Game 20: George Washington University, Wednesday, January 25th, 7 PM, ASN

[GMU_DCU]

Had a feeling the game would go this way. First of all we were favored, first red flag. Secondly we were playing at home, 2nd red flag and lastly that Cavanaugh guy has owned us every time we have played GW third red flag. Within the first few minutes of the game I counted at least 5 times Livingston or Kier got screened off their player and ended up on Cavanaugh. That is just a matchup we will not win.

Our offense was just too one on one, and lots of ill advised contested shots because the offensive flow was so bad.

Sure could have used a 6'7 Abram in a game where we were so severely overmatched size wise. I wish we knew what the deal is with that whole situation.

Adjusted goal for the season is to avoid the play in game, again.

 

[Mason2005]

Someone needs to ask Paulsen why he refuses to try to go with 2 bigs. GW basically had 3 bigs in most the game and relying on 1 or 0 bigs to hold fort is insane. If he's willing to go 5 guards for most of the 2nd half why not try 2 bigs also just to see. Temera and Relvao are terrible enough, why ask them to shoulder the entire load when they are in.

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[psyclone]

Post game press conference:
https://www.facebook.com/MasonAthletics/videos/vb.45624109537/10154433538814538/?type=2&theater

 

[MasonSAE4]

Someone needs to ask Paulsen why he refuses to try to go with 2 bigs. GW basically had 3 bigs in most the game and relying on 1 or 0 bigs to hold fort is insane. If he's willing to go 5 guards for most of the 2nd half why not try 2 bigs also just to see. Temera and Relvao are terrible enough, why ask them to shoulder the entire load when they are in.

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God we're at the point where having two terrible bigs in may somehow add up to one serviceable big.

At the start of the year I was convinced that bringing in a transfer was a bad play and that Temara would calm down after getting the first game jitters out of the way. But that's clearly not the case and I'm so high on Kier/Boyd/Newman that I think maybe bringing in a center who will be immediately eligible may be the play because these guys won't be that far away next year. Otis in particular I think will see a bump in his play with Greene being able to give him some time to rest in games/pushing him for his job in practice. Grayer and Kier will be solid starters. Assuming Mar/Wilson are the 4, a decent 5 could really put us over the top.

 

[Petey Buckets]

That game sucked. Refs were morons but GW is a bad matchup for us any way you slice it. They have the size and length to wall off the paint effectively. We don't have the shooters to make them pay when we move the ball around. As a result we really struggled to score in halfcourt sets. There were just not many good looks on offense tonight.

On defense we kept switching and it was driving me crazy. Jaire would start a possession guarding Cavanaugh, Otis's man would screen, Jaire and Otis would switch, and now Otis is guarding Cavanaugh in the post. It happened on the first three possessions of the game and kept happening throughout. Kier, Boyd, and Jaire can credibly defend bigs for a few possessions. Otis, Kam, and Karmari can't. But the switching kept happening. Absolutely maddening.

Some other thoughts:

- If we're gonna go five guard I don't know why we stay in man and switch heavily. It feels like a 2-3 zone with Boyd anchoring is probably our best bet so we can keep Otis and Karmari up top. In Dave I Trust but any scheme that ends with Otis defending the post feels wrong. The five guard lineup generated some offense but it had no hope of getting stops. The defense has to bend too much to harass the paint and leaves shooters open. If it doesn't bend you end up with 6'9" players getting shots in the paint over 6'3" players.

- Related: Boyd is a fantastic post defender for his size. He gave us some great minutes on Cavanaugh tonight. He's our Draymond.

- The warts on this roster really show when Jalen is in foul trouble. We go from competitive to totally f**ked when he sits for extended minutes. I don't know what else Dave is going to be able to pull out of his bag of tricks. He's already getting a ton out of a limited roster when Jalen is on the floor. When Jalen hits the bench there are just a bunch of bad options. I don't think Dave is thrilled about going five guard either but that's how ineffective our other bigs are.

- For as much as I'm griping about everything the story of the game is really 11 made threes vs. 1. If my math is correct, that's 30 points. You cannot win in this day and age of basketball without hitting threes. They're worth 50% more than any other shot on the floor.

Same old story. Need shooters, need post defense. These games will continue happening until Jalen learns to stay out of foul trouble.

 

[Mason2005]

That game sucked. Refs were morons but GW is a bad matchup for us any way you slice it. They have the size and length to wall off the paint effectively. We don't have the shooters to make them pay when we move the ball around. As a result we really struggled to score in halfcourt sets. There were just not many good looks on offense tonight.

On defense we kept switching and it was driving me crazy. Jaire would start a possession guarding Cavanaugh, Otis's man would screen, Jaire and Otis would switch, and now Otis is guarding Cavanaugh in the post. It happened on the first three possessions of the game and kept happening throughout. Kier, Boyd, and Jaire can credibly defend bigs for a few possessions. Otis, Kam, and Karmari can't. But the switching kept happening. Absolutely maddening.

Some other thoughts:

- If we're gonna go five guard I don't know why we stay in man and switch heavily. It feels like a 2-3 zone with Boyd anchoring is probably our best bet so we can keep Otis and Karmari up top. In Dave I Trust but any scheme that ends with Otis defending the post feels wrong. The five guard lineup generated some offense but it had no hope of getting stops. The defense has to bend too much to harass the paint and leaves shooters open. If it doesn't bend you end up with 6'9" players getting shots in the paint over 6'3" players.

- Related: Boyd is a fantastic post defender for his size. He gave us some great minutes on Cavanaugh tonight. He's our Draymond.

- The warts on this roster really show when Jalen is in foul trouble. We go from competitive to totally f*cked when he sits for extended minutes. I don't know what else Dave is going to be able to pull out of his bag of tricks. He's already getting a ton out of a limited roster when Jalen is on the floor. When Jalen hits the bench there are just a bunch of bad options. I don't think Dave is thrilled about going five guard either but that's how ineffective our other bigs are.

- For as much as I'm griping about everything the story of the game is really 11 made threes vs. 1. If my math is correct, that's 30 points. You cannot win in this day and age of basketball without hitting threes. They're worth 50% more than any other shot on the floor.

Same old story. Need shooters, need post defense. These games will continue happening until Jalen learns to stay out of foul trouble.

Nice write up Petey. I'm going to give Jalen some slack this game. He was going up against basically 3 bigs for rebounds. He needed help this game and couldn't get it from MM bc he had a 6'8 wing boxing him out.

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[GMUgemini]

Nice write up Petey. I'm going to give Jalen some slack this game. He was going up against basically 3 bigs for rebounds. He needed help this game and couldn't get it from MM bc he had a 6'8 wing boxing him out.

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Moore still got a double-double and we actually outrebounded GW by 2. The overall point is right, though, if this team is exploited it's always exploited at the 4 and 5 positions. If a team can put a competent pair of bigs on the floor together, that's lights out for our defense.

 

[psyclone]

From Steve Goff of the Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/spor...fb9411d332c_story.html?utm_term=.60c316a87569

 

[smccart5]

Serious question because I have no idea, what's the etiquette/rules behind pulling a players scholarship? Like NCAA ball wise is it common? It seems like kind of a douche move in some respects but we're also draining roster spots on people who aren't freshmen who clearly will never see the floor.

Scholarships are for four years. If you were able to pull them, it would be an absolute disaster. What most coaches do/should do if they need a spot is tell the person they should not expect playing time, and discuss what is best for their future. Hopefully something like this will happen and we can pick up a transfer, because right now we cannot beat teams with length. This was very apparent in the vcu loss and the loss to GW. Either that or we need to become much more efficient at shooting 3's.

 

[Vurbel]

Serious question because I have no idea, what's the etiquette/rules behind pulling a players scholarship? Like NCAA ball wise is it common? It seems like kind of a douche move in some respects but we're also draining roster spots on people who aren't freshmen who clearly will never see the floor.

I believe all scholarships (minus Maryland and a few others) are technically granted on a yearly basis, so technically every player we have could have their scholarship taken and we start from scratch next season. However, any program worth its salt isn't going to do that. Good luck getting recruits telling them that they may or may not have a scholarship after a year.

With that said, I'm sure many players have been "encouraged" to transfer, but technically their scholarship was not revoked.

 

[Five Two]

This felt more like the Mount St Mary's game than the SLU game at the start. Its like we thought the game started at 7:30 and then started to play....until the last 5 minutes of the 2nd half.

Otis is lucky we don't have another PG option because he would have been put on the bench last night. Paulsen had switched to a match-up zone and Otis was supposed to guard the high post. Instead, he was out on the wing, the ball went to the high post, he is late getting there, they pass it out for an uncontested 3, which he is late defending. Paulsen was screaming at him so angrily that Otis was smart not to come near the bench. this happened a few times early in the 2nd half.

I think GW took the 'they cant/wont call every moving screen' philosophy last night. Early in the game, part of the reason our guys were giving up so many open 3s was that GW's picks were clearing out our defenders. Paulsen was so p*ssed and eventually got a warning. He kept at it which is why he eventually got the T in the 2nd half. He didn't say anything that would warrant a T, but it was an accumulation of complaints throughout the game that got him T'd up. The refs didn't impact the outcome (we sucked) but they were not having a good night.

 

[Pablo]

I don't believe that I've ever seen so many moving screens and flops by one team in a game.

 

[Vurbel]

I don't believe that I've ever seen so many moving screens and flops by one team in a game.

Have you seen Duke play???

 

[EXpatriot13]

GW's length gave us trouble - there was more than a few occasions where our guards didn't finish plays at the rim that they normally do , and I think we saw that we were exposed big time without Jalen in the game. The first maybe 4 or 5 possessions of the game, Otis got switched onto someone at least 6'7'' in the post, easy lay ups I believe 3 of those possessions.

I'm really excited about our guards - Grayer/Kier/Newman/Otis/Boyd. Paulsen has to find that missing big man piece that could really elevate this team to that next level. Mar and Wilson will give us some more size and productivity (we hope) next season, but it's time to land a legitimate 5 post player.

 

[GMUSig03]

Maybe fans should stop coming to home games so it feels like an away game

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I said this during the game and also added that maybe we should cheer for the visiting team and against our guys. Hey, whatever it takes, right?

 

[gmujim92]

This felt more like the Mount St Mary's game than the SLU game at the start. Its like we thought the game started at 7:30 and then started to play....until the last 5 minutes of the 2nd half.

Otis is lucky we don't have another PG option because he would have been put on the bench last night. Paulsen had switched to a match-up zone and Otis was supposed to guard the high post. Instead, he was out on the wing, the ball went to the high post, he is late getting there, they pass it out for an uncontested 3, which he is late defending. Paulsen was screaming at him so angrily that Otis was smart not to come near the bench. this happened a few times early in the 2nd half.

I think GW took the 'they cant/wont call every moving screen' philosophy last night. Early in the game, part of the reason our guys were giving up so many open 3s was that GW's picks were clearing out our defenders. Paulsen was so p*ssed and eventually got a warning. He kept at it which is why he eventually got the T in the 2nd half. He didn't say anything that would warrant a T, but it was an accumulation of complaints throughout the game that got him T'd up. The refs didn't impact the outcome (we sucked) but they were not having a good night.

I'm gonna have to disagree that the refs didn't impact the outcome.

At least 2 of Jalen's fouls, as usual, were total BS phantom calls. The only other thing he could've done to avoid the foul was to run away from the guy he was guarding.

We have one big who can play right now and he played only 18 minutes because of bad foul calls. It most definitely impacted the outcome of the game, especially against that team.

 

[masonjoe]

We have one big who can play right now and he played only 18 minutes because of bad foul calls. It most definitely impacted the outcome of the game, especially against that team.

And yet fans are still questioning why Paulsen is running five guard line-ups. Temara and Relvao have stone feet.

 

[Washingtonian]

The charge that Moore got wasn't a charge.

Temara can't catch the ball. Myles Tate at the end tried to feed him the ball when no one was near him and he still missed it.

 

[Five Two]

GW's length gave us trouble - there was more than a few occasions where our guards didn't finish plays at the rim that they normally do

This isn't the first time we've seen this happen. I would love to know what our shooting percentage is from close range. lets say the NCAA avg is 85% (have no idea what it is), I think we shoot 5-10% less tan the avg. It just seems we miss a lot of gimmies whether is due to the other team's length or us just missing.

 

[Patriotsince81]

Temara can't catch the ball. Myles Tate at the end tried to feed him the ball when no one was near him and he still missed it.

I remember Paulsen yelling at Temara during the St. Louis game to "slow down". I see him as a kid who wants to do everything and as a result can't do anything. That may come with age and experience or not. Time will tell.