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

[gmujim92]

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

Outlier. They played their A+++ game and after the first 15 minutes we were an F-.

But Ford’s record is what it is: Mediocre.

 

[Patriotsince81]

Well the regular season standings match the tourney Final 4. 1 vs 4. 2 vs 3. No surprises to speak of.

 

[gmujim92]

Well the regular season standings match the tourney Final 4. 1 vs 4. 2 vs 3. No surprises to speak of.

Other than Fordham being in the semifinals for the first time in about 2,300 years lol

 

[MasonSAE4]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You can't win the A-10 tourney without a double bye. Don't give a shit that Richmond pulled off a fluke last year. The freshness factor is just too great, especially if you don't run the team you play on Wednesday out of the building and give the starters some rest. Going to the wire with Richmond killed us.

 

[GMUgemini]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. You can't win the A-10 tourney without a double bye. Don't give a shit that Richmond pulled off a fluke last year. The freshness factor is just too great, especially if you don't run the team you play on Wednesday out of the building and give the starters some rest. Going to the wire with Richmond killed us.

2019 (St. Louis) and 2022 (Richmond) have done it but otherwise yeah.

And this team was so close to getting the two seed if you just take 2 of the 3 stupid losses mid-season away (GW, St. Joes, Loyola Chicago)…those by the way are all three of our Q4 losses on the season (Buffalo sneaks in as a Q3 loss because it was at a neutral site).

 

[GSII]

I thought slu did a great job of getting guys open by setting screens. Earlier in our season some pointed out our NBA style offense didn't have the players for it. While watching Uva beat Unc, they also got shooters open with set plays that used different off ball screening. Uva and Slu may not have NBA guys. We certainly don't. However, we run an NBA offense that doesn't help get our shooters open. I hope this changes.

 

[mkaufman1]

I thought slu did a great job of getting guys open by setting screens. Earlier in our season some pointed out our NBA style offense didn't have the players for it. While watching Uva beat Unc, they also got shooters open with set plays that used different off ball screening. Uva and Slu may not have NBA guys. We certainly don't. However, we run an NBA offense that doesn't help get our shooters open. I hope this changes.

Not only did they set screens but they moved the ball so fast as those screens went. By the time our guy go through the screen to chase the ball, either the ball was gone or they already had a shot up. Pretty remarkable how they carved us up and we couldn't do a damn thing about it for whatever reason.

 

[TweederGMU]

St. Louis was well rested and had a game plan for us and they executed on it. Ford made the decision for them to double Josh and for him to either put up a contested shot or pass out to our guards and have them try and knock down these jumpers or 3's. In typical Mason fashion.... all of our guards were inconsistent and couldn't knock down the majority of their shots when open. Bad shooting night from 80% of our team and lack of defense on the ball screens was our downfall.

There is only so much Oduro could do... our supporting cast of mediocre shooting guards didn't come through and throw in some bad passes and dumb TO's and awful defense this is the recipe for a disaster.

Gibson Jimerson - we had no answer for him as he just drove the rim on us whenever he wanted and made a lot of his jumpers when not taking our team to school. What's frustrating is our past coaching regime not identifying his shooting talent being from VA (Richmond area). I think JMU was the only VA school to offer him.

It is sad and frustrating to see this guy and other players go out of state to play bball..... our coaching staff needs to be better at identifying shooters and overall talent in VA, MD, etc. Should be no way in hell a team like St. Louis could come in and poach this kid with all the great bball schools in VA.