Game 30 - A10 Tournament: #9 GMU (14-15 / 7-9) vs #8 Fordham (15-15 / 8-10) on Thursday, March 10, at NOON.

[sleeperpick]

I said that will be the perception within the basketball community. Argue it if you wish, but you’ll be wrong.

Jim don’t do this lol.

 

[Jack Strop]

Sums it all up nicely...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2022/03/10/george-mason-fordham-atlantic-10-tournament/

 

[gmujim92]

By “basketball community” do you mean fan message boards or the voices in your head?

The voices in my head don’t talk about basketball lol

 

[Walter]

UNCW had two really bad hires before Keatts. Benny Moss and Buzz Peterson were much worse than Hewitt and Paulson. UNCW was a total dumpster fire. Then they hired Keatts and went back to the tournament. Then another bad hire. Now they have a guy who looks promising.

Every program is one hire away from being a dumpster fire. Is KE the guy to get us back? Too soon to tell. Some promising signs, but some concerns as well. But, I am still hopeful for the future.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

I said that will be the perception within the basketball community. Argue it if you wish, but you’ll be wrong.

No I get you with that, but its an absolutely silly thought.

All I was saying was KE is red-hot right now. There's a difference between that and well-regarded. If he had made lets say, a surprise run to the semis and finished more like 18-12 range, he definitely stays red-hot.

Instead of entering the gradual cooling phase. Not saying he's damaged goods after this year or anything like that. Probably still hot.

But nobody stays like that forever.

 

[Patriot8]

 

[gmujim92]

No I get you with that, but its an absolutely silly thought.

All I was saying was KE is red-hot right now. There's a difference between that and well-regarded. If he had made lets say, a surprise run to the semis and finished more like 18-12 range, he definitely stays red-hot.

Instead of entering the gradual cooling phase. Not saying he's damaged goods after this year or anything like that. Probably still hot.

But nobody stays like that forever.

Completely agree, but I do think there is more riding on this for Mason than for Kim. We really need for him to be a home run and I think he will be.

 

[Masonfan3]

I said that will be the perception within the basketball community. Argue it if you wish, but you’ll be wrong.

Have to agree with Jollay here. Mason has a lot to offer and most everyone I talk to in the "basketball community" would say you are wrong. I mean hell, DP finished with a winning record at Mason and finished top 5 in the conference 3 out of 6 years, including last year. CKE had three of "his" guys in the starting lineup and two of which had A LOT of college experience. This roster should have been at least .500 (in a very weak A10) and had no business losing to Fordham twice. Is that all on CKE, absolutely not. But a lot of that has to fall on him and the other coaching staff. CKE will absolutely fizzle off if he can't start producing more W's next year. Does he need to take us to the dance, no but needs to at least get us a top 5 seeding in the A10 tourney or a win or two.

 

[gmujim92]

Have to agree with Jollay here. Mason has a lot to offer and most everyone I talk to in the "basketball community" would say you are wrong. I mean hell, DP finished with a winning record at Mason and finished top 5 in the conference 3 out of 6 years, including last year. CKE had three of "his" guys in the starting lineup and two of which had A LOT of college experience. This roster should have been at least .500 (in a very weak A10) and had no business losing to Fordham twice. Is that all on CKE, absolutely not. But a lot of that has to fall on him and the other coaching staff. CKE will absolutely fizzle off if he can't start producing more W's next year. Does he need to take us to the dance, no but needs to at least get us a top 5 seeding in the A10 tourney or a win or two.

If you miss on 3 head coaches in a row, people start to wonder if it wasn’t the coaches who were the problem. That’s all I’m saying.

 

[Masonfan3]

If you miss on 3 head coaches in a row, people start to wonder if it wasn’t the coaches who were the problem. That’s all I’m saying.

I get what you are saying there. But TBH some people don't think we necessarily missed on DP. He took over a dumpster fire and after year 2 had us 5th, 5th, 12th, and 4th in the conference. I am not one of those guys (and don't think many on here are) but there are some in the community that believe DP did a good job turning around the program post Hewitt. There will naturally be a drop off of players when a new coach comes in, but CKE had a lot more talent to work with here than DP did when he took over.

 

[FreeGunston12]

I would defer to people who saw more Mason than me this year but clearly teams started to sag off XJ and Polite to defend other guys closer. Not just Oduro either.

Like I said, I think we're still fine, and I think we're on the right path. But Kim English is not there yet, any more than the roster is/needs to be.

As great as Oduro was this season, I think way too much was put on his shoulders. He was ready to dominant smaller, less skilled bigs in the post. He was not ready to get the same touches against guys like Brajkovic late in the season. When he got the ball in the post against those guys, the offense would become stagnant. He'd get offensive fouls or waste a lot of shot clock. The ball movement became non-existent. We didn't find a great way to exploit the double teams.

On defense, we switched too much and got exploited on mismatches. It was a clear shift from DP's hard hedging and recovering philosophy. One that I'm not sure we had the personnel for.

And yeah, we had tired legs and poor rebounding at the end. I really liked the pace we played at during the non-conference, even if we weren't taking care of the ball as well. Haven't looked at the statistics, but that pace seemed to slow to a crawl as the season went on.

I also think there were some learned techniques things that didn't translate well. Boxing out with back to the basket instead of the opposing player comes to mind. How many fouls were called on us doing that? Often in critical situations, it seemed.

 

[gmubrian]

Totally agree with this post. How teams adjusted to mason and vice versa is something I’ve very curious about. We went from Cooper Gaines and Schwartz creating and making threes to those guys not getting good looks and Oduro getting double teamed a lot.

I’d love to know what happened especially late in the year that changed this course.

The key to me is like what you said regarding years 3-4, but I do expect next year to be much improved.

A far as Gaines, his drop off, at least in terms of offensive input, seems to be correlated to the missed layup that would have given us the victory over Richmond. He was visibly distressed after missing that, and if memory serves, his offense reduced significantly after that game.

 

[gmubrian]

I get what you are saying there. But TBH some people don't think we necessarily missed on DP. He took over a dumpster fire and after year 2 had us 5th, 5th, 12th, and 4th in the conference. I am not one of those guys (and don't think many on here are) but there are some in the community that believe DP did a good job turning around the program post Hewitt. There will naturally be a drop off of players when a new coach comes in, but CKE had a lot more talent to work with here than DP did when he took over.

I don't disagree with you, necessarily, but, I think the basketball community spoke pretty loudly about what they thought of Paulsen's tenure at Mason and prospects for the future during the coach hiring season this past year. Actions speak much louder than words...

 

[mkaufman1]

I don't disagree with you, necessarily, but, I think the basketball community spoke pretty loudly about what they thought of Paulsen's tenure at Mason and prospects for the future during the coach hiring season this past year. Actions speak much louder than words...

100% - if there was any belief that last year was just the start of something we’d still have Dave and there wouldn’t have been any sort of rumor about Kim English in February start.

 

[Masonfan3]

100% - if there was any belief that last year was just the start of something we’d still have Dave and there wouldn’t have been any sort of rumor about Kim English in February start.

Who said it was the "start" of something? DP had 6 years and couldn't get us past the 2nd round of the A10 tourney so he had to go. But he got us out of the dumpster fire to be able to hire a young up and coming star (or that is what people believe him to be) in CKE. The point is the program is at a point where we, and the basketball community, expect us to be competitive in the A10 and not finishing below .500 and losing in the first round to Fordham. If the basketball community thought we were an A10 bottom feeder then there wouldn't have been rumors about hiring Kim English in February and people would have been raving about the job DP was doing keeping us in the top half of the conference.

 

[GMUSSTN]

IT'S NOT A HOME, IT'S A BASKETBALL COMMUNITY

 

[sleeperpick]

Who said it was the "start" of something? DP had 6 years and couldn't get us past the 2nd round of the A10 tourney so he had to go. But he got us out of the dumpster fire to be able to hire a young up and coming star (or that is what people believe him to be) in CKE. The point is the program is at a point where we, and the basketball community, expect us to be competitive in the A10 and not finishing below .500 and losing in the first round to Fordham. If the basketball community thought we were an A10 bottom feeder then there wouldn't have been rumors about hiring Kim English in February and people would have been raving about the job DP was doing keeping us in the top half of the conference.

You sit far too close to either Durlak or Swimom

 

[mkaufman1]

Who said it was the "start" of something? DP had 6 years and couldn't get us past the 2nd round of the A10 tourney so he had to go. But he got us out of the dumpster fire to be able to hire a young up and coming star (or that is what people believe him to be) in CKE. The point is the program is at a point where we, and the basketball community, expect us to be competitive in the A10 and not finishing below .500 and losing in the first round to Fordham. If the basketball community thought we were an A10 bottom feeder then there wouldn't have been rumors about hiring Kim English in February and people would have been raving about the job DP was doing keeping us in the top half of the conference.

Maybe I’m alone but I am totally missing what your point is here.

 

[Copes4Three]

Yep, it's definitely nof a simple matter of more toughmess and a limited roster. Sure, that's part of it. When things like Polite getting more shots than Oduro are occurring, it's concerning. Even if KE does a great job building a roster for next season, the coaching needs to improve for KE to take the team where he wants to take it. I disagree with the sentiment that "you guys are worried over nothing" that I seem to pick up in some posts.

They need to get clear the deck out of all the worthless Paulson recruits. I was right in my prediction last year about them finishing in the bottom half which Gmujim still owes me on btw. But at the end of the day the smart thing to do was to force the guards on mason to shoot 3s and to make the plays. Oduro got doubled and into foul trouble and it was up to our guards to make some plays. I give Gaines a pass because he plays hard on defense and gets boards. Johnson, polite, hartwell and most of the bench is bad. I’m hoping most of them transfer and he can get work the transfer block. It’s not a coaches fault when your players miss layups and open shots.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

Dude, just come on. Just, come on.

What are we running with this time, facilities? We. Had. A. Wining. Record. In the A10. Just last year.

Honestly, if you're going to start with this the guy is 100% infallible, let me off. There is a very real chance that his coaching job this year was at best, below industry average.

Now that might improve, and I think it will, but don't sit here and say "if KE couldn't squeeze a winning record with this group" when three of the starters were his guys, and as if he's some already accomplished master tactician...

Just come on. Can there ever be grey on these boards and not black or white??

What world do you live in? There is no gray ever allowed anywhere. Everything is black and white!!!!