The Official Fire Dave Paulsen Thread

[tblack33]

Everyone needs to know their role. Sammy Hernandez left and he went to a final four with us. But he had a role. Currently it seems like everyone wants a role and everyone has to play right away. Nah bruh, you ain't that good yet. DP needs to lock down some horses. There is no other way about it.

Side note- you should really stop calling the players horses. I get it as a one off, or quoting the coach but i've just read through multiple threads where you are referring our players as horses in every single post and it's really weird.

 

[GSII]

Side note- you should really stop calling the players horses. I get it as a one off, or quoting the coach but i've just read through multiple threads where you are referring our players as horses in every single post and it's really weird.

Impossible that I would reference our current players as "horses" we have mostly ponies. Try and keep up.

 

[tblack33]

Impossible that I would reference our current players as "horses" we have mostly ponies. Try and keep up.

Okay well then you should stop referencing 18-22 year olds as horses, it's just weird. Keep your bronie fetishes to your other forums.

 

[GSII]

Okay well then you should stop referencing 18-22 year olds as horses, it's just weird. Keep your bronie fetishes to your other forums.

Does anyone else.eh...nevermind.

 

[gmutom]

I don’t know about starting Hartwell yet. He showed he can shoot and dish, but as for needing to create his own shot or get inside and finish we haven’t seen that yet.

Funnily enough, Hartwell is the player I am least worried about. He played with a confidence and swagger you rarely see in a freshmen. Sure, he makes the typical rookie mistakes and sometimes is a little heavy on the gas pedal, but I'd much rather have to reign a player in than push him to be assertive.

The weakness in his game right now (height notwithstanding) is his floater, and I actually think that will become a valuable weapon once the game slows down — or he slows down — just a little bit. If he can ever add that floater to his 3-point shooting and mid-range jumper, we could be looking at a 3-year starter at PG. One thing I do know for certain is nobody with the possible exception of Miller is going to work harder in the offseason.

 

[Herndon]

You think Mar is going to be as bad as last year, don’t you? If he is, he won’t play 30 minutes per game. I think we are all being optimistic that he can shake off whatever was going on with him at the start of the year.

I don’t know about starting Hartwell yet. He showed he can shoot and dish, but as for needing to create his own shot or get inside and finish we haven’t seen that yet. I’m not penciling him in for starters minutes just yet. Although, if Mar still can’t score, we might go like for like and have Hartwell, Kier, Greene, Miller, Calixte starting, which is essentially the lineup we had this year size for size.

I don’t know. I just hope Paulsen doesn’t have his blinders on about Mar. if he’s not there next year he’s not there. Let him come off the bench to play defense until he can show he can make some shots.

FULLY agreed with all of this. I feel confident in Hartwell, but I hear what you're saying about creating his own shot. I just know that most guys progres most between freshman and sophomore years (insert Mar caveat here), so I'm expecting him to be like a 9-10 PPG and 3-4 APG guy next year that shoots a higher percentage than Otis did this year from outside. So, a small step back from Otis this year, but not a huge hit.

 

[gmubrian]

Impossible that I would reference our current players as "horses" we have mostly ponies. Try and keep up.

My horses are offended when you compare the players to them. They are bigger in every way, they are faster and can probably shoot almost as well. My miniature pony doesn’t have the height, but is faster, has more weight and is deceptively athletic.

 

[Mason2005]

Starting lineup next season.

6'7 Daddy
6'6 Miller
6'7 Mar
6'7 Wilson
6'8 Calixte

Can anyone in the A10 hang with that length?

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

 

[dr. gunnie]

Starting lineup next season.

6'7 Daddy
6'6 Miller
6'7 Mar
6'7 Wilson
6'8 Calixte

Can anyone in the A10 hang with that length?

Sent from my XT1575 using Tapatalk

Somewhere Paul Hewitt is fist pumping.

 

[gmujim92]

Somewhere Paul Hewitt is fist pumping.

Yanking the crank. Vigorously.

 

[Five Two]

My horses are offended when you compare the players to them. They are bigger in every way, they are faster and can probably shoot almost as well. My miniature pony doesn’t have the height, but is faster, has more weight and is deceptively athletic.

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fXy0tZ5eCG4

 

[FreeGunston12]

Alternatively, they have one of the very best coaches in the country.

Like, outliers exist. You can have an non-duplicable asset like McKillop, and you can waste money as well, but according to GMUBrien's numbers above, there's a correlation coefficient of .44, which is moderately strong.

Yes, it's only one data piece, and yes, @GSII is right that you'd need to normalize the data for accounting practices, but it's a pretty telling data.

Spending isn't the ONLY thing, but it's certainly an important thing.

Which comes first, spending or success? Honestly curious because correlation does not equal causation. And if a program is successful, their spending is likely to go up as they will have to pay their coaches to retain them. Also, they will have to pay incentives. Some of those incentives can be pretty large, so how do we account for this in our analysis? Just trying to understand better. Thanks.

 

[Petey Buckets]

This team has talent....anyone who says any different is just a troll or doesn't know a thing about basketball. That being said we are short and not terribly explosive across the board. Both of those issue need to be addressed if we are to make the next step. Also I would make the case that DP is good basketball coach and that the team has in some ways over achieved under his leadership. In other words, we finished 5th in the league.....do most of the posters on these boards think we have the 5th most talented roster in the league?

We have the talent for a different system. I’m not saying we don’t have talent, but with our size discrepancies with other teams in the league, you kind of have to play a run-and-gun style that we don’t. We had some stretches (the most recent I can think of being @GW) when we were producing steals and points at will. We built a huge lead doing that.

Been lurking on this thread for a while (since the last time I posted on it I guess) and these two quotes are basically where I'm at. Paulsen has overachieved with lesser talent in his time here. I think that's fairly obvious and would have a hard time understanding a counterargument. Plenty of rosters around the A10 have more talent, size, athleticism, etc. It's encouraging that Paulsen can get the most out of talent that's just a notch below, but frustrating that he still has to. Travis Ford at SLU is the polar opposite - a Hewitt type who can recruit his tits off but underachieves with the talent he puts on the floor. SLU had some turbulence this season but it's still criminal that *that* roster finished 10-8 in a bad A10.

I've been on record many times saying we don't play what anybody would call "small-ball" - we still play through the post, don't run a lot on the break, play a pack-line defense, etc. The thing I get stuck on is how we've been such a bad 3 point shooting team - you can't really run *any* effective system in today's game when you don't have shooting. We've beaten the big men issue to death, but we don't talk too much about shooting. Here's Bucknell's 3p% from his last five seasons there:

38.1%
39%
35.8%
38.4%
40%

That's great! But at Mason we've gone 33% and 32.6% the last two seasons, and that's with the small lineup. Good shooting can cover for a ton of crap - we're viewing the Paulsen era much differently if his teams are shooting like, 37% from deep during his time here instead. Next time I get in front of him I'll probably show him this stat and ask him what he attributes it to. It's absolutely hamstrung his ability to run anything effectively.

Love the Daddy signing - don't love that we're his only offer, but he's an explosive athlete who looks like he'll fit in at this level. That's a step in a great direction. Otherwise, I'm hoping we have a shooting renaissance next season - Miller, Greene, Boyd, and Hartwell have good looking strokes, while Mar, Kier, and JDS are kind of goofy but could be effective. I don't know who the knockdown shooter is out of that group but hopefully someone emerges, and either Daddy or Xavier can contribute off the bench.

Athletes and shooting, man. For as much time as we spend dissecting everything it's kind of simple at the end of the day.

 

[Herndon]

Which comes first, spending or success? Honestly curious because correlation does not equal causation. And if a program is successful, their spending is likely to go up as they will have to pay their coaches to retain them. Also, they will have to pay incentives. Some of those incentives can be pretty large, so how do we account for this in our analysis? Just trying to understand better. Thanks.

That's a fantastic question.

@gmubrian is that data available in years past? it'd be nice to do like a 10 year running analysis

 

[GMUgemini]

huh? This is budget vs conference results for the A10

Whoops. Deleting.

Oh, I see what happened, I was responding to Petey's stats and for some reason thought you were asking for our previous years...suffice it to say, the last time we had a good shooting team was in 2011 (don't even look at the 2016 team -- ouch it's bad).

 

[GMUgemini]

That's a fantastic question.

@gmubrian is that data available in years past? it'd be nice to do like a 10 year running analysis

Don't know the basketball specific stats, but USA Today's database gives you a decent idea of overall AD spending:

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

One of the things you can see if the big jump in rights and licensing fees in 2015. 2017 also was by far our best year for contributions (not sure what was going on in 2014, other than joining the A10?). Given the A10's NCAA tournament distribution system, we really need to break through and make the tournament.

 

[ephoops]

Don't know the basketball specific stats, but USA Today's database gives you a decent idea of overall AD spending:

https://sports.usatoday.com/ncaa/finances/

One of the things you can see if the big jump in rights and licensing fees in 2015. 2017 also was by far our best year for contributions (not sure what was going on in 2014, other than joining the A10?). Given the A10's NCAA tournament distribution system, we really need to break through and make the tournament.

It looks like the 102 schools that spend more than Mason all have football programs.

 

[GMUgemini]

It looks like the 102 schools that spend more than Mason all have football programs.

Interesting analysis. I did spot vcu about 20 spots ahead of us, but they look to be the only exception. Also, to be fair, this is only public schools, so teams like Marquette, Seton Hall, Creighton, SLU, St. Joes, or St. Bonaventure (none of whom still field football teams) aren't listed.

 

[gmubrian]

That's a fantastic question.

@gmubrian is that data available in years past? it'd be nice to do like a 10 year running analysis

Yes, gunston's point is good. I had meant to point out that flaw in my post, that I was using the most recent years funding to compare the past 10 years performance. I theorize that performance should trail funding a little bit if the funding is the cause. For example, if a school spends X more dollars this year, it probably will not affect their results for at least a year, probably more like 2-4 years later. Different expenditures would, obviously have longer lead times. Capital improvements would likely take longer to show up in the results.

If I can find some reasonable source of historical spending for the programs, I'll try to make a meaningful update to my spreadsheet.

 

[gmubrian]

Interesting analysis. I did spot vcu about 20 spots ahead of us, but they look to be the only exception. Also, to be fair, this is only public schools, so teams like Marquette, Seton Hall, Creighton, SLU, St. Joes, or St. Bonaventure (none of whom still field football teams) aren't listed.

So is the fact that our spending by the AD overall is relatively high compared to other non-football schools, but our spending within the A10 on basketball is relatively low a sign that we are funding too many sports? I think you know my (and Five-Two's) opinion on that.