I don't know where else to vent this, so I'll put it here. I'm watching Wichita State play Tennessee on national TV right now and feeling so pissed off. I don't know how I stayed positive for so long, but I am so grouchy about Mason ball right now.
WSU is struggling a little with Tennessee, but still ahead and still ranked number 8 and 12 in the freaking country. vcu was a ranked program and is still getting votes. Butler isn't having their best year, but certainly had sustained success and you can believe they'll be back. Mason and Wichita State were "growing up" at the exact same time. vcu and Butler were just a couple of years behind. They've all done exactly what they were supposed to do.
What about George Mason? We're the only one of the "elite mid-majors" who never achieved higher than a #24 ranking ever again. Wichita State is #8 in the country and the last few years we would have been thrilled to be #8 in the mid-major Top 25. Two NCAA appearances with one victory and two blowout losses. First round NIT loss. First round CIT HOME loss. A senior-laden team that returns almost every piece of a CBI finalist team who can't play well for more than 25 minutes, and not even that long against a good team. A CAA POY who doesn't even make the post-season in the new era of watered-down post-seasons. It's an effing embarrassment.
Thank goodness most basketball fans are idiots or are pigeonholed into one team/league. At least the name George Mason still means something to people who don't know what they're talking about. George Mason "paved the way" for Wichita State, vcu, and Butler to make a final four. But how come all of them did something afterwards and we haven't? We came close in 2011, but, in true Mason fashion, didn't quite make it.
We can't just blame Hewitt, because OCM didn't do a whole hell of a lot after 2006 either. We had a steady build from 1998 to 2006, then flat-lined or worse. In 2008, we stumbled into the NCAA tournament and couldn't even compete with Notre Dame with a team lead by two of the best seniors Mason ever had. In 2011, we had one of the best teams in the country on paper, yet struggled to beat a sad Villanova team and were absolutely embarrassed by Ohio State. We talked about Cam Long being a future NBA role player. Then he pretty much gave up, decided not to even show up for his final week of college practices, and watched his team suffer one of the most embarrassing home losses in NCAA "post-season" history. We kept losing to Paul Hewitt's Georgia Tech teams in exempt tournaments. We recruited better and better players who never came close to being as good as the un-heralded Butler, Skinn, Lewis, Campbell, Thomas, or Hancock.
We have spent the last 7 years "one year away" from greatness. But it never comes. I am all for firing Hewitt's assistants and hiring people to essentially run the team for him so that we are at least paying Hewitt to be part of the program instead of paying him to go away. Find our next head coach by making him an assistant and making it clear that it's a 2-year job interview to be our next head coach. But things need to change, and not just the coaching. All of the free press we got from the FF run is being erased. Someone at the top had better have the vision to realize that what Butler, vcu, and WSU have done could have been us and SHOULD have been us - and if it was, it would be nothing but good for the University.
/out-of-nowhere-rant
WSU is struggling a little with Tennessee, but still ahead and still ranked number 8 and 12 in the freaking country. vcu was a ranked program and is still getting votes. Butler isn't having their best year, but certainly had sustained success and you can believe they'll be back. Mason and Wichita State were "growing up" at the exact same time. vcu and Butler were just a couple of years behind. They've all done exactly what they were supposed to do.
What about George Mason? We're the only one of the "elite mid-majors" who never achieved higher than a #24 ranking ever again. Wichita State is #8 in the country and the last few years we would have been thrilled to be #8 in the mid-major Top 25. Two NCAA appearances with one victory and two blowout losses. First round NIT loss. First round CIT HOME loss. A senior-laden team that returns almost every piece of a CBI finalist team who can't play well for more than 25 minutes, and not even that long against a good team. A CAA POY who doesn't even make the post-season in the new era of watered-down post-seasons. It's an effing embarrassment.
Thank goodness most basketball fans are idiots or are pigeonholed into one team/league. At least the name George Mason still means something to people who don't know what they're talking about. George Mason "paved the way" for Wichita State, vcu, and Butler to make a final four. But how come all of them did something afterwards and we haven't? We came close in 2011, but, in true Mason fashion, didn't quite make it.
We can't just blame Hewitt, because OCM didn't do a whole hell of a lot after 2006 either. We had a steady build from 1998 to 2006, then flat-lined or worse. In 2008, we stumbled into the NCAA tournament and couldn't even compete with Notre Dame with a team lead by two of the best seniors Mason ever had. In 2011, we had one of the best teams in the country on paper, yet struggled to beat a sad Villanova team and were absolutely embarrassed by Ohio State. We talked about Cam Long being a future NBA role player. Then he pretty much gave up, decided not to even show up for his final week of college practices, and watched his team suffer one of the most embarrassing home losses in NCAA "post-season" history. We kept losing to Paul Hewitt's Georgia Tech teams in exempt tournaments. We recruited better and better players who never came close to being as good as the un-heralded Butler, Skinn, Lewis, Campbell, Thomas, or Hancock.
We have spent the last 7 years "one year away" from greatness. But it never comes. I am all for firing Hewitt's assistants and hiring people to essentially run the team for him so that we are at least paying Hewitt to be part of the program instead of paying him to go away. Find our next head coach by making him an assistant and making it clear that it's a 2-year job interview to be our next head coach. But things need to change, and not just the coaching. All of the free press we got from the FF run is being erased. Someone at the top had better have the vision to realize that what Butler, vcu, and WSU have done could have been us and SHOULD have been us - and if it was, it would be nothing but good for the University.
/out-of-nowhere-rant
