Game 14: GMU (7-6 / 3-4) at St. Joe’s (1-11 / 0-6) on Saturday at 12:30PM. 2nd Game of Back to Back

[Petey Buckets]

I appreciate Herndon's argument. It's not a good thing for smaller programs to perpetually be on the coaching search treadmill, just scratching a new lottery ticket over and over again hoping for a winner, except it's years before you get to scratch a new one. "Fire this asshole!" feels good when the chips are down and the team sucks to watch but it's not a real solution.

I'm in the camp that thinks we should be playing for a postseason every 4-5 years. If you think that's unrealistic, fine. That's not the big indictment of Dave for me.

The most damning thing about Dave's tenure is that we haven't sniffed the top *hundred.* I think we can agree that Mason should be in the conversation for a top 100 team fairly regularly. There's 76 teams in the P6, the cream of the A10 crop, and a handful of select mids that should realistically expect to be better than us most years. Even if you have a very low opinion of Mason's stature in the basketball world, surely you'd expect a couple top-100 teams in six years. Here's how Dave has fared (per kenpom):

198 (first season)
123 (Marquise/Jalen sr year)
220
156 (Reuter year)
174
144 (this year)

That's three cycles with strong senior classes and we're not coming close to being competitive on a national scale. I understand you're in coin flip territory if you're a top 75ish team, so you can be very good and still not make the tournament, so tournament appearances aren't necessarily a great way to evaluate coaches at this level. But I've seen absolutely *nothing* whatsoever that tells me that Dave can even get us on the cusp of being in the conversation. It hasn't happened in multiple chances previously and it definitely ain't happening this year. He's not a genius tactician and he's not recruiting at an A10 level. One usable recruit out of every four gets you exactly where we are now. I don't want to be too harsh on the freshmen but Malik being under the doghouse has distracted us from the fact that Otis Frazier hasn't looked like a D1 player at any point this season.

Reasonable minds will differ on this, but for me those kenpom ratings really reinforce that the 11-7 season and the 9-9 5th place finish were mediocre teams that lucked out with a shitty schedule. Recruiting is going backwards and Dave's system straight up does not work when you're holding a lesser hand. If we're not going to try to make the tournament or be reasonably competitive every few years I really don't know what we're doing here.

 

[By George.]

Now three months ago Herndon, you were not what was wrong with the Mason fan base though.

You were Jim.

Do you guys ever have nuanced discussion, ever?

And could people ever just let a game thread be a game thread?

Bah Gawd, that’s Stone Cold’s music!

 

[GMUgemini]

To Petey's point, we're also 106th in the country in Basketball spending. For comparison perspective, Dayton, the highest spending team in the A-10 is 71st. Richmond is 98th, and URI is 99th. That puts us at 9th in spending overalk, but keeping in mind that St. Joes (3rd -- probably the Martelli buyout?) and Fordham (New York City) are way overspending relative to their success. And again, the difference between our budget and Richmond's budget is Mooney's salary differential (or about 500k total).

We're spending in the top 1/3 of D1.

Oh, and the average CAA budget is $1.5 million less than ours is.

Oh, and for even more comparison's sake, we are peers with St. Mary's (104th) and Utah St. (107th). Overall about a $170k different between St. Mary's and Utah State's budgets.

Some more fun ones for mid-majors. New Mexico is below us, Northern Iowa is below us, Charlotte budget is about $1 million less (of Young, Folkes, and Berry fame).

 

[Mason2005]

Speaking of budgets. Bonnie's have a similar $3.5M budget as us but pays Schmidt $832K while we pay DP $400K. Davidson's with their $2.6M budget pays McKillop $400K. This doesn't add up, Mason is burning money. Even if you factor in geographical money factors, we're still burning money somewhere.

 

[gmujim92]

I appreciate Herndon's argument. It's not a good thing for smaller programs to perpetually be on the coaching search treadmill, just scratching a new lottery ticket over and over again hoping for a winner, except it's years before you get to scratch a new one. "Fire this a**hole!" feels good when the chips are down and the team sucks to watch but it's not a real solution.

I'm in the camp that thinks we should be playing for a postseason every 4-5 years. If you think that's unrealistic, fine. That's not the big indictment of Dave for me.

The most damning thing about Dave's tenure is that we haven't sniffed the top *hundred.* I think we can agree that Mason should be in the conversation for a top 100 team fairly regularly. There's 76 teams in the P6, the cream of the A10 crop, and a handful of select mids that should realistically expect to be better than us most years. Even if you have a very low opinion of Mason's stature in the basketball world, surely you'd expect a couple top-100 teams in six years. Here's how Dave has fared (per kenpom):

198 (first season)
123 (Marquise/Jalen sr year)
220
156 (Reuter year)
174
144 (this year)

That's three cycles with strong senior classes and we're not coming close to being competitive on a national scale. I understand you're in coin flip territory if you're a top 75ish team, so you can be very good and still not make the tournament, so tournament appearances aren't necessarily a great way to evaluate coaches at this level. But I've seen absolutely *nothing* whatsoever that tells me that Dave can even get us on the cusp of being in the conversation. It hasn't happened in multiple chances previously and it definitely ain't happening this year. He's not a genius tactician and he's not recruiting at an A10 level. One usable recruit out of every four gets you exactly where we are now. I don't want to be too harsh on the freshmen but Malik being under the doghouse has distracted us from the fact that Otis Frazier hasn't looked like a D1 player at any point this season.

Reasonable minds will differ on this, but for me those kenpom ratings really reinforce that the 11-7 season and the 9-9 5th place finish were mediocre teams that lucked out with a shitty schedule. Recruiting is going backwards and Dave's system straight up does not work when you're holding a lesser hand. If we're not going to try to make the tournament or be reasonably competitive every few years I really don't know what we're doing here.

@Petey Buckets This should be the template for a letter to Edwards and Washington. The numbers say exactly what all of our eyes are seeing: This just isn’t working.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

I appreciate Herndon's argument. It's not a good thing for smaller programs to perpetually be on the coaching search treadmill, just scratching a new lottery ticket over and over again hoping for a winner, except it's years before you get to scratch a new one. "Fire this a**hole!" feels good when the chips are down and the team sucks to watch but it's not a real solution.

I'm in the camp that thinks we should be playing for a postseason every 4-5 years. If you think that's unrealistic, fine. That's not the big indictment of Dave for me.

The most damning thing about Dave's tenure is that we haven't sniffed the top *hundred.* I think we can agree that Mason should be in the conversation for a top 100 team fairly regularly. There's 76 teams in the P6, the cream of the A10 crop, and a handful of select mids that should realistically expect to be better than us most years. Even if you have a very low opinion of Mason's stature in the basketball world, surely you'd expect a couple top-100 teams in six years. Here's how Dave has fared (per kenpom):

198 (first season)
123 (Marquise/Jalen sr year)
220
156 (Reuter year)
174
144 (this year)

That's three cycles with strong senior classes

Really this is pretty much where I'm at.

Looking at it in the same way, the home losses, the weak OOC losses (often at home) have put even DP's best seasons not really quite where we need to be.

Should really even be postseason conversation every 2-3 years.

It was never about budget, or A10, or facilities or any of it. Recruiting wise, people are dumb if they're judging the freshmen yet, and I still like this class (Polite and Kolek at least...I never knew enough about the others, still don't) but the bottom line is Paulsen hasn't recruited enough post play, shooting, and most importantly, enough all-conference type players.

This year IMO Boyd turned up completely out of shape, and Greene and Wilson are way too inconsistent to be thought of as all A10 type players. But never about one season, it's body of work.

Just aren't gonna win that way...any year.

Flip side I'm not writing this team off and hoping for losses like a good many of you clearly are. Miller is developing as a legit 1-2 type offensive option, wouldn't be a miracle if AJ and Greene get it a little more, XJ looked better yesterday, Paulsen made a good lineup decision late...etc.

Pretty sure Edwards is aware of the discontent. Really, it "may" take one more year but I believe change is inevitable if we don't see NCAA/NIT. But, it is annoying when people here don't realize this is a weird season and 2-week layoffs stifle progress. (See Richmond yesterday)

So, people should chill. Nobody gives a f**k whether we beat St.Joes by nine or 15. As shaky as we are, we swept 'em like we should have.

Now onto GW.

 

[Mason2005]

Speaking of budgets. Bonnie's have a similar $3.5M budget as us but pays Schmidt $832K while we pay DP $400K. Davidson's with their $2.6M budget pays McKillop $400K. This doesn't add up, Mason is burning money. Even if you factor in geographical money factors, we're still burning money somewhere.

It's all about the money. Cheap coach produces cheap results. Mason needs to front up. Fix up your broken budget and go get a real coach.

 

[gmujim92]

It's all about the money. Cheap coach produces cheap results. Mason needs to front up. Fix up your broken budget and go get a real coach.

We paid Hewitt $750,000 to suck a**

 

[Dawgs99]

Speaking of budgets. Bonnie's have a similar $3.5M budget as us but pays Schmidt $832K while we pay DP $400K. Davidson's with their $2.6M budget pays McKillop $400K. This doesn't add up, Mason is burning money. Even if you factor in geographical money factors, we're still burning money somewhere.

Don't we pay Dave 700K a year? 400 base salary and 300 in supplemental cash with that 300k also being guaranteed?

 

[Pablo]

It's all about the money. Cheap coach produces cheap results. Mason needs to front up. Fix up your broken budget and go get a real coach.

I don't recall Coach Paulsen raising concerns about resources when he said that we are going to hang banners, and becoming a perennial top 25 program was a reasonable goal.

 

[gmujim92]

Don't we pay Dave 700K a year? 400 base salary and 300 in supplemental cash with that 300k also being guaranteed?

That was my understanding — while his base is $400,000, the other $300,000 is effectively guaranteed income. Then there are incentives on top of that, most of which he hasn’t hit.

 

[mkaufman1]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ZJrUWferb4eFRyUHI1X2dsQkZFaXNqcnE4LVRvX1BGYmxJ/view

If anyone wants to take a look at the specifics - heres the contract. He obviously hasn't hit many bonuses. (Edited)

 

[tblack33]

Don't we pay Dave 700K a year? 400 base salary and 300 in supplemental cash with that 300k also being guaranteed?

This is exactly right. I think the breakdown is 400k from the state, 300k from patriot club, and 300 in incentives that he’s rarely touched. Only the 400 from the state is involved in a buyout scenario as the rest are technically incentives.

 

[Pablo]

That was my understanding — while his base is $400,000, the other $300,000 is effectively guaranteed income. Then there are incentives on top of that, most of which he hasn’t hit.

The supplemental compensation was increased to $337,000 annually - https://giantkiller.co/2019/11/06/d...ontract-emerge-including-an-attendance-bonus/:

"Here is the breakdown of his contract that was last amended in 2017. This is assuming there is not another amended version.

Base salary: $400,000

Supplemental compensation: $337,000

Bonuses: $400,000

The base salary and compensation are what determine the contract’s value ($737,000 per year). When Paulsen was hired in 2015, the Washington Post reported the deal was worth five-year, $3.5 million. Since then, through the second amendment, the supplemental compensation rose by $37,000."

 

[Patriotsince81]

Should really even be postseason conversation every 2-3 years.

Agree 100%.

Our program really took hold in 1999. As you can see below we had 5 NCAA and 3 NIT appearances in a 13 year period. I began to expect results along that line and I don't think it was unreasonable for me to do so. So in the past decade I expected 3-4 NCAA's and 2-3 NIT's.

1999 NCAA
2000
2001 NCAA
2002 NIT
2003
2004 NIT
2005
2006 NCAA Final 4
2007
2008 NCAA
2009 NIT
2010
2011 NCAA
2012
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
2019
2020
2021

 

[GMUgemini]

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1ZJrUWferb4eFRyUHI1X2dsQkZFaXNqcnE4LVRvX1BGYmxJ/view

If anyone wants to take a look at the specifics - heres the contract. He obviously hasn't hit the athletic bonuses for performance. Not even the 20 win or top 125 RPI which would get him 35k.

He hit that once: in 2016-2017, our 20 win season.

 

[GMUgemini]

We also shouldn’t compare Paulsen to McKillops. McKillops could be making a lot more money if he wanted to. He gives Davidson a loyalty discount (I believe also so they can put more resources back into the program). It’ll be really interesting to see what happens to that program when he retires. He’s 70.

 

[tblack33]

Really this is pretty much where I'm at.

Looking at it in the same way, the home losses, the weak OOC losses (often at home) have put even DP's best seasons not really quite where we need to be.

Should really even be postseason conversation every 2-3 years.

It was never about budget, or A10, or facilities or any of it. Recruiting wise, people are dumb if they're judging the freshmen yet, and I still like this class (Polite and Kolek at least...I never knew enough about the others, still don't) but the bottom line is Paulsen hasn't recruited enough post play, shooting, and most importantly, enough all-conference type players.

This year IMO Boyd turned up completely out of shape, and Greene and Wilson are way too inconsistent to be thought of as all A10 type players. But never about one season, it's body of work.

Just aren't gonna win that way...any year.

Flip side I'm not writing this team off and hoping for losses like a good many of you clearly are. Miller is developing as a legit 1-2 type offensive option, wouldn't be a miracle if AJ and Greene get it a little more, XJ looked better yesterday, Paulsen made a good lineup decision late...etc.

Pretty sure Edwards is aware of the discontent. Really, it "may" take one more year but I believe change is inevitable if we don't see NCAA/NIT. But, it is annoying when people here don't realize this is a weird season and 2-week layoffs stifle progress. (See Richmond yesterday)

So, people should chill. Nobody gives a f*ck whether we beat St.Joes by nine or 15. As shaky as we are, we swept 'em like we should have.

Now onto GW.

I think you make some fair points. These boards have kinda devolved into a fire Paulsen circle jerk in literally every single thread, I’m probably at least partially responsible for it, and there’s very little actual game discussion/analysis that doesn’t devolve into “DAVE SUCKS”. I’m gonna keep my fire Paulsen where it belongs, in the plz save us Tony Skinn thread, on Twitter where my 14 followers all really enjoy it, and of course in the upper rafters of the patriot center for the remaining games I decide to attend.

The top 100 numbers really help put things in perspective.

I kinda feel bad for Joe’s right now, it seems like Lange may be their Hewitt. Dark days for them. They aren’t as bad as the team we just played twice tho, I think we split that series if Daly is playing because at a minimum he reduces their turnovers and opens it up more for Funk. We’re on a very meh winning streak, but at least we are winning. After Norfolk St I wasn’t sure if we’d win the gimmes anymore.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

I think you make some fair points. These boards have kinda devolved into a fire Paulsen circle jerk in literally every single thread, I’m probably at least partially responsible for it, and there’s very little actual game discussion/analysis that doesn’t devolve into “DAVE SUCKS”. I’m gonna keep my fire Paulsen where it belongs, in the plz save us Tony Skinn thread, on Twitter where my 14 followers all really enjoy it, and of course in the upper rafters of the patriot center for the remaining games I decide to attend.

The top 100 numbers really help put things in perspective.

I kinda feel bad for Joe’s right now, it seems like Lange may be their Hewitt. Dark days for them. They aren’t as bad as the team we just played twice tho, I think we split that series if Daly is playing because at a minimum he reduces their turnovers and opens it up more for Funk. We’re on a very meh winning streak, but at least we are winning. After Norfolk St I wasn’t sure if we’d win the gimmes anymore.

Hey, I like you guys and I mostly agree with you, but...every game thread roughly since year one of Hewitt.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

It's all about the money. Cheap coach produces cheap results. Mason needs to front up. Fix up your broken budget and go get a real coach.

Isn't about this any more than it used to be about facilities.