Game Thread: Mason vs LaSalle

[Cedric Dempsey]

It seems to me that there are some generous donors including at least one poster on this board - https://gomason.com/news/2019/12/4/endowed-scholarship-reception.aspx:

"The number of endowments has doubled in 10 years to 55 current endowed scholarships. To name an endowment requires a gift of $25,000. These funds help collectively offset as much as $5 million in scholarships and/or operational expenses for Mason Athletics programs each year."

I don’t believe there is one fully endowed scholarship. These appear to be named scholarships that turn over a 3% yield at a low giving threshold. No indication at all of total financial health of your basketball program. To the contrary, it could mean very little. A $5 mil basketball budget yield per annum would need to generate approx $170,000,000 in total giving. Your donor friend can speak to this far better than me.

 

[Cedric Dempsey]

Great post.

I'll say again, until we starting beating top 4 teams for recruits, we are stuck in the 6-9th spots forever. And its not about money. Coach L went to the final four with less. He just knew how to build a consistent winning program. A10 has resurfaced as a power this year. We had a chance to make noise after years 3 and 4 and failed. 2021 will be a decade since our last NCAA tourney appearance.

Critics love the past and can have tremendous problems relating to the future. You appear to be one of those individuals. The people and events we remember can often form, skew and even dominate our present and future perspectives.
Those perspectives regarding the past seem natural, easy and explainable minus any real time knowledge of how it actually works. Creating the next horizon can be a hell of a lot harder, dependent on facts unknown. Nice to see you dropped the middle school, sandbox snark though.

 

[FreeGunston12]

Great post.

I'll say again, until we starting beating top 4 teams for recruits, we are stuck in the 6-9th spots forever. And its not about money. Coach L went to the final four with less. He just knew how to build a consistent winning program. A10 has resurfaced as a power this year. We had a chance to make noise after years 3 and 4 and failed. 2021 will be a decade since our last NCAA tourney appearance.

I don't know. I can't get but so frustrated with Paulsen's recruiting. I mean, I'd honestly have a hard time selling Mason basketball in its current state over some of the other schools in our conference.

That's why I get so frustrated with the gameplan, offensive design, defensive inflexibility, etc. It is really the one aspect that should be a level playing field and that he is in total control of.

 

[gmubrian]

No, I'd say we're middle of the pack for spending, and middle of the pack for success. We're a middle of the pack A10 program, as borne out by the fact the for the past 3 years, we've finished middle of the pack in the A10 standings.

Before that, we had a "left side of the bell curve" coach that was distorting our results.

I don't think Paulsen is a "right side of the bell curve" coach, but I think he's probably about an average A10 coach. With an average a10 coach, and average a10 spending, we should expect average a10 results.

Heading into work, so won't see the game today. Best of luck!

The issue is that, so far, Paulsen seems to be too average. What I mean by that is he doesn’t seem to ever have a breakout season. Looking at Gemini’s stats about post season play, the other average coaches are making the occasional post season appearance. If Paulsen truly is average, I’d rather see the occasional breakthrough season, maybe when he has a senior laden team and a down year when we are young. The problem so far is that we seem to have a perennially young team, for whatever reason. Maybe, if Paulsen can ever start keeping players around for their senior seasons, he’ll have a breakout season.

 

[GMUgemini]

The issue is that, so far, Paulsen seems to be too average. What I mean by that is he doesn’t seem to ever have a breakout season. Looking at Gemini’s stats about post season play, the other average coaches are making the occasional post season appearance. If Paulsen truly is average, I’d rather see the occasional breakthrough season, maybe when he has a senior laden team and a down year when we are young. The problem so far is that we seem to have a perennially young team, for whatever reason. Maybe, if Paulsen can ever start keeping players around for their senior seasons, he’ll have a breakout season.

Four seniors next year if everyone comes back — 2 starters, two rotation players. Plus, you’ll have Miller and Hartwell as juniors. If ever there could be a breakout year, next year has to be it.

 

[GSII]

Critics love the past and can have tremendous problems relating to the future. You appear to be one of those individuals. The people and events we remember can often form, skew and even dominate our present and future perspectives.
Those perspectives regarding the past seem natural, easy and explainable minus any real time knowledge of how it actually works. Creating the next horizon can be a hell of a lot harder, dependent on facts unknown. Nice to see you dropped the middle school, sandbox snark though.

Well "Doc", can you take us Back to the Future so we can redo the process we are supposed to be trusting? The presnt state of affairs has most everyone nervous about the future. Except for you. You seem content with mediocrity.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

It’s not one game it’s UMD + TCU + vcu + St. Bonaventure combined. In those games, we were only competitive against Bona. We had zero chance against the other three teams.

So I posted earlier, I have concerns about any team that has a legit big on it’s roster and our ability to look competitive against any of them. They need to prove they can win against at least some of those teams.

Also, we had bad games against at least 3 or 4 early season teams as well, so it’s not completely isolated.

Don't forget the luckbox win over Navy to start the year.

 

[Cedric Dempsey]

Well "Doc", can you take us Back to the Future so we can redo the process we are supposed to be trusting? The presnt state of affairs has most everyone nervous about the future. Except for you. You seem content with mediocrity.

I see what you did there. You are right, I'm not concerned about the future and I trust a process. If others want to panic because it's not happening fast enough for their taste then so be it. Being nervous and worrying does not work in my business. I like the coach, the culture he's building, A-10 conference, ticket prices, band and your institution.

 

[By George.]

For me, the only real disappointing game we've had this season was the St. Bonaventure home loss. Would I loved to have beaten vcu? Yes. Would I loved to have it been closer in a loss? Yes. But they are also built explicitly in a way that makes playing them tough for this team.

The Bonaventure game is a little different. We were up by 15. They went zone. And I feel like there were things we could have done to mitigate what they were doing and we just didn't do anything. I'm sure everyone would love to have that game back, but since they blew that one now they've got to find a way to beat URI and SLU to salvage any faith in this season (and that's going to be a tough feat).

If only you were at the TCU game, what a nightmare.

 

[GSII]

I see what you did there. You are right, I'm not concerned about the future and I trust a process. If others want to panic because it's not happening fast enough for their taste then so be it. Being nervous and worrying does not work in my business. I like the coach, the culture he's building, A-10 conference, ticket prices, band and your institution.

Who is nervous and worrrying? Frustrated and dissapointed, yes.

It's plain as day Lil Dave can't recruit and has hit his ceiling in this conference. Mark my words, he will never get an at large or win this conf tourney staying on current recruiting trajectory.

 

[ephoops]

Who is nervous and worrrying? Frustrated and dissapointed, yes.

It's plain as day Lil Dave can't recruit and has hit his ceiling in this conference. Mark my words, he will never get an at large or win this conf tourney staying on current recruiting trajectory.

What's with the "Lil Dave" ? You sound like a four year old.

 

[gmujim92]

What's with the "Lil Dave" ? You sound like a four year old.

You’re giving him too much credit. Terrible twos at best.

 

[gmubrian]

To get back to talking about the game itself, would it be accurate to say that when La Salle went to zone, it seemed to cause us the usual fits/scoring drought we have seen to date. Then we seemed to start scoring again, and if I remember correctly, it seemed to correlate with us finally starting to make some threes. Is that accurate? Did I miss some other sort of adjustment we made (I don't recall seeing us become extremely successful at driving to the basket)? Was just wondering if the fact that we seemed to handle their zone a sign of hope that it doesn't have to be our kryptonite, or am I being too naive and/or giving Lasalle's zone too much credit?

 

[GMUgemini]

To get back to talking about the game itself, would it be accurate to say that when La Salle went to zone, it seemed to cause us the usual fits/scoring drought we have seen to date. Then we seemed to start scoring again, and if I remember correctly, it seemed to correlate with us finally starting to make some threes. Is that accurate? Did I miss some other sort of adjustment we made (I don't recall seeing us become extremely successful at driving to the basket)? Was just wondering if the fact that we seemed to handle their zone a sign of hope that it doesn't have to be our kryptonite, or am I being too naive and/or giving Lasalle's zone too much credit?

It did slow us down. But I also remember us being able to drive against their guards and get into the paint, something we couldn’t do against Bona.

We also scored a few transition baskets off La Salle turnovers/misses. XJ went coast to coast once.

It seems to me that our best strategy to beat a zone is to try to make sure they can’t set up in one...

 

[FreeGunston12]

It did slow us down. But I also remember us being able to drive against their guards and get into the paint, something we couldn’t do against Bona.

We also scored a few transition baskets off La Salle turnovers/misses. XJ went coast to coast once.

It seems to me that our best strategy to beat a zone is to try to make sure they can’t set up in one...

Yeah. I agree and think we owe a lot of that win to points in transition/ off turnovers

 

[psyclone]

Yeah. I agree and think we owe a lot of that win to points in transition/ off turnovers

In fact, we did score 22 pts off of turnovers (vs 11 that they scored off of Mason turnovers).
https://gomason.com/sports/mens-basketball/stats/2019-20/la-salle/boxscore/10541

 

[GSII]

What's with the "Lil Dave" ? You sound like a four year old.

Ooops...did the truth hurt, ehoops?

"Lil" in this context refers to David Paulsen and his miracle 5 year run here at Mason as he tries to carry our program over the hill. Not the first time we've put a tag on people here. Gmujim (I think) used to call Brad Edwards, Big Balls Brad. I forget why. Probably a Redskins fan.

I also casted Paul Hewitt as "The Virus", which depicted the poisoning and demise of our beloved program by some guy dressed up as a bball coach.

But yea, where just a bunch of little kids on here having fun.

 

[GSII]

What's with the "Lil Dave" ? You sound like a four year old.

HIS NAME IS....LIL DAVE.