Dave Paulsen

[psyclone]

Paulsen deal, 3.5mil 5 years.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...bbdad0-2d66-11e5-960f-22c4ba982ed4_story.html

And details on Addidas' and Edwards' deals.

 

[Bison137]

I'm with you in putting sustained success over tournament success. It's a much more meaningful indicator of performance. But outside of the finals appearances, his teams were bested by inferior teams more often than not. Not alarming to me, but I wouldn't mind hearing from a Bucknell fan who has witnessed these seasons first hand to provide insight.

I’ve been reluctant to post here, but I’ll take that as an invitation. I have followed Bucknell basketball closely for 40 years, and a couple of my kids attended Bucknell recently and know some of the players. Also I have been a season ticket-holder for over a decade, attending about 60% of the Bucknell games in the Paulsen era and watching the majority of the others on TV/internet. Thus I think I can provide some perspective on how he coached at Bucknell, but of course I have no idea what may change at GMU.

OVERVIEW: I think DP’s biggest strength while at Bucknell was his recruiting. He and Dane Fischer/Aaron Kelley landed a lot of good players who qualified under the Patriot League Academic Index. He is very good at coaching basic disciplined M2M defense, including defensive rebounding – but very predictable. His offenses at Bucknell were problematic, as was his end-game coaching. My subjective grades in different categories would be: Recruiting A-; Defense B+; Offense C; End-Game C-.

RECRUITING: As mentioned, he and his staff recruited very well for the Patriot League level. Credit for a fair amount of this also goes to Dane Fischer, who is a very good recruiter. Their available pool of talent was significantly limited since the Academic Index means that over 90% of future D1 players are not admissible. Their most important recruit was Mike Muscala, who has developed into a rotation player for the Hawks. It is impossible to know if the staff knew the extent of Muscala’s potential when they landed him since he was a skinny 6-9 player who didn’t start until his junior year of HS and whose best offer was from Santa Clara. During his senior HS year, after having signed, he improved markedly and also grew. Ended up as a less-skinny 6-11 center with very good skills. Their other big signee was Cameron Ayers, who turned down some A-10 offers at least partly because he was looking for better academics. He also landed some other good recruits, including 4 frosh who got serious minutes this past season. FWIW, I’m sure his recruiting was helped by Bucknell having a great facility and a good basketball tradition.

DEFENSE: DP coaches very basic M2M and coaches it well. Players are instructed very thoroughly on when/where to help and they practice that a lot – and they are also great on the defensive boards. As a result, for four seasons from 2011-14 – when BU had experienced teams – they ranked 83rd, 91st, 36th, and 97th in the nation on defense (Pomeroy). However, this past season – with an inexperienced team – they fell to 263rd.

DP has a few “rules” on defense: (1) no zone; (2) never switch; (3) never go under a screen; and (4) never gamble. As for specifics, in the earlier years the Bison aggressively hedged on ball screens – but this year there was no hedging. That may have been due to having a freshman center who might have had problems doing it properly. In any event, it hurt Bucknell in some key games where opposing coaches, knowing that BU wouldn’t switch and wouldn’t go under the screens, were able to free up their dribbler to easily penetrate and either score or kick out. Watch the video of Bucknell’s upset tournament loss to Lafayette at home, for example, where Lafayette scored on every one of their final 16 possessions with virtually no change in the defense. Or the previous game against Holy Cross, where BU almost lost at home to a mediocre Holy Cross, as HC scored over-and-over on the same play during much of the final eight minutes of regulation.

During DP’s 7 years at Bucknell, there were about 14,800 possessions. The team played zone on less than 100 of them – well under 1% - and only showed zone in 1-3 games per season. On the rare occasions when zone was played, it was always a junk defense designed to surprise the other team – either a mediocre 1-3-1 or a triangle-and-two (which was successful for a while vs Butler in the NCAA until Brad Stephens figured it out). During that period, the number of times when a full court press was used – other than in the final seconds of a sure loss – was zero. And the number of times a half-court trap was used was also zero. His approach basically is that we are going to do a few basic things very well with no surprises. See if you can beat us.

I mentioned that BU had good defensive success for four years through 2014. It was due to the tough M2M and also due to very good defensive rebounding. During those 4 years, Bucknell ranked 53rd, 1st, 1st, and 2nd on the defensive boards. This success is due to the straight-up M2M and good discipline, where players always box out well. It also was due to having a future NBA player at center and to having all five players commit to defensive rebounding. This success was despite being the worst team in the nation during the last 5 years of his tenure in forcing turnovers and in steals. As previously mentioned, this is due to players never gambling defensively and never trapping. As one statistical example, Bucknell ranked 346th or worse in opponents’ turnovers over each of the past3 years. One good thing, at least defensively, is that you will almost never see a fast break against a DP team, since very few players attack the offensive glass and everyone hustles back every time on defense if a shot is missed.

OFFENSE: Bucknell had a lot of offensive talent for most of his tenure – but the results did not match the talent. For the first year and a half, they ran a very basic motion offense, where players constantly looped with no screens being utilized. It was a failure, with poor spacing and a lot of forced shots. Thankfully he began to tweak it halfway through his second year – with better results. He has run hot and cold as far as using ball screens, but for the first few years there were virtually no off-ball screens. Eventually they started using some basic ones – but almost no stagger screens until last year. At that point, the offense started using more stagger screens to try to get a couple of the shooters open – but they were often not very effective for a couple of reasons.

Another objection various people have had with the offense has been poor isolation of the center. Bucknell has had two good centers in recent years, but there has been very little attempt to isolate them in the low blocks. With the players always running some variation of the motion offense, a 2nd defender was invariably drawn into the low post area – and could help deny the entry pass or keep the big man from putting the ball to the floor.

One big picture example of the offense being less than the sum of its parts: In 2012-13, Bucknell had the best talent in the league, including 6-11 Mike Muscala, who graduated as a 2-time POY and four-time All-PL center. He was drafted by the Hawks and worked his way into their rotation. They also started Cam Ayers; twice 1st team All-League and POY the next year – a future D-Leaguer; Joe Willman, who was an All-League PF as a junior and who has been very successful in Europe; and Bryson Johnson, an All-League SG with NBA range on his threes. Also had two experienced PG’s and good depth. This may have been the best offensive talent ever assembled in the Patriot League – but in league games they ended up ranked 4th offensively (points per possession) out of the 8 teams. The teams that finished ahead of them were Lafayette and Army – both of whom were very inexperienced – and a Lehigh team that had lost CJ McCollum for the year. None of those teams had nearly as much talent as Bucknell – but all had more pts per possession in league games.

Due to the defensive commitment mentioned earlier, DP’s teams don’t send many players to the offensive glass and the main focus is always to get back on defense. That helps the defense but hurts the offensive rebounding stats. On average, his teams at Bucknell finished around 250th in the nation in offensive rebounding.

One other thing to expect - due both to the good defense and the style of offense - is a fairly slow pace of play. Before this year, Bucknell had ranked from 200th to 280th nationally in pace of play - slower than the Hewitt teams of the same years. But in 2014-15, Bucknell's pace of play got faster, partly because they were easier to score on.

CONTINUED

 

[Bison137]

A few final comments following from the above.


END GAME: I haven’t liked his end-game coaching much – and I think that is one reason Bucknell was upset at home in the Patriot League tournament in four of his final six seasons. In the final minutes of close games, he has not been good at drawing up plays and Bucknell often has ended up with forced shots. Also the predictable defense takes some pressure off of the opponents in the final minute of a tight game. A lesser issue is the failure to ever look to go two-for-one at the end of the half. Additionally, having no full court press or half court trap hurt them in games where they trailed but still had a chance. In those games, the only strategy is to foul every time. Depending on your demeanor, you may like or dislike his “never quit” attitude, where the team will still be fouling down 10 points with less than 30 seconds left.

MISC: DP is very animated on the sideline and goes through about 25+ cups of water per game. He is a nice guy off the court, but is a screamer in practice and during games –if he thinks the effort is less than 100% or if the results are less than desired. Some fans like the constant yelling and and some don’t. He gets on the refs a fair amount, but knows where to draw the line so as to not get T’d up.

For whatever reason, there was more screaming at players this season than in past years. He also had a quick hook this year with certain players, to the extent where I think it hurt the confidence of some. I know that one former starter, now graduated, said that the constant yelling sucked all the confidence out of him and it took 1.5 years to get it back. FWIW, two players – who were in the rotation for much of 2014-15 – decided to transfer out when the season ended. After DP left, they both decided to stay. I am not sure if the type of players he will be recruiting in the A-10 will have the same tolerance for being screamed at as the Bucknell players did.

 

[JimP]

Thanks Bison! Great insight. I can honestly say I'm much more optimistic about DP than I ever was with Hewitt. However, Hewitt was replacing a good coach. I think some yelling will be a good thing at GMU - Hewitt was the polar opposite. Hope DP continues to stress what he does on D - though it sounds like he should think about employing some more offensive flexibility at GMU. Doesn't sound like he fully utilized Bucknell's good centers offensively, which is concerning considering Thompson is GMU's best player.

Bottom line though, if DP wins at the rate he did at Bucknell I don't think many GMU fans will care how he does it.

 

[gmujim92]

As long as DP wins, most players won't mind getting yelled at when they screw up. They know the drill -- unless the coach isn't firing off racial/gay slurs and pegging the ball at your head like Mike Rice, you pretty much put your big boy pants on and take it.

As for the strategic aspects of his on-court coaching, there were many Mason fans who thought Larranaga was at best mediocre with the offensive X's and O's. He seemed to do OK by recruiting well and having defensive-oriented teams full of guys who would run over their grandmothers to win.

Hopefully DP can get our program back into that mindset. Win or lose, I've had enough of watching the guys with "George Mason" on their jerseys consistently be the second-hungriest team on the court.

 

[JimP]

As long as DP wins, most players won't mind getting yelled at when they screw up. They know the drill -- unless the coach isn't firing off racial/gay slurs and pegging the ball at your head like Mike Rice, you pretty much put your big boy pants on and take it.

As for the strategic aspects of his on-court coaching, there were many Mason fans who thought Larranaga was at best mediocre with the offensive X's and O's. He seemed to do OK by recruiting well and having defensive-oriented teams full of guys who would run over their grandmothers to win.

Hopefully DP can get our program back into that mindset. Win or lose, I've had enough of watching the guys with "George Mason" on their jerseys consistently be the second-hungriest team on the court.

I thought of the similarities to Larranaga too when reading Bison's synopsis of
Paulsen's Bucknell career.

 

[GMUgemini]

I thought of the similarities to Larranaga too when reading Bison's synopsis of
Paulsen's Bucknell career.

I did as well. Also, at least for year 1, he probably won't have to worry about crashing the offensive glass with Thompson on the floor.

But it also sounds like he's going to have to mix it up both on offense and defense more in the A-10...the athletic and talent level is going to make it extremely difficult to sit in a vanilla defense, and he isn't going to get many shooters open simply by swinging the ball around.

 

[Herndon]

I did as well. Also, at least for year 1, he probably won't have to worry about crashing the offensive glass with Thompson on the floor.

But it also sounds like he's going to have to mix it up both on offense and defense more in the A-10...the athletic and talent level is going to make it extremely difficult to sit in a vanilla defense, and he isn't going to get many shooters open simply by swinging the ball around.

I don't know, man. UVa sits in a pretty vanilla defense, and just executes the hell out of it, and does pretty well in the ACC.

I think defensive variety can be overrated. If you play the hell out of some fundamentally sound man to man, you'll do just fine.

 

[Herndon]

I’ve been reluctant to post here, but here's a bunch of interesting stuff

Hey man, greatly appreciated. Thanks for taking the time and effort to do that for us. Please don't be reluctant to post here, we'd love to have your insight.

 

[Pablo]

Mason Basketball ‏@MasonMBB 5h5 hours ago
As we begin a new era with @PaulsenDave we always embrace our past....stay tuned all week as we complete the puzzle!

 

[MasonFanatic]

I'm going to guess that's a Final Four 10th anniversary logo / patch

 

[Five Two]

I thought of the similarities to Larranaga too when reading Bison's synopsis of
Paulsen's Bucknell career.

As did I. and after what we saw the last 4 years, I'll take good disciplined defense, predictable offense and so-so end-game coaching.

 

[Vurbel]

I prefer a trapping defense, but after the last four years, if we play with the fundamentals of Hickory High and Norman Dale I'll take that in a heartbeat and be happy!

 

[Pablo]

Dave Paulsen ‏@PaulsenDave 20h20 hours ago
Excited to be a part of such a rich tradition!

Mason Athletics Unveils Final Four 10th Anniversary Logo http://www.gomason.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=25200&ATCLID=210232513#.VbrTVax8f8M.twitter…

 

[Pablo]

Dave Paulsen retweeted
Josh Holman ‏@jholman34 18h18 hours ago
Warning to parents - don't let your kids wear a rival team's t-shirts to George Mason's basketball camp. Good work @PaulsenDave !

 

[Walter]

I would like to see that same policy brought to the student body. Do Mason students still wear UVa shirts on campus? Always hated that. But it has been quite a few years since I graduated. Maybe that isn't a thing anymore.

 

[MasonFanatic]

Georgetown had a game promo last year where students could bring in apparel from another school to exchange for free Hoyas basketball apparel. I understand that could be quite expensive, but I'd love to see Mason do something like that. Maybe Mason could work that new adidas connection and let them use the promo to prominently market adidas as well.

And then you donate the used apparel to charity.

 

[Vurbel]

And then you donate the used apparel to charity.

But how hard up would a charity have to be to accept a vcu shirt?

 

[gmujim92]

But how hard up would a charity have to be to accept a vcu shirt?

Perhaps citizens of third-world countries could use Feces U shirts in lieu of toilet paper.

 

[Walter]

No Mason student would wear a vcu shirt.

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