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

[Pablo]

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.

Who really knows what McKillop is actually receiving in compensation from the private school? It's my understanding that McKillop lives in a home directly across the street from campus. Is Davidson providing the home and other benefits that are not included in the 400K cited by Mason2005?

 

[gmujim92]

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.

There is no way McKillop is only making $400,000. As a private school Davidson doesn’t have to make its coaches’ salary information public — I guarantee there is supplemental income flowing to the coach from Davidson’s version of the Patriot Club. He’s gotta be well over $1M at this point.

 

[GMUgemini]

There is no way McKillop is only making $400,000. As a private school Davidson doesn’t have to make its coaches’ salary information public — I guarantee there is supplemental income flowing to the coach from Davidson’s version of the Patriot Club. He’s gotta be well over $1M at this point.

This article says his new contract is in the $600-800k range: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/article226427045.html

 

[gmujim92]

This article says his new contract is in the $600-800k range: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/article226427045.html

That’s what they’re willing to admit, but I bet if we got a look at the fine print, there are a bunch of “incentives” that are basically gimmes.

 

[By George.]

I’m nauseous after reading this thread. It’s unfortunate that fans are comfortable with mediocrity (which is debatable considering we continue to play a cake A10 slate) while some have shown they look at our A10 record without analyzing how we got there.

The main issue with Paulsen is that he constantly over promises and doesn’t deliver. If you’re shooting for middle of the pack and hit, cool. If you’re telling us that you’re producing top talent in the A10 but you’re not, that’s an issue.

When we went 11-7 and finished 5th, we had a legit chance at a top 4 seed and got abused by the Bonnies in a must win game. But....yay....we beat up on UMass and St Joe’s, actually it typically takes OT or buzzer beaters.

 

[gmutom]

Although I don't take the losses nearly as badly as I used to when we were better and the stakes were higher, there has never been a time under any coach dating back to Paul Harrington when I have rooted for Mason to lose a game. I'm firmly in the camp that believes Paulsen isn't the answer — and I do get the argument that winning games deters him from being dismissed — but I've been a fan for way too many years to ever root for us to lose a game or to not be happy/content after a victory.

I have voiced my frustrations many times this season about our strategies and roster, including yesterday when we just kept launching shots from the perimeter in the first half; butI also agree that the doom-and-gloom posts in every game thread do deter a lot of other Mason fans from coming to the boards. Trust me, fans like Herndon and Jollay are not the only ones who believe .500 wouldn't be a bad season, and people in that camp shouldn't be eviscerated for believing so.

Like tblack said, maybe we can keep the "fire Paulsen" comments contained to that specific thread and use the game threads to focus on the actual games. That doesn't mean we can't be critical about things like Xs and Os and rotations (I'm certainly guilty of that), but it also means we shouldn't be able to point out the adjustments Dave made in the second half with the lineup and the pick-and-roll plays Kong pointed out.

 

[GMUgemini]

I don't root for them to lose, definitely, but I've stopped caring, or being surprised, when they do.

 

[KAOriginal]

Analyzing the same mediocre coaching and basketball play can only be interesting for so long.

Unfortunately for us...it's now been a decade of it.

All we truly have is "hoping for a change."

 

[Mason2005]

This article says his new contract is in the $600-800k range: https://www.charlotteobserver.com/sports/college/article226427045.html

This is even more concerning then. They spend $1M less than us and their HC makes twice what ours make. Mason is burning away a LOT of money. The issue is deep fellas.

 

[sleeperpick]

Let’s talk about some good from yesterday then.

dady had his breakout game and was making crisp cuts and hitting free throws. He has the polish of a middle linebacker doing figure skating but I’m cool with him getting more mins. He’s extremely active on defense and one of our best defenders already. Kid looks 18 but is 23 but he has 3 more years of eligibility. Idc if he ever gets an outside jump shot. That would be icing on the cake.

Javon Greene had an excellent game at the beginning and then again at the end. He has leadership qualities that few do on this team and I’m happy he survived Paulsens dog house and stuck with it. Few have.

TKolek tries so hard on defense but is just not there. Maybe he gets there maybe he doesn’t but his shooting and scoring is needed for this team to win so it doesn’t matter. Very impressed with this kid

playing small ball at the end was a great move by DP. Taking Oduro out and inserting Dady was genius because Funk was killing Oduro and the game started slipping

I have no idea why he plays Polite in clutch situations. He has a decent looking shot but they are never close to going in. Which sucks.... he is better on ball defender than Jamal and hopefully his days of playing big mins are over. Don’t want to get too down on him but he’s pretty useless out there which sucks for a junior captain.

I hate Jordan’s game which is an unpopular opinion but when you are that athletic you need to be Consistently driving the basketball rather than taking fadeaway jumpers. He’s also a good FT shooter on a team full of bad ones

First game this season XJ looked good. I hope that keeps up for his sake. He freaked out on TK late in the game for not swinging the basketball.

Javon needs to play PG in clutch situations until XJ proves he can.

good win over a bad team is still a good win.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

Like tblack said, maybe we can keep the "fire Paulsen" comments contained to that specific thread and use the game threads to focus on the actual games. That doesn't mean we can't be critical about things like Xs and Os and rotations (I'm certainly guilty of that), but it also means we shouldn't be able to can point out the adjustments Dave made in the second half with the lineup and the pick-and-roll plays Kong pointed out.

In turn I will promise to contain my anti-Larranaga propaganda to the MIAMI thread (co-sponsored by Yedinaya Rossiya).

Pause.

Larranaga sucks.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

F thinking about mediocre Mason anyway. Born in Milwaukee, I'm far more concerned with burying Tampa and Brady in a f**king icy grave today.

 

[GMUgemini]

On Dady, I said it during the game, but if Dady becomes nothing more than a back-up four who comes in and pesters the opposing team I'm happy with that. I agree, who cares if he develops and outside shot or not. If he can consistently finish at the rim and hit the majority of his FTs when he gets to the line (like in this game) he'll be a good role player on the team.

On XJ, he wasn't wincing after making layups like he was a few games ago. Maybe the knee/shin splints or whatever was going on is getting better? It'll be nice to get his explosion back and for him to play more PG so Kolek doesn't have to.

 

[mkaufman1]

Some other thoughts I figure I’d share

So looking at the box score, Mason was paced on offense with 18 points from Jordan miller who also had 5 boards, 13 points by Javon Greene who also had 8 boards and 4 assists. Josh Oduro also had 12 points and 6 boards. Tyler Kolek continues to be a bit of a swiss army knife on offense with 9 points 6 boards and 2 assists. Of those few mentioned, Oduro only played 19 minutes but still got 12/6.

The team still shot 65% from the line today but did connect on 8 of 20 threes for 40% They shot 50% from the field, so it was good that they didn't go overkill on the three pointers today.

Also thought that XJ looked much better in his 26 minutes of action and that Haidara provided a solid 22 minutes off the bench as well. Every team needs a Haidara, and I’m hopeful he will continue to improve and contribute. Polite isn’t where he needs to be but he also continues to improve as the game slows down for him. Coach called out both of their contributions in the presser

I know St Joes is extremely young but I can't imagine how a coach who is 7-38 overall in his first two years can last that much longer. I suspect Lange will get another year at the minimum.

 

[Bricker]

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

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up for me.

I'm reasonable. I don't expect Mason to be Duke. I don't even expect Mason to be vcu.

But here's the thing: The administration willfully, and I assume enthusiastically, decided to make the jump to the A10. The entire purpose of moving up to a more competitive conference is to have a better shot at the postseason for your one revenue sport that does not require you to win the conference tournament every year.

If we were in the CAA, my expectations would be different. There's no point in wasting our time in the A10 if we're not at a bare minimum doing what it takes to be at least in consideration for the NIT every single year. That doesn't mean making it every year. I'm just talking being in the mix and being a potential threat to upset someone in the A10 tourney semis, etc. Then, we can ratchet up expectations with senior-laden teams to be top 4 and at-large contenders. No one moves up a conference to "just be happy to be here" in the basement with Fordham.

I feel like this is beyond reasonable, otherwise, what the hell are we doing? Why bother with the travel, the facilities, and everything if we're ok with battling it out with the dregs? I'd be one thing if we had been in the A10 for decades and were perennial has-beens with crumbling gyms just trying to stay afloat because we have nowhere else to go. But we are actually upgrading facilities and putting up some cash, even if it is in a half-assed Mason way.

The more I think about it, I'm beginning to believe it just comes down to good old-fashioned Mason incompetence. The administration wants to win, they just don't know how to do it. And it has set us back that the folks in charge during the transition have -- or are attempting to -- use Mason as a stepping stone (Cabrera smiled his way right out the door and I assume BE is here to build his resume to move up, why else would he have left a football school?)

I'm very interested to see what Greg Washington does. But I'm also worried that he has bigger problems with the pandemic. But hey, if he wants to raise Mason's profile and keep student application numbers up in a age when the idea and value of higher education is in question, what better way than to clean house and get folks who really buy in to the idea of success. After all, this is all it took at vcu. You just need everyone to commit to it and make it a priority -- both with your money and your actions. Simple idea. Difficult to execute. All that's left is... do we have the guts to go for it?

 

[Falco]

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.

Fair take. But why move to the a10 if a post season every 5 years is the goal.

Even Hewitt cracked the top 3 in the CAA

 

[gmujim92]

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up for me.

I'm reasonable. I don't expect Mason to be Duke. I don't even expect Mason to be vcu.

But here's the thing: The administration willfully, and I assume enthusiastically, decided to make the jump to the A10. The entire purpose of moving up to a more competitive conference is to have a better shot at the postseason for your one revenue sport that does not require you to win the conference tournament every year.

If we were in the CAA, my expectations would be different. There's no point in wasting our time in the A10 if we're not at a bare minimum doing what it takes to be at least in consideration for the NIT every single year. That doesn't mean making it every year. I'm just talking being in the mix and being a potential threat to upset someone in the A10 tourney semis, etc. Then, we can ratchet up expectations with senior-laden teams to be top 4 and at-large contenders. No one moves up a conference to "just be happy to be here" in the basement with Fordham.

I feel like this is beyond reasonable, otherwise, what the hell are we doing? Why bother with the travel, the facilities, and everything if we're ok with battling it out with the dregs? I'd be one thing if we had been in the A10 for decades and were perennial has-beens with crumbling gyms just trying to stay afloat because we have nowhere else to go. But we are actually upgrading facilities and putting up some cash, even if it is in a half-assed Mason way.

The more I think about it, I'm beginning to believe it just comes down to good old-fashioned Mason incompetence. The administration wants to win, they just don't know how to do it. And it has set us back that the folks in charge during the transition have -- or are attempting to -- use Mason as a stepping stone (Cabrera smiled his way right out the door and I assume BE is here to build his resume to move up, why else would he have left a football school?)

I'm very interested to see what Greg Washington does. But I'm also worried that he has bigger problems with the pandemic. But hey, if he wants to raise Mason's profile and keep student application numbers up in a age when the idea and value of higher education is in question, what better way than to clean house and get folks who really buy in to the idea of success. After all, this is all it took at vcu. You just need everyone to commit to it and make it a priority -- both with your money and your actions. Simple idea. Difficult to execute. All that's left is... do we have the guts to go for it?

I have always believed if the Mason administration publicly went all-in on basketball the way Michael Rao did at vcu, alumni and donors would respond.

The university has to take steps that prove it is serious about winning and the first one is hiring a new coach. If they make a good hire and the product on the floor reflects a commitment to excellence, people will buy in and the money will start flowing.

Otherwise, as has been noted, what the hell are we doing?

 

[GMUgemini]

Fair take. But why move to the a10 if a post season every 5 years is the goal.

Even Hewitt cracked the top 3 in the CAA

top 4 in the CAA post-vcu and Blaine Taylor’s meltdown is about the same as a participation trophy.

 

[Bricker]

I have always believed if the Mason administration publicly went all-in on basketball the way Michael Rao did at vcu, alumni and donors would respond.

The university has to take steps that prove it is serious about winning and the first one is hiring a new coach. If they make a good hire and the product on the floor reflects a commitment to excellence, people will buy in and the money will start flowing.

Otherwise, as has been noted, what the hell are we doing?

100% Yes, the mystical effects of the BIG BUY-IN are real. Call it an affirmation or whatever you want. If you declare a specific goal, people will rise to the occasion, even if they sometimes fall short. That is culture -- something sorely lacking at a school like Mason (sports, and well, everything).

You can't say "Well, we want to try to be competitive -- but you never know, sports are crazy.. am I right guys? Who wants ice cream?"

You have to say, "Mason is committed to doing what it takes on and off the court to become a perennial contender in the A1o and a consistent top 50 team in Div 1 starting today."

If you can't say what you want, you have no mission statement. And no, effort and improvement and consistency are not missions. These are subjective. They produce nothing to tape to you locker/wall/desktop. You have no purpose. You are lost. You are afraid to fail.

Not coincidentally, that seems to be our issue with the coach right now. He has not shared his mission. As far as I'm concerned, he has no WILL. He cannot impose HIS WILL on the team because there is nothing there other than "try hard". That is empty. That is why we are lost and shrink from big moments and have trouble sustaining leads, etc. We seem to be striving for nothing more than trying to keep up with big boys.

 

[GMUgemini]

A lack of identity is precisely what Chris Pyle diagnosed about Mason in the Hey10 podcast this week. The fact that we don't have one in year six is an issue. And whether Paulsen is a "good coach" or not, the fact that he's "just been getting by" with the players he has seems to be this program's biggest problem.