The Official Dave Paulsen and Brad Edwards Speculation Thread

[tblack33]

I say let him work his final year and say goodbye. In the meantime...make your target list for the next coach.

It's not like we are a good or "top" A-10 program.....and trying to keep a pipeline open or hold on to prestige.

A start over is a start over.

Agree with the sentiment that a start over is a start over, I’d just rather do it after a season where from a roster management perspective it makes sense. A lot of turnover after this year, with only two rising seniors. Rather bring a new guy in to get started now and to blunt the inevitable transfers out that will come with a new coaching staff.

 

[gmujim92]

Agree with the sentiment that a start over is a start over, I’d just rather do it after a season where from a roster management perspective it makes sense. A lot of turnover after this year, with only two rising seniors. Rather bring a new guy in to get started now and to blunt the inevitable transfers out that will come with a new coaching staff.

Agreed. Everything is aligned for this to be the put up or shut up year. Which, because we’re talking about Mason, most likely means we’ll do just well enough for the admin to extend him 2-3 years but still be nowhere near relevant nationally.

 

[GMUgemini]

Agreed. Everything is aligned for this to be the put up or shut up year. Which, because we’re talking about Mason, most likely means we’ll do just well enough for the admin to extend him 2-3 years but still be nowhere near relevant nationally.

Dont you think this has a lot to do with the fact that almost 80% of our budget comes from student athletic fees? Like Brad Edwards doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would be Ok with a 16-15 record every year, but because we have no fans, no donors, and no scrutiny from the media there really is no push from higher up (read: the president) for anything to change.

Will be interesting to see if Washington cares enough to put feet to the fire here.

 

[tblack33]

Dont you think this has a lot to do with the fact that almost 80% of our budget comes from student athletic fees? Like Brad Edwards doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would be Ok with a 16-15 record every year, but because we have no fans, no donors, and no scrutiny from the media there really is no push from higher up (read: the president) for anything to change.

Will be interesting to see if Washington cares enough to put feet to the fire here.

I don’t think that Washington (or most presidents that will ever come to mason) will ever be so interested to hold a coach to the fire for performance. I think it will come down to how hard is Brad willing to push for a head coaching change, and is Washington open to being influenced by the AD on making a change. Would be a great chance for Washington to start his new minority hiring initiative in arguably the highest profile job at Mason.

 

[tblack33]

Dont you think this has a lot to do with the fact that almost 80% of our budget comes from student athletic fees? Like Brad Edwards doesn’t strike me as the type of person who would be Ok with a 16-15 record every year, but because we have no fans, no donors, and no scrutiny from the media there really is no push from higher up (read: the president) for anything to change.

Will be interesting to see if Washington cares enough to put feet to the fire here.

Basically, if Brad doesn’t approach Washington pushing for a change, there’s a 0% chance it happens.

 

[Patriotsince81]

Simply put we are mired in mediocrity. Two more years of DP, then a few years for a new coach to build. We may be competitive in 5 - 6 years barring a miracle.

 

[By George.]

That's a good question, and I don't know if the Giant Killer people know the answer -- was Jared ever healthy? Was he healthy at the start of the year?

No, he wasn’t.

 

[GMUgemini]

I don’t think that Washington (or most presidents that will ever come to mason) will ever be so interested to hold a coach to the fire for performance. I think it will come down to how hard is Brad willing to push for a head coaching change, and is Washington open to being influenced by the AD on making a change. Would be a great chance for Washington to start his new minority hiring initiative in arguably the highest profile job at Mason.

I get that, but also we're spending $30 million a year on athletics, the vast majority of which is undergraduate subsidized ($18.7 million in student fees, another $6 million in school funds), and any president who comes to Mason would be remiss if they didn't take a hard look at how that money was spent (including the coaches on our payroll).

 

[Patriot8]

Not joking, I would rather Hewitt. Paulsen is so average it’s discouraging.

Hewitt sucked as a coach, but at least he was a pretty good recruiter. Maybe his players could carry the team despite his poor coaching ability.

You bored or something?

 

[Falco]

You bored or something?

Yes. I deleted the second after I posted it.

 

[Falco]

I miss the glory days of Mason basketball. My friends and I were just talking about how we took it for granted.

My friend made a good point I never thought of before. We joined the A10 in a rebuilding year. I don’t blame the administration for making the move, but it was unfortunate timing. Very competitive A10 + we just graduated one of Mason’s best teams ever.

 

[GMUgemini]

I wouldn't exactly call that a rebuilding roster: You had Bryon Allen (Sr), Sherrod Wright (Sr), Erik Copes (Jr), Johnn Williams (Sr), and Corey Edwards (Jr) along with Patrick Holloway, Marquise Moore, Marko Gujanicic, Trey Porter, and Jalen Jenkins as kind of under classmen/bench players. A better coach wins more than 11 games with that roster certainly could feast on the bottom of the conference, which wasn't that great (Duquense 13-17; URI 14-18; Fordham 10-21 -- we lost to Fordham twice that year for gods sake!).

Give me a team that competes hard and loses than one that does stupid crap like stomping on players after fouling them and giving them 6 FTs in a row.

 

[Falco]

I wouldn't exactly call that a rebuilding roster: You had Bryon Allen (Sr), Sherrod Wright (Sr), Erik Copes (Jr), Johnn Williams (Sr), and Corey Edwards (Jr) along with Patrick Holloway, Marquise Moore, Marko Gujanicic, Trey Porter, and Jalen Jenkins as kind of under classmen/bench players. A better coach wins more than 11 games with that roster certainly could feast on the bottom of the conference, which wasn't that great (Duquense 13-17; URI 14-18; Fordham 10-21 -- we lost to Fordham twice that year for gods sake!).

Give me a team that competes hard and loses than one that does stupid crap like stomping on players after fouling them and giving them 6 FTs in a row.

Sure call it “reloading” but they had to replace the all the players that brought them to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. Plus 6 A10 teams made the tournament that year. Paulsen had similar results in a way worse A10.

My post is in no way of defending Hewitt. My point is, if Hewitt wasn’t good enough neither is Paulsen. Time to move on!

 

[mkaufman1]

It was halfway of the slow burn Hewitt had of anything prior built. The team should have been a bit better but alas, they weren’t. I guess we can be thankful they had a lot of close losses instead of close wins. Close wins could have extended Hewitt.

Sadly, neither of them are good enough for the a10, but I’m not convinced the folks who make decisions agree.

 

[Falco]

It was halfway of the slow burn Hewitt had of anything prior built. The team should have been a bit better but alas, they weren’t. I guess we can be thankful they had a lot of close losses instead of close wins. Close wins could have extended Hewitt.

Sadly, neither of them are good enough for the a10, but I’m not convinced the folks who make decisions agree.

Unfortunately I agree. I fear the longer Mason waits to move on from Paulsen, the harder it will become to rebuild the program.

 

[Pablo]

Sadly, neither of them are good enough for the a10, but I’m not convinced the folks who make decisions agree.

I believe it's reasonable to expect the President and the AD to understand that this is a deep and veteran team; and the expectations should be for a successful season. IMO, the issue is how do you define successful for a program that hasn't been in the NCAA tourney or the NIT since 2011?

 

[GMUgemini]

I believe it's reasonable to expect the President and the AD to understand that this is a deep and veteran team; and the expectations should be for a successful season. IMO, the issue is how do you define successful for a program that hasn't been in the NCAA tourney or the NIT since 2011?

This question is further compounded by the circumstances of the season.

Speaking of NIT, have we heard any plans for the NCAA staging it this year?

 

[GMUgemini]

Sure call it “reloading” but they had to replace the all the players that brought them to the 2nd round of the NCAA tournament. Plus 6 A10 teams made the tournament that year. Paulsen had similar results in a way worse A10.

My post is in no way of defending Hewitt. My point is, if Hewitt wasn’t good enough neither is Paulsen. Time to move on!

I mean, sure, losing Mike Moe, Andre, and Pearson is tough, but I'm not even talking about the losses to the top half of the conference.

No excuse to be losing games against Iona, South Florida, Princeton, ODU, a bad Oregon State team, and FORDHAM TWICE! when you've got Bryon Allen and Sherrod Wright in your backcourt and a dominant rebounder like Shevon Thompson in the frontcourt. Hell, Marquise was averaging almost 3 assists per game his freshman year. Patrick Holloway shot 41% from 3 that year. Jalen was averaging 7 and 6 playing about 20 mpg.

The AD is in a tough spot with Paulsen because we were moving up in the standings (12th to 7th to 5th to 5th) before last season and it is true that the last two seasons had some pretty major injuries to some really important players, so it's hard to say exactly how much better either of the last two seasons would have been if everyone had stayed healthy.

I think you can objectively say that Paulsen has had a terrible time recruiting bigs to this team. You could also say he took too many questionable players early on to fill out rosters and then maybe got too cautious later (particularly when we had 9 scholarship players on the team) after they all transferred out. I think you could say he's struggled to teach (or maybe it's not teach, but design) an offense that adheres to his stated desired offensive philosophy; and I think you could say he's also had a hard time adjusting his defensive philosophy to match the players he has (meaning, his old way of playing solid position defense and rebounding the misses has not worked without actual rebounding bigs on the team).

Sounds like he's going to get this season and probably next to show he's gotten these things figured out. If we lose out on getting Skinn because we waited too long, I'll be pissed (stick around at Seton Hall two more years!).

 

[mkaufman1]

I believe it's reasonable to expect the President and the AD to understand that this is a deep and veteran team; and the expectations should be for a successful season. IMO, the issue is how do you define successful for a program that hasn't been in the NCAA tourney or the NIT since 2011?

yeah that’s what we are all afraid of. “6th place and 10-8, success! Here’s 3 years!”

Not what I’d want. But no clue what the bar is for “success” considering what I’ve heard

Unfortunately I agree. I fear the longer Mason waits to move on from Paulsen, the harder it will become to rebuild the program.

Get a young energetic recruiter who builds on what they have to work with already, get some transfers to bridge talent gaps, and someone can turn it around in a few years. it’s certainly easier to sell things now than 5 years ago in terms of facilities as an example.

But don’t hold your breath with this happening.

 

[tblack33]

Darrell Green on the radio at 11, what’re the odds he mentions George Mason ?