Game 7, Rhode Island, Nov. 30th, 4 PM, MASN

[MASONscott]

What he also failed to disclose is that these were the same type of teams we were facing the previous 5 years. So using his logic - we would need to discount many of OCM's regular season wins.

Good point. And, by moving to the A 10 with it's requirements for out of conference opponents and the quality of the A 10 this is truly water under the bridge.

Most major program schedule a bunch of home cream puffs. Ocassionally, you get a Vermont almost over Duke or Georgetown up by 1 at half to Lipscomb, an NAIA team.

Yet, somehow we should all want out coaches' head and should spend countless hours talking about how bad our coaching is. As if lesser opponents don't have good showings at times.

Glad to be 5-2.



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[Pikapppatri8]

Terrible argument from Jim, and thanks Pikap for reminding everyone that many of those teams mentioned we played during the L era. It almost seems like some personal vendetta with Jim and P49.

Look I think they do make some observations that are valid - what taints their argument is their obvious dislike of Hewitt that colors their analysis. In their obvious affection for Coach L (which we all had) they blind themselves to issues he had that included things they complain about now.

Overall I think we can perform even better but I am happy where we are headed at Mason athletics overall - we are in a much better conference, Hewitt is bringing in a higher caliber of players and I see an offense that is more aggressive and does go inside more where we relied a lot on perimeter shooting in the OCM days.

Is Hewitt perfect? No. But he is nowhere the steaming pile that some portray him to be. Hence the weak response to the fact he is .6000 since coming to Mason.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

1) I have a legitimate question. What does everyone on this board think is adequate for Hewitt to stick around after the next 2 years? My standard has always been an NCAA appearance. I think 1 appearance in 4 years is realistic. If others disagree, I would like to know why. My view is if we don't make the tourney this year or next then we should cut ties. Period. End of story. And before you jump down my throat, I don't have anything against Hewitt except his record at GT. I'm sorry ignoring that information is naïve and ignorant and ignoring the fact that another school paid him 7M to not coach is also not logical.

2) I simply don't agree with the "coach has to have all of his own guys in the system" before we judge him argument. It's crap. Maybe if we were Towson, I could buy that argument, but this coach did not walk into a bare cupboard. Asking a coach to adjust his "system" to fit the talent available is what coaching is about. It's easy to be a good coach when you have every player you want for every position you want. If this applies then Hewitt gets what 6 or 7 years at a minimum to show any progress?

3) I won't rehash my problems with the hiring process because those are well documented, but needless to say that is much of my beef with TOC. The process was not conducted in the correct manner.

4) Tom, you constantly point to the fact that OCM could not beat vcu. Please name me a coach that consistently beat his rival on their home court in the most important game of the year. I would love to see you come up with one example. If you want to bitch about our consistency at times during the OCM era, fine. But I'm still convinced that if those games were played outside of the shithole in Richmond, we would have gone to 2 or 3 more NCAAs. Did Big 12 teams have to beat Kansas in Lawrence in the tourney? What about ACC teams having to win in Durham? Or SEC teams in Lexington?

Finally, please don't confuse criticism of Hewitt with undying love for OCM. I can guarantee, at least in my case, that if there was a different person in the head coach's position, my take on our situation would be much less hostile. A young up and coming assistant gets more slack than someone who was a failure at their last school.

 

[Patriotfan49]

1) I have a legitimate question. What does everyone on this board think is adequate for Hewitt to stick around after the next 2 years? My standard has always been an NCAA appearance. I think 1 appearance in 4 years is realistic. If others disagree, I would like to know why. My view is if we don't make the tourney this year or next then we should cut ties. Period. End of story. And before you jump down my throat, I don't have anything against Hewitt except his record at GT. I'm sorry ignoring that information is naïve and ignorant and ignoring the fact that another school paid him 7M to not coach is also not logical.

2) I simply don't agree with the "coach has to have all of his own guys in the system" before we judge him argument. It's crap. Maybe if we were Towson, I could buy that argument, but this coach did not walk into a bare cupboard. Asking a coach to adjust his "system" to fit the talent available is what coaching is about. It's easy to be a good coach when you have every player you want for every position you want. If this applies then Hewitt gets what 6 or 7 years at a minimum to show any progress?

3) I won't rehash my problems with the hiring process because those are well documented, but needless to say that is much of my beef with TOC. The process was not conducted in the correct manner.

4) Tom, you constantly point to the fact that OCM could not beat vcu. Please name me a coach that consistently beat his rival on their home court in the most important game of the year. I would love to see you come up with one example. If you want to bitch about our consistency at times during the OCM era, fine. But I'm still convinced that if those games were played outside of the shithole in Richmond, we would have gone to 2 or 3 more NCAAs. Did Big 12 teams have to beat Kansas in Lawrence in the tourney? What about ACC teams having to win in Durham? Or SEC teams in Lexington?

1. Id say that is a pretty good barometer. 1 appearance in 4-5 years shouldnt be too much to ask for. I also dont like the reasoning of keeping him simply because we wont buy him out. That is a bad call, and if he isnt living up to his money, we shouldnt live with him because were too cheap to buy him out.

2. Im with you to a degree. You shouldnt be given years to get your guys in to start to run your system. I think you should run a system suitable to the talent you have, and then as you go on recruit your style and slowly implement your guys and system.

3. Same

4. Agree. Tom points out alot of obscure things to try and bring a point, but I wasnt really buying that one. Beating vcu at vcu, is a difficult task.....nobody should expect to be able to do that more often than not.

And Agreed big time on your last paragraph. I really liked OCM, but he had his issues as well. None of what I have to say now, has anything to do with him...wishing he was still here, or thinking he was some untouchable coach either. It has to do with Hewitt and my opinion of him and his performance....the only other thing like you said that could factor in...was if we had a young up coming coach to which more understanding can be given.....but a long term coach like Hewitt, comes with different expectations.

 

[Dawgs99]

I would agree that after 5 years of Hewitt if we don't have an NCAA appearance its probably time to move on.

 

[GMUgemini]

Not to belabor the point but one vcu isn't our rival and two look up Blaine Taylor's record against vcu in the Coliseum.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Not to belabor the point but one vcu isn't our rival and two look up Blaine Taylor's record against vcu in the Coliseum.

3. We arent ODU

 

[Pikapppatri8]

Not to belabor the point but one vcu isn't our rival and two look up Blaine Taylor's record against vcu in the Coliseum.

And to add to that - vcu always had our number - always. So the argument holds - Coach L was always frustrated by vcu except on a couple of occaisions.

 

[Patriotfan49]

And to add to that - vcu always had our number - always. So the argument holds - Coach L was always frustrated by vcu except on a couple of occaisions.

Frustrated by vcu in Richmond and the Coliseum. Id say we have won a good share of home games through the past few years through OCM and Hewitt. Or at least since I was a freshman in 2007.

That was a knock on L, but to be honest that is tough duty to go into Richmond and win. They were great at home. Splitting home and home with vcu and ODUwas always about what could be expected

 

[gmutom]

4)Tom, you constantly point to the fact that OCM could not beat vcu. Please name me a coach that consistently beat his rival on their home court in the most important game of the year.

Oliver Stone, is that you? Please spare me the conspiracy theories. One, vcu never had homecourt advantage, they had a crowd advantage. Huge difference. We had 10,000 fans at the Patriot Center when we lost to Wichita State and ODU when Coach L was here, so a crowd advantage doesn't guarantee anything.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that Hewitt needs to get back to the tournament in the next few years. TOC and Cabrera will have ample information at their hands when his contract comes up to decide which way to go with the program.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Oliver Stone, is that you? Please spare me the conspiracy theories. One, vcu never had homecourt advantage, they had a crowd advantage. Huge difference. We had 10,000 fans at the Patriot Center when we lost to Wichita State and ODU when Coach L was here, so a crowd advantage doesn't guarantee anything.

That said, I agree with the sentiment that Hewitt needs to get back to the tournament in the next few years. TOC and Cabrera will have ample information at their hands when his contract comes up to decide which way to go with the program.

You sound like a vcu fan now lol...lets dredge up all those threads about if the Coliseum was home court advantage. Wonder if you said the same in those threads.

Call it what you want, but it was an immense advantage that vcu had in the CAAT. We and about every other team that was relevant in the CAA bitched about it on the CAAzone for years.

 

[gmujim92]

Jim, I appreciate the effort, but you can only play the teams on your schedule. To not count the wins you aren't impressed with is silly. If that was the barometer for any coach or athlete, you could arguably throw out half of their victories. Hell, there'd be no 300-win pitchers in the Hall of Fame. I'm not even sure there would be a 200-game winner.

Of course those wins count. But you guys seem incapable of grasping my larger point: We haven't played well enough over the past 2-plus seasons to beat very many quality teams. This is a big problem.

We all say the expectation should be to get to the dance at least once every 4-5 years. Well, unless you're planning to win the A-10 tournament, the only way to do that is to beat good teams and compile a resume worthy of an at-large.

You guys do still remember what it's like to have an at-large worthy team, right? We did it twice in a 5-year span under the former staff.

 

[Scythe]

Sent from my Nexus 5

 

[MasonFanatic]

Hewitt did adjust his system to the talent he had in his first season here, and that is why Pearson had such a monster season. Then Pearson disappeared on the big stage and left Hewitt high and dry.

Also, OCM left behind much more of a roster management failure than is usually recognized. He put all his eggs in the Luke Hancock basket, he didn't redshirt Arledge, etc.

 

[gmutom]

You sound like a vcu fan now lol...lets dredge up all those threads about if the Coliseum was home court advantage. Wonder if you said the same in those threads.

Call it what you want, but it was an immense advantage that vcu had in the CAAT.

Feel free to look it up. I always felt like the crowd was in their favor, but I never used that as an excuse for our constant losses there. To do that, we'd have to admit we only beat WSU and UCONN at Verizon Center because we had a crowd advantage. Who here wants to say that's why we won those two games?

 

[Pikapppatri8]

Hewitt did adjust his system to the talent he had in his first season here, and that is why Pearson had such a monster season. Then Pearson disappeared on the big stage and left Hewitt high and dry.

Also, OCM left behind much more of a roster management failure than is usually recognized. He put all his eggs in the Luke Hancock basket, he didn't redshirt Arledge, etc.

+1 +1 +1 - And he was the one who helped Luke move on when he left. One can argue that the last bit of recruits was somewhat less than what we had before.

Look at Lonergan at GW - he had to really sub par seasons until he could get guys to fit his system - which is happening this season.

I do agree Hewitt needs to get the Patriots to an NCAA appearance if he is to be extended. But I think he deserves to at least finish this season before we start building the gallows. And maybe some folks here can let us enjoy wins for a little bit before we perform a deconstruction.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Hewitt did adjust his system to the talent he had in his first season here, and that is why Pearson had such a monster season. Then Pearson disappeared on the big stage and left Hewitt high and dry.

Also, OCM left behind much more of a roster management failure than is usually recognized. He put all his eggs in the Luke Hancock basket, he didn't redshirt Arledge, etc.

Corey Edwards, Vaughn Grey, Bryon Allen, Sherrod Wright, Mike Morrison, Ryan Pearson, Andre Cornelious, Paris Bennett, Vertrail Vaughns, John Arledge....
Not too shabby team to inherit. People at the time were calling us one of the better openings and jobs out there.....

Im not buying it was a failure left behind.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Feel free to look it up. I always felt like the crowd was in their favor, but I never used that as an excuse for our constant losses there. To do that, we'd have to admit we only beat WSU and UCONN at Verizon Center because we had a crowd advantage. Who here wants to say that's why we won those two games?

Nobody is saying that. But to try and diminish the immense advantage because it was not technically home court is really minutia and weak.

Nobody is saying its 100% the reason they won, but to act like it didnt help them tremendously, and didnt help us in 2006 is incompetent. Its crowd noise and atmosphere, at the end of the day the players and coaches still decide the game....but dont all of the suddden ignore the crowd advantage now because its doesnt suit your argument.

 

[gmujim92]

Corey Edwards, Vaughn Grey, Bryon Allen, Sherrod Wright, Mike Morrison, Ryan Pearson, Andre Cornelious, Paris Bennett, Vertrail Vaughns, John Arledge....
Not too shabby team to inherit. People at the time were calling us one of the better openings and jobs out there.....not sure it was a failure.

49, you need to get with the program, pal.

Those guys all either sucked or are in the process of sucking.

Our only hope is Hewitt and his "higher caliber recruits."

LOLZ.

 

[Patriotfan49]

I mean I realize I repeat the same issues and points...and can come off as negative..

But some of this is just crap points and really none of this even matters.