA upset?) if this team, with this record, was gonna win the tournament. It at least proved to me that, had we had a healthy team for the full conference season, we would have had a legit shot to knock Fordham or SLU out of the top 4. Yeah yeah yeah, we did have one at one point, but we played damn tough considering the setbacks we had in the injury department.

We had all but given up on this team after the Duq loss and CKE and the boys gave us something to root for. We came into the damn tournament with a legit shot playing hot. You think DP would have had us in the same position?

CKE took some good lumps this year...I trust he's the kind of guy who knows what to do with them.

 

[Falco]

Just want to throw it out there. Travis Ford Us a pretty darn good coach.

 

[MasonMojo]

Just want to throw it out there. Travis Ford Us a pretty darn good coach.

Billikens fans would not agree

 

[mkaufman1]

Just want to throw it out there. Travis Ford Us a pretty darn good coach.

Billikens fans would not agree

Both are sorta right.

Yesterday was the Slu team everyone expected all year. Ball movement screens and cuts on offense with good shot selection. Defensively playing tough and really bodying up. Also just defending the ball and making it hard to get where you want it.

They had a lot of up and downs this year and they expect a lot from Ford considering what they put into the program and what he gets paid. Yesterday there was a good return on investment for them.

 

[Falco]

Billikens fans would not agree

I guess I’m basing it off limited sample size. Yesterday looked like a well coached team.