Game 16: GMU (13-2 / 2-0) vs vcu (8-7 / 0-2) on Tuesday, January 9, at 7:00 PM.

[Pablo]

VCU hoops fights past George Mason in 'grit-and-grind' defensive struggle to earn first A-10 win

Senior guard Max Shulga scored a team-high 13 points including some clutch free throws down the stretch, and the Rams (9-7, 1-2 Atlantic 10) held the Patriots to 0 of 15 shooting from 3-point range in a rugged 54-50 win. It was vcu's first conference victory under first-year coach Ryan Odom in...

richmond.com

 

[masonhoops1984]

If they play defense like they did tonight, yes. But their defense in their first two A10 games indicated they wouldn't sniff the top 4. I'm not ready to consider them a top 4 contender until we see how they do in their next few games.

two big boys down low and you beat them even if you don’t make a single 3.

 

[GMU79]

I disagree, vcu is bad. Their record speaks for itself. They mentally own mason though and it is not changing. Mason will never win. This is the worst vcu team in 20 years and still lay an egg.

vcu focuses only on basketball it’s a crap school and it’s all they care about and so be it. Mason honestly should have just stayed in the CAA and outspent everyone in that league. With no NIT anymore it’s basically no more march ever unless they can find a way to change the narrative and tonight showed they are no where closer to doing so.

They choked plain and simple. vcu may not be a bad loss by net but who cares it’s a game you have to win if you ever want fans back again. Or 3-5k is what it is. the A10 is a 1 bid league unless Dayton can get in. They lost a key player though so that may be up for debate.

I highly doubt Mason can run off 3-4 games in a row in NY when they can’t even beat a bad vcu team at home. Honestly as sad as it may sound beating vcu was very important for fans, for recruiting for donations for a lot of things.

He’ll they could finish 15-3 in A10 lose in semis and nothing really changes. No march post season basketball, no more fans than they have now and no more donations than what they currently have. They have to find a way to change the narrative. Now it’s in every kids head that wasn’t here before on this team, this was as golden of an opportunity as they were ever going to get. Oh well. Maybe they can rack up some double digit wins, Hall goes on to play pro ball and life goes on. That’s about sums it up.

Until someone wants to change the script. They are the exact same team, sadly playing in what has become a 1 bid league, it’s beat vcu or it’s a disappointing season. Have to wonder if staying in CAA and at least avoiding vcu would have been better. He’ll look at JMU, a dumpster fire basketball program. Stopped playing, ODU, Mason and vcu and get ranked in an absolute clown show conference.

Mason will never win.
One day you will eat those words.
And BTW, it's hell, not he'll.

 

[GMU79]

I concur. We played a GREAT game defensively. Staff had this team ready to go. If we give this level of effort defensively, it means we'll never be out of games, even when we toss a "Riley Trone-like" goose egg from beyond the arc. We gave ourselves every chance to win but in a game like this you can't afford to miss two 1:1's late like we did (We're a good FT-shooting team!). You can't slip with the game on the line. You can't miss wide-open corner threes.

Not the end of the world but it still stings. A couple of observations:

1. Key giveth and Key taketh away. Made some absolutely insane buckets down the stretch when we desperately needed someone to step up. Love his game and skill set and he's our dawg, but vcu was sitting on that spin move of his. Twice (2) tonight he was picked clean by a double-team from a vcu guard who knew it was coming and just waited on the weak-side. And when he does it between the FT and the 3 pt line, it leads to brakeaway baskets the other way.
2. As the home team, we should have tried to draw more contact. Hall needs to get to the stripe more than 2 times.
3. We shot - count them - seven (7) air balls this game from various spots on the floor. Just a weird anomally, I hope. Pablo can probably tell us if this is has ever happened before -

Onward and upward!

Interestingly, after Key's late TO, I was going to write those exact words "Key giveth and Key taketh away," but I didn't cause I figured I would get criticized for it.
Thanks for saying it.

 

[masonhoops1984]

Mason will never win.
One day you will eat those words.
And BTW, it's hell, not he'll.

Mason will never win.
One day you will eat those words.
And BTW, it's hell, not he'll.

I'm sure there’s a lot more typos than that, alas who cares. Nah, I’ll be dead by then. I’m
not living past 100.

 

[Pablo]

Patriots Struggle From Deep in 54-50 Setback to VCU - George Mason University Athletics

Despite a historically poor shooting performance, the defensive-minded George Mason University men's basketball team (13-3, 2-1) had a last second chance to win

gomason.com

"Mason led 50-47 with 1:50 left, but could not score for the remainder of the game, as vcu tallied the final seven points of the contest.

The Patriots held the Rams to just 35.3 percent shooting (18-51) overall and 23.1 percent (6-26) in the second half. But the Green & Gold went 0-for-15 from 3pt range and could not score on their final four possessions. It marked the first time the Patriots were held without a 3-pointer since February 2009."

 

[Earl the Squirrel]

I’m saying you are obviously upset we lost tonight and it’s bleeding into your posts here. I’m not asking you to make any predictions about the rest of the season right now. Sometimes it’s just a good idea to walk away and let a day go by before coming back to discuss what happened.

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think vcu is going to be in the bad loss column at the end of the season. It was a missed opportunity to get a monkey off this program’s back and it sucks they couldn’t finish the job. But this is not a season ending loss.

"

For whatever it’s worth, I don’t think vcu is going to be in the bad loss column at the end of the season.

I agree with the point above. vcu is not a bad team. They barely lost to an Iowa St team that just took down Houston. Lost by 5 to Memphis. Beat a Penn St team, who, while in a rebuilding mode, just beat Michigan. They were in it to the end against what I think is a decent GW squad. They're well coached.

But I'm with you. An opportunity lost to stomp vcu is a bitter pill. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to binge-eat the three (3) remaining ice cream sandwiches that I strongly suspect are still in the freezer.

 

[GMU1983]

I luv key but that spin move is well known and when it goes bad it seems to always happen at the worst time…

 

[masonhoops1984]

"


I agree with the point above. vcu is not a bad team. They barely lost to an Iowa St team that just took down Houston. Lost by 5 to Memphis. Beat a Penn St team, who, while in a rebuilding mode, just beat Michigan. They were in it to the end against what I think is a decent GW squad. They're well coached.

But I'm with you. An opportunity lost to stomp vcu is a bitter pill. Now, if you'll excuse me I'm off to binge-eat the three (3) remaining ice cream sandwiches that I strongly suspect are still in the freezer.

Michigan sucks, so does Michigan state and PSU is almost always bad. Big 10 has been absolutely god awful in march outside MSU decades ago. 1 title in 35 years. Big 10 is propped up by money and power. Iowa state and Memphis are good though so guess there’s that.

 

[psyclone]

I disagree, vcu is bad. Their record speaks for itself. They mentally own mason though and it is not changing. Mason will never win. This is the worst vcu team in 20 years and still lay an egg.

vcu focuses only on basketball it’s a crap school and it’s all they care about and so be it. Mason honestly should have just stayed in the CAA and outspent everyone in that league. With no NIT anymore it’s basically no more march ever unless they can find a way to change the narrative and tonight showed they are no where closer to doing so.

They choked plain and simple. vcu may not be a bad loss by net but who cares it’s a game you have to win if you ever want fans back again. Or 3-5k is what it is. the A10 is a 1 bid league unless Dayton can get in. They lost a key player though so that may be up for debate.

I highly doubt Mason can run off 3-4 games in a row in NY when they can’t even beat a bad vcu team at home. Honestly as sad as it may sound beating vcu was very important for fans, for recruiting for donations for a lot of things.

He’ll they could finish 15-3 in A10 lose in semis and nothing really changes. No march post season basketball, no more fans than they have now and no more donations than what they currently have. They have to find a way to change the narrative. Now it’s in every kids head that wasn’t here before on this team, this was as golden of an opportunity as they were ever going to get. Oh well. Maybe they can rack up some double digit wins, Hall goes on to play pro ball and life goes on. That’s about sums it up.

Until someone wants to change the script. They are the exact same team, sadly playing in what has become a 1 bid league, it’s beat vcu or it’s a disappointing season. Have to wonder if staying in CAA and at least avoiding vcu would have been better. He’ll look at JMU, a dumpster fire basketball program. Stopped playing, ODU, Mason and vcu and get ranked in an absolute clown show conference.

Way too negative and fatalistic. Enough of the "we're all doomed" attitude. It's a loss in a game we could have won, but it hardly calls for throwing in the towel and giving up on the season.

I'm blaming the outcome on the artwork using Homer Simpson as representing Mason and have some of the posters and supposed fans here thinking that was a great picture!

 

[masonhoops1984]

Way too negative and fatalistic. Enough of the "we're all doomed" attitude. It's a loss in a game we could have won, but it hardly calls for throwing in the towel and giving up on the season.

I'm blaming the outcome on the artwork using Homer Simpson as representing Mason and have some of the posters and supposed fans here thinking that was a great picture!

it’s AQ or no post season. All that matters now is NY. It’s likely all that mattered outside this game anyway. A10 is a 1 bid league. Sure they could avoid vcu and go on some crazy run. That would drive them nuts.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

I’m not sure - vcu's defense was not that great. If we hit our normal percentage of 3s (35%) we would have 15-18 more points and that gives us the game. We lost this game we were not beaten.

There were four offensive outings where we rushed out shot in the paint when we could have gone into the post .

As someone said this is an outlier - but it sucks to have that outlier against vcu.

Almost all of those threes were contested and vcu consistently ran us off the three point line.

It wasn't an accident we hit less than our normal %. vcu has been awful at defending the arc, I'm sure that was a point of emphasis for them.

They also doubled Hall and Kelly effectively.

Sure, we should have made a few more shots, but of course, so should they have...

Now the good news is, not all A-10 teams have the horses to defend us like that.

 

[DRK331]

Full game here on Youtube

Full game here on Youtube

 

[gmulion]

Just an ugly game on offense.

Kelly needs to be much stronger with the ball. He seems to get the ball knocked out of his hands very easily.
Hall needs to work on his body language. If he doesn't get a call he starts sulking and complaining too much.
Maddox needs better shot selection.
Polite needs to be more aggressive.
Okojie needs to start finishing through contact.

The team needs more assists and better passing overall.

This is a very talented team that isn't a finished product. Last night sucked not being able to hit a 3, but there are things the whole team needs to work on. I have faith that Coach Skinn will be working on them and the team will get better.

 

[GMU79]

Way too negative and fatalistic. Enough of the "we're all doomed" attitude. It's a loss in a game we could have won, but it hardly calls for throwing in the towel and giving up on the season.

I'm blaming the outcome on the artwork using Homer Simpson as representing Mason and have some of the posters and supposed fans here thinking that was a great picture!

True and True. But I don't want to be too hard on our poster guy. The others have been awesome.

 

[MasonSAE4]

Couple of next day thoughts, as I didn't want to post while in a rage induced state:

1.) Our defense was very good, but we need to generate more turnovers and be a little more willing to give up two pointers. Hard to complain when we only gave up 54 points, but clearly we needed to generate some fast break points. Our offense was dire to watch.

2.) It's tough to sit here and say that our 3 point shooting was an anomaly when nearly all of them were contested shots. In most games with the same shot selection I wouldn't expect to hit any more than 15%. On the flip side, I don't love the strategy of allowing opposing teams to bomb away from 3 to play the percentages. For the first time in a while we have the horses to be able to play man to man. I don't think vcu was going to beat us via the paint last night.

3.) Officiating was consistent, but a little lenient. Not sure it made the difference but we def should've had a few and-1's. vcu could probably say the same, but man it feels like every time we play them we get a crew that allows prison yard rules. But alas, it went both ways.

 

[EXpatriot13]

Still bummed about the result and missed opportunity, but in trying to focus on the positives…it’s quite impressive how bought in this team is defensively.

Other than a few mental lapses that was an overall fantastic performance on the defensive end. Not unusual for a team to let their shooting woes negatively impact their defense, this group didn’t allow that to happen.

 

[GMU1983]

We were a QUAD 1 win for them.

 

[masonhoops1984]

We were a QUAD 1 win for them.

Who cares and mason dropped to 71 so not anymore. Not likely to rise to much higher with only 1 quality road game left on schedule. Net and all that other garbage is useless now. Mason Had a very very slim chance. However vcu blew their’s a while ago by losing 7 games. Both are 100% not playing in the postseason without the AQ. Mason will fight for a double bye, and pray they avoid vcu with a miracle in NY. Otherwise is what it is, why did they Join the A10 again? Every conference has an AQ.

 

[GMUMiked]

Convinced 4 friends to buy tickets last week, they bought best available (101 row U). They got to the game and the place was only half full with four entire rows below them completely empty. I don't know what happened between Mason and ticketmaster but it was a bad look.