Mason’s A-10 Finish

[sleeperpick]

I mean exactly what I said. Mar didn’t belong on the court and grayer got shafted and put in the dog house.

All the experts say AJ can’t play the 4 so who exactly could replace mar? Miller is redshirted mind you so don’t say his name.

Grayer can’t play the best defense but is much better offensively than Mar and can easily play the 4 on offense and somewhat on defense. Remember when he did that his first three seasons at times?

 

[GMUgemini]

I mean exactly what I said. Mar didn’t belong on the court and grayer got shafted and put in the dog house.

All the experts say AJ can’t play the 4 so who exactly could replace mar? Miller is redshirted mind you so don’t say his name.

Grayer can’t play the best defense but is much better offensively than Mar and can easily play the 4 on offense and somewhat on defense. Remember when he did that his first three seasons at times?

They both started together against Penn...he had a whole 5 points.

Greene took Grayer’s minutes. Boyd came in and played the 4 spelling Mar.

So you have no idea what you are talking about, which we all knew to begin with.

 

[sleeperpick]

They both started together against Penn...he had a whole 5 points.

Greene took Grayer’s minutes. Boyd came in and played the 4 spelling Mar.

So you have no idea what you are talking about, which we all knew to begin with.

Wait a minute..... is grayer not like 2-3 inches bigger than boyd lol?

Greene played the 3. Nobody has disagreed with you on that. But as he played better than grayer and others.... grayer played better than mar and had his minutes at the 4 taken away completely.

If you seriously think grayer could not play the 4 in our shitty offense than you are truly as dumb as I’ve mentally prepared you to be.

 

[sleeperpick]

Anyway anyone with a brain saw how mismanaged and underperforming the team was last year.

Hopefully this years better but I’m worried it might be worse.

 

[FreeGunston12]

I do think everyone in the program acknowledged they screwed up the early season. But it’s not entirely Paulsen’s fault that both Mar and Otis forgot how to hit a shot and Grayer decided to basically quit the team (or was hurt).

He can definitely be blamed for planting Calixte on the bench and playing Reuter way too much, though.

So many things went wrong last year. I’m not placing all of them on DP. Some of them are just the unfortunate reality of the state of the program right now.

I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve gone through a strange cycle of feeling terrible about last season, feeling okay about it, and now feeling terrible about it again. I guess it all depends what we take from it to improve moving forward. Seems like DP’s big takeaway is that we need to be more athletic moving forward. I hope he also takes a hard look at his offensive sets.

 

[GMUgemini]

Wait a minute..... is grayer not like 2-3 inches bigger than boyd lol?

Greene played the 3. Nobody has disagreed with you on that. But as he played better than grayer and others.... grayer played better than mar and had his minutes at the 4 taken away completely.

If you seriously think grayer could not play the 4 in our shitty offense than you are truly as dumb as I’ve mentally prepared you to be.

If Grayer wasn't defending at half speed, yes, he was defending the 4 two years ago...but he was playing at half speed. We had this conversation early in the season, if you remember, when you told me Grayer was never a good defender? He had very little explosion, and his past ability to come in from behind and block shots was completely absent, so why play him at the four when Boyd is stronger than him and actually could hold his own against bigger players?

Here's what happened: against Penn, Grayer picked up two fouls within the first 1:30 of the first half and wound up sitting for most of it.

Against America, he played 23 minutes to Mar's 15 and they started together (so your narrative that Mar was stealing Grayer's minutes is incredibly specious).

Against Georgia Southern, Grayer played 31 minutes to Mar's 13 (again, they started together). And, sure, he scored a bunch of points, but we gave up a layup line on the other side (64 points in the second half).

They started together against Southern (Grayer played 27 minutes), against against NC Central (Grayer played 23 minutes), against Cincinnati (Grayer played 27 minutes). He started over Mar against Baylor (Mar only played 9 minutes against Baylor -- oh, look at that, Grayer had 2 points against Baylor, going 0-4 from the floor). He was shut down after that.

In every game other than Penn when he was saddled with foul trouble for 19 minutes, he played more minutes than Mar (sometimes significantly), and they played together more often than they did not (other than Baylor when Grayer started and Mar started on the bench). So, the narrative that Grayer just couldn't find the floor because Paulsen put him in the doghouse and was riding Mar instead doesn't make sense. More likely, Paulsen was trying to figure out a rotation where we wouldn't leak tons of points off layups.

 

[Herndon]

Wait a minute..... is grayer not like 2-3 inches bigger than boyd lol?

Greene played the 3. Nobody has disagreed with you on that. But as he played better than grayer and others.... grayer played better than mar and had his minutes at the 4 taken away completely.

If you seriously think grayer could not play the 4 in our shitty offense than you are truly as dumb as I’ve mentally prepared you to be.

I like that you're passionate about Mason hoops. That's awesome! I also understand you're a young guy, and at the stage in life where you have more balls than brains. That's also awesome!

That said, as you continue in life, you'll find that passion is great, but it's even better when supported by facts.

The facts are that Mason had the 6th best offense in the A10 this year, per kenpom. That's slightly above average (or, in other words "not shitty").

You can say that you don't enjoy the offense. You can say that it could be better. Those are valid opinions, but to say that it was "shitty" when it was objectively "not shitty" makes you seem driven more by emotion than truth, and people will not take what you have to say seriously.

 

[sleeperpick]

I like that you're passionate about Mason hoops. That's awesome! I also understand you're a young guy, and at the stage in life where you have more balls than brains. That's also awesome!

That said, as you continue in life, you'll find that passion is great, but it's even better when supported by facts.

The facts are that Mason had the 6th best offense in the A10 this year, per kenpom. That's slightly above average (or, in other words "not shitty").

You can say that you don't enjoy the offense. You can say that it could be better. Those are valid opinions, but to say that it was "shitty" when it was objectively "not shitty" makes you seem driven more by emotion than truth, and people will not take what you have to say seriously.

173rd in the country Herndon. That’s shitty for a team that was supposed to be the best team in the A10 in our coaches eyes, fans eyes and that of the rest of the league.

Whoa 6th in the A10 in a down year. I better go send paulsen a gift certificate to a massage parlor because I’m so proud of his coaching

 

[FreeGunston12]

I like that you're passionate about Mason hoops. That's awesome! I also understand you're a young guy, and at the stage in life where you have more balls than brains. That's also awesome!

That said, as you continue in life, you'll find that passion is great, but it's even better when supported by facts.

The facts are that Mason had the 6th best offense in the A10 this year, per kenpom. That's slightly above average (or, in other words "not shitty").

You can say that you don't enjoy the offense. You can say that it could be better. Those are valid opinions, but to say that it was "shitty" when it was objectively "not shitty" makes you seem driven more by emotion than truth, and people will not take what you have to say seriously.

I’ll jump in on this. Not that I’m so eager to defend sleeperpick, but I have stated many times (based on the ole eye test) that the offensive design is bad. As he just beat me to point out, we noticed you selected conference stats. Just because we play in a conference with a lot of inefficient offenses doesn’t mean it’s okay to have one ourselves.

We also finished 235th in assist-to-turnover ratio. 249th in assists per possession. 275th in assists per field goal made.

 

[GMUgemini]

173rd in the country Herndon. That’s shitty for a team that was supposed to be the best team in the A10 in our coaches eyes, fans eyes and that of the rest of the league.

Whoa 6th in the A10 in a down year. I better go send paulsen a gift certificate to a massage parlor because I’m so proud of his coaching

About 50th percentile...

But one could argue how much of that was the design of the offense and how much of that were the players just not hitting their shots (missing open layups, missing wide open shots from 3, passing up open shots, etc.) I think there was a little bit of both, to be honest, but I also think we ran a triple weave partly due to the limitations of our players as well.

 

[Herndon]

173rd in the country Herndon. That’s shitty for a team that was supposed to be the best team in the A10 in our coaches eyes, fans eyes and that of the rest of the league.

Whoa 6th in the A10 in a down year. I better go send paulsen a gift certificate to a massage parlor because I’m so proud of his coaching

173 in the country, out of 353, or almost exactly slam damn average. Again, if slightly above average is shitty, than most teams are shitty.

You can talk about coulda-woulda-supposedto's, but what DID happen is that the offense eas "alright, nothing special, nothing awful", just like the team.

Perhaps you believe that Mason is entitled to be the best in the conference (probably because we spend so much on the program, giving the coaching staff every advantage vis a vis the rest of the conference), and that unless you win the conference, you are shitty.

I don't subscribe to that notion. Average is not shitty. Average is average. Shitty is shitty.

There is a difference.

 

[Herndon]

About 50th percentile...

But one could argue how much of that was the design of the offense and how much of that were the players just not hitting their shots (missing open layups, missing wide open shots from 3, passing up open shots, etc.) I think there was a little bit of both, to be honest, but I also think we ran a triple weave partly due to the limitations of our players as well.

Our players limitations are Paulsen's responsibility, he recruited them.

It's on him to find a way to produce an effective offense, either by system or recruiting, or some combination thereof.

He did that okay this year. Not great not awful.

 

[Herndon]

I’ll jump in on this. Not that I’m so eager to defend sleeperpick, but I have stated many times (based on the ole eye test) that the offensive design is bad. As he just beat me to point out, we noticed you selected conference stats. Just because we play in a conference with a lot of inefficient offenses doesn’t mean it’s okay to have one ourselves.

I used conference stats because they compare against other teams that played the same defenses as Mason.

And, in the A10, the offense was slightly above average.

But fair enough. Perhaps not using conference stats, a different picture is painted.

Nationally the offense was.......slightly above average.

The numbers are what the are. The eyeball test is fine when A. The numbers are inconclusive (they're not) and B. The eyeballs in question know what to look for (sleeperpick's do not)

 

[sleeperpick]

I used conference stats because they compare against other teams that played the same defenses as Mason.

And, in the A10, the offense was slightly above average.

But fair enough. Perhaps not using conference stats, a different picture is painted.

Nationally the offense was.......slightly above average.

The numbers are what the are. The eyeball test is fine when A. The numbers are inconclusive (they're not) and B. The eyeballs in question know what to look for (sleeperpick's do not)

Would love to watch a game with you and see who’s eyeballs can spot what. Do you actually watch the game or do you play what’s in the popcorn with paulsen the whole time? I wish we had hired Christian. Your alma mater GW will be better than us in 3 years for sure. Maybe 2

Edit I do think you have a good basketball eye. I just know the basketball you have an eye for died in 2005. We are not playing the same game anymore. You and others on here just don’t get that and very clearly neither does some of our coaching staff

 

[FreeGunston12]

I used conference stats because they compare against other teams that played the same defenses as Mason.

And, in the A10, the offense was slightly above average.

But fair enough. Perhaps not using conference stats, a different picture is painted.

Nationally the offense was.......slightly above average.

The numbers are what the are. The eyeball test is fine when A. The numbers are inconclusive (they're not) and B. The eyeballs in question know what to look for (sleeperpick's do not)

I know I edited my post after this to include the assist/turnover stats. What would you say about those numbers? Inconclusive? Seems to suggest to me, especially the assists per field goal made, that the offense was not effective in creating points. That points came from individual efforts or in transition.

 

[Herndon]

Would love to watch a game with you and see who’s eyeballs can spot what. Do you actually watch the game or do you play what’s in the popcorn with paulsen the whole time? I wish we had hired Christian. Your alma mater GW will be better than us in 3 years for sure. Maybe 2

Maybe, who knows? I can't see the future. But I CAN see the past, and this past year, regardless of what you think you see, the offense (and team) was OK. Not great, not shitty.

I genuinely have a hard time understanding what part of "after 33 games of a season, you are what you have proven yourself to be", and what GMU was this year was "slightly above average"

 

[sleeperpick]

Maybe, who knows? I can't see the future. But I CAN see the past, and this past year, regardless of what you think you see, the offense (and team) was OK. Not great, not shitty.

I genuinely have a hard time understanding what part of "after 33 games of a season, you are what you have proven yourself to be", and what GMU was this year was "slightly above average"

Semantics. We weren’t good at either offense or defense. If you are happy with the best roster in 4 years being not good than that shows you are a better fan than me

 

[Herndon]

I know I edited my post after this to include the assist/turnover stats. What would you say about those numbers? Inconclusive? Seems to suggest to me, especially the assists per field goal made, that the offense was not effective in creating points. That points came from individual efforts or in transition.

I would say that the point of an offense is to create points. Similar to what I said to GMUGemini above, if the faults of the players are Paulsen's responsibility, so are the ability of the players. If he is recruiting players good enough to get buckets at relatively efficient level, and the offense puts them in position to take dudes individually, then the offense is relatively good at doing it's job.

By comparison, nobody would say the Rockets have a bad offense, but they are 28th in the NBA in assists. Similarly, nobody is scared of the Wizards, but they are 5th in the league in assists.

Assists are GREAT if they result in effective offense. If they do not, they're not. Assists are like steals. They can be a great indicator of a successful system, provided the system is set up to generate them.

UVA gets almost no steals, but they play decent defense, fair?

That said, I GENUINELY appreciate the research, and think that THIS is the way to have good, productive decisions. Good post!

 

[Herndon]

Semantics. We weren’t good at either offense or defense. If you are happy with the best roster in 4 years being not good than that shows you are a better fan than me

I would NEVER say I was a better fan than you. You seem to deeply care, and I think that makes you an awesome fan.

 

[sleeperpick]

I would NEVER say I was a better fan than you. You seem to deeply care, and I think that makes you an awesome fan.

By accepting this mediocrity (being kind with that word) year 4, you are a better fan than me lol. You don’t have to say it. I will