Game 29: AT Saint Louis University, Saturday, March 2nd, 3 PM ET/2 PM CT, NBCSN

[GMUYoda]

Lol 24 in the first half... 47 in the 2nd half and still a 10 pts loss.

 

[Mason2005]

Loser team, they should walk home instead.

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[Patriotsince81]

The silence is deafening. No one knows what to say.

 

[patriot2000]

I mean, I know what to say but it's already been said ad nauseum...

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[Mason2005]

I'll say something.

So Paulsen says this is the 2nd half of a 2 year plan.

Year 1: we have a chance to finish top 4 and we let richmond blow us out at home.

Year 2: chance to finish top 4 and we get blown this game and lose our homecoming game.

What has changed Paulsen?

If anything that should be a good enough reason to can his a**.

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[mkaufman1]

More of jekyl and Hyde on the road. Can’t start that poorly and expect to have a chance against anyone half decent.

Love the comeback but you need everything to go right at that point. It’s not going to happen most of the time.

4th seems very unlikely at this point.

 

[GMUgemini]

I'll say something.

So Paulsen says this is the 2nd half of a 2 year plan.

Year 1: we have a chance to finish top 4 and we let richmond blow us out at home.

Year 2: chance to finish top 4 and we get blown this game and lose our homecoming game.

What has changed Paulsen?

If anything that should be a good enough reason to can his a**.

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Losing this game is excusable. Winning in the road is hard and it’s tough. Losing as many home games as we have over his tenure is not. I’d include Davidson this year in that category. No excuse to lose against Davidson when they were shooting as badly as they did. Duquesne too.

 

[Petey Buckets]

So I was way off on this being a decent matchup. Horses vs ponies all over the court. SLU hit a few more threes to open it than I would have expected but they finished 8-23.

Very upset with the number of post-ups we tried to get Reuter. Obvious from the jump that wasn't going to work. Looking at the box score he was 2-7 with two turnovers but it felt ten times worse than that.

Starters were 13-46 from the field. 3-10 from deep and perhaps most tellingly, 10-36 from 2. I wish AJ didn't do so many dumb things so I could be angry at Dave for not letting him play more. This was a great opportunity to counter their size with the AJ-Miller frontcourt.

 

[GMUgemini]

I’m starting to wonder if Kier might not deserve to lose his starting spot to Hartwell at this point. He makes so many boneheaded plays at the worst times in games (turnover with a minute left and us down by just 2 possessions, for instance).

Next year, depending on how Mar looks, I could see Hartwell starting at the 1 and Miller and Mar crowding Kier out of the starting lineup.

He was so good to start conference play, but for whatever reason he has not been able to sustain that level over an entire season yet. Maybe his senior year will be different.

 

[Washingtonian]

https://gomason.com/news/2019/3/2/m...comeback-falls-just-short-at-saint-louis.aspx

"That was a really disappointing effort to start the first half," head coach Dave Paulsen said. "I'm a little surprised by our guys because we did not compete to begin defensively, offensively or on the glass. We fought back in the second half but you can't spot a good team like Saint Louis a 16-point lead. We have to play with an edge every second on the court."

 

[JimP]

Losing this game is excusable. Winning in the road is hard and it’s tough. Losing as many home games as we have over his tenure is not. I’d include Davidson this year in that category. No excuse to lose against Davidson when they were shooting as badly as they did. Duquesne too.

Yeah - missed this one but not surprised or very upset over the loss. SLU has only lost twice at home. Unfortunately, the two games I've caught GMU in person year have been their most maddening performances. You can't lose to American at home in the ooc and blow a 19 point lead to Duquesne. I agree about Davidson too - they've proven to be beatable.

 

[GMU_DCU]

It’s a shame we can’t play with the same intensity we showed in the last 5 minutes of the game. No excuse to come out that flat in an almost must win game to stay in top 4 contention. It literally was men vs boys Except for those final 5 minutes and I was kind of surprised Paulson didn’t start fouling earlier than we did.

One positive is Jordan Miller was one rebound away from another double double. Can you imagine how bad we would be if he stayed red shirted?

 

[Falco]

The ignore button is this sites best function

Ignorance is bliss

 

[Falco]

I’m starting to wonder if Kier might not deserve to lose his starting spot to Hartwell at this point. He makes so many boneheaded plays at the worst times in games (turnover with a minute left and us down by just 2 possessions, for instance).

Next year, depending on how Mar looks, I could see Hartwell starting at the 1 and Miller and Mar crowding Kier out of the starting lineup.

He was so good to start conference play, but for whatever reason he has not been able to sustain that level over an entire season yet. Maybe his senior year will be different.

Unfortunately DP plays his favorites.

 

[GMUSig03]

Look - another game where the team fails to play a full 40 minutes, where have we seen that before.

While some individually might, collectively I do not see the grit/determination/drive from this group that is needed to compete at this level.

Its like they come out and just say, oh fun lets play some basketball! And then they have to react and step uo their game when the other team is actually focused and giving 100 percent effort.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

Losing this game is excusable. Winning in the road is hard and it’s tough. Losing as many home games as we have over his tenure is not. I’d include Davidson this year in that category. No excuse to lose against Davidson when they were shooting as badly as they did. Duquesne too.

Yep. Totally agree. We could easily absorb a loss like this other the one to SBU and even Richmond if we protected the home court.


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[Herndon]

Ignorance is bliss

The irony here is overwhelming

 

[GMUgemini]

Yep. Totally agree. We could easily absorb a loss like this other the one to SBU and even Richmond if we protected the home court.


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I feel like in some ways, it’s just the “luck” factor. This team isn’t good enough to be dominant in most games and so we are in a lot of close contests with teams. Last year, we came out on the positive side in a lot of them, this year it has swung back the other way.

Our home losses:

Penn by 1

American by 3

Vermont by 5

Davidson by 5

Duquesne by 1

My hope is that next year’s team understands they can’t “just turn it on” and that these kinds of losses just can’t happen on the home court. Look at those scores. Other than Vermont (which I think was a come from a big deficit), they were all winnable games. Take those other four games back and this season is vastly different. We’d be 20-9 (12-4) right now and sitting at looking at possibly finishing second ahead of Davidson.

We are close but frustratingly just not there.

 

[smccart5]

Against physically superior teams we take the Homer Simpson approach, let them pummel you for 6 rounds until they get tired and then try and knock them out.

 

[TweederGMU]

When a team on the road is consistently going down by double digits in the beginning of the game thats a preparation problem. And I look at the coaches to set the mindset, harness their focus on the game plan, fire them up, and guide them throughout the game.

These failures point back to the leadership they are shown..... or not being shown.