The Paul Hewitt Thread

[Pablo]

I do have to admit to being intrigued by what our roster will look like next year if he returns. I really think Hewitt will blow things up, which means everything from asking several players to leave to brining in JUCO and 5th-year transfers. It's self-preservation time, and I think he realizes another year would be a gift from heaven.

If the players have 1-year scholarships (as I assume they have), then I believe that all Hewitt needs to do is notify them in writing before July 1 that their scholarship will not be renewed. I really expect Anali to leave voluntarily, particularly if he graduates this school year. And, I expect Corey's scholarship to be renewed if he wants to stay. The real question is Vaughn Gray, who IMO has the talent to replace Sherrod as the starter at the "3" next season.

 

[CHRISTOPHER JAMES JOLLAY]

A lot of 4,5's (5) that need minutes if we bring in a JUCO big as expected.

 

[Washingtonian]

Washingtonian,

You are unquestionably one of the most dedicated Mason fan that I've ever seen. But, for me, this is the second time that I've considered not renewing my season tickets (although I will likely give Hewitt one more season). The first time was after Westhead's 4th season. Fortunately, Mason fired him and hired Larranaga.

Thanks for the compliment. This all started because of Ahmad Dorsett playing at Mason as I saw him play some of his HS ball in Woodbridge. Tickets then for the Patriot Center were $10. Once I figured out how NCAA basketball works in terms of conference play, tournaments, etc, it became a cheap and enjoyable escape for me. I ended up making a few friends in the process of supporting this program.

As my friend reminded me last night, the Skins have had countless losing seasons and I have been supporting them since I moved to the DC area in '83. The one thing with sports is you have a choice in terms of rolling with the punches or "switching teams".

Not that this relates, but I support the O's and Nats. By some miracle, they meet in a World Series, Baltimore gets my support because they got my support before DC had a team.

 

[GMUSSTN]

Not that this relates, but I support the O's and Nats. By some miracle, they meet in a World Series, Baltimore gets my support because they got my support before DC had a team.

Just don't be one of those cranky O's fans who drinks the Angelos Kool Aid of "DC doesn't deserve real fans because they're not a real team and they don't have a real market"

 

[Washingtonian]

Just don't be one of those cranky O's fans who drinks the Angelos Kool Aid of "DC doesn't deserve real fans because they're not a real team and they don't have a real market"

DC has a right to a team just as much as any other city that has one or will get one in the future.

When I saw "real team", one of my friends and I have a running joke about the DH rule. He is a Cincy fan (has been forever) and every time they come to Nationals Park, we hit up a game and I say, we are seeing a "real game" because the pitcher has to hit.

Back to Paul Hewitt, I do not think he gets canned. I saw the argument about whether Mason has the money to buy him out, which going by the bonus structure, it appears they do. If he does, I think we lose most, if not all the recruits, plus two other players (at least). Should that happen, this program could very well go to the depths that Wilmington is in currently, which is sad. They have a great fan base.

What I would like to see happen is Roland Houston leave. More often than not, he seems uninterested in games. Maybe, he is different at practice, but watching some of the vcu games this year, their assistants at every media timeout (it seemed) were giving praise to their players. That was good to see.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Houston gets a bum rap some times. Im not sure of his duties or what Hewitt lets his assistants as a whole do....but I have seen him, Saturday night included sit next to guys and talk with them about things. Not saying its the end all be all, but I dont think he does anymore or less than what Krieder does....Skeeters gets up and stamps his feet and yells every now and then but other than that all the coaches seem kinda uninterested at points of the game.

 

[GMUgemini]

Houston gets a bum rap some times. Im not sure of his duties or what Hewitt lets his assistants as a whole do....but I have seen him, Saturday night included sit next to guys and talk with them about things. Not saying its the end all be all, but I dont think he does anymore or less than what Krieder does....Skeeters gets up and stamps his feet and yells every now and then but other than that all the coaches seem kinda uninterested at points of the game.

I think as a collective whole our coaches have done a poor job. So if the head coach is staying, somone(s) need to be let go. I honestly don't care which ones, all three could be fired in my opinion. Of course this also goes back to Washingtonians argument about getting our recruits in, letting the assistants go is just as dangerous as the head coach when you are talking about recruiting.

 

[Washingtonian]

Wasn't Skeeters brought in because of his recruiting abilities?

 

[Pablo]

The following is a post about Bill Courtney on Cornell's sports message board. Could it also apply to Paul Hewitt?

Posts: 32
16 hours ago
Quote

Post by graciebjj on 16 hours ago
Agree, semsox. It's hard to comprehend how historically bad this team was, especially being only four years from being a top 20 team in the country, and the blown recruiting, funding, and other opportunities that went out the window.

I like Bill personally based on what I've seen/read. But this season was such an unbelievable disaster that I have a hard time seeing how this thing gets turned around under his watch. Are we seriously going to stick with this awful iso offense? If you think coaching doesn't matter, think back to the Brown game where Mike Martin drew up two nice plays to win the game, and Bill drew up (again) iso with Devin taking the ball one on one. That's coaching. Think back to the Siena game when Bill got a technical at a critical point in the game to let them back in and win. That's coaching (and not in a good way).

We get Shonn back next year. That helps. But helps us get where? We are so bad defensively -- and I'm talking basic fundamentals on defense (overreacting, not going under screens, not rotating on defense, etc. etc) that expecting one very good player to turn this entire mess around is wishful thinking. We aren't one player away.

And are we seriously going to play 5-6 BCS teams with our expected team next year? That seems like a terrible idea.

I hope it all comes together for Bill. I truly do. But believing that will happen is simply unsupported by anything we saw on the court this season.

 

[Patriotfan49]

I think as a collective whole our coaches have done a poor job. So if the head coach is staying, somone(s) need to be let go. I honestly don't care which ones, all three could be fired in my opinion. Of course this also goes back to Washingtonians argument about getting our recruits in, letting the assistants go is just as dangerous as the head coach when you are talking about recruiting.

Thats my point. I dont think Houston is doing anything more or less than the others are. Skeeters stands up during the game and yells, but I hardly attribute that to be doing anything more than when Houston slides over and talks to a player when they are on the bench.

 

[gmubrian]

Didn't want to muck up the recruiting thread with a response to this:

With Jason Capel being fired at Appy State,...

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...ppalachian-state-fires-head-coach-jason-capel

"This season was the worst under Capel, as Appalachian State went 9-21 overall, 5-11 in the Southern Conference."

Those are eerily familiar numbers.

 

[GSII]

Houston gets a bum rap some times. Im not sure of his duties or what Hewitt lets his assistants as a whole do....but I have seen him, Saturday night included sit next to guys and talk with them about things. Not saying its the end all be all, but I dont think he does anymore or less than what Krieder does....Skeeters gets up and stamps his feet and yells every now and then but other than that all the coaches seem kinda uninterested at points of the game.

Thats not true. They need the paycheck and thus wont step up and tell hewitt of the changes needed. they do what he wants them to do apparently. If.they think about it it behoves them all to step to hewitt.

 

[Dawgs99]

I hope if and when we fire Hewitt we put the practice facility project back online. Even if the RAC doubles as a practice facility now, a brand new state of the art building with badass a weight room, locker rooms, players lounge/ academic center, and maybe even a Mason bball HOF type deal would be awesome. Recruits can't get enough of these type of amenities.

 

[Bricker]

Just don't be one of those cranky O's fans who drinks the Angelos Kool Aid of "DC doesn't deserve real fans because they're not a real team and they don't have a real market"

As an Os fan, I have not encountered someone who actually believed that nonsense. We hate Angelos as much-- if not more-- than anyone else...

 

[psyclone]

I hope if and when we fire Hewitt we put the practice facility project back online. Even if the RAC doubles as a practice facility now, a brand new state of the art building with badass a weight room, locker rooms, players lounge/ academic center, and maybe even a Mason bball HOF type deal would be awesome. Recruits can't get enough of these type of amenities.

They'll need a big donor who only cares about basketball to fund that. There's so much the university needs and the practice facility would serve so very, very few of the campus community.In the grand scheme of things, I would think it would be a very low priority in a university fund-raising drive.

 

[gmujim92]

They'll need a big donor who only cares about basketball to fund that. There's so much the university needs and the practice facility would serve so very, very few of the campus community.In the grand scheme of things, I would think it would be a very low priority in a university fund-raising drive.

Guess you didn't see vcu is building a 60,000-square-foot facility that will include practice courts, locker rooms and office space for both the men's and women's teams.

Total price tag: $25 million, $10.5 million of which will come from "reallocating" revenue from student fees.

Not that we expect Hewitt to win many head-to-head recruiting battles with Shaka, but this certainly isn't going to help us. They're operating on a whole different level from where we are today, both on and off the court.

 

[GMUgemini]

Guess you didn't see vcu is building a 60,000-square-foot facility that will include practice courts, locker rooms and office space for both the men's and women's teams.

Total price tag: $25 million, $10.5 million of which will come from "reallocating" revenue from student fees.

Not that we expect Hewitt to win many head-to-head recruiting battles with Shaka, but this certainly isn't going to help us. They're operating on a whole different level from where we are today, both on and off the court.

First of all, vcu has been "outrecruiting" us since about 2004 and that was way before Shaka Smart showed up (he was probably still an undergrad).

I'm fine with the philosophy the school has (or at least had). I think ultimately it does the program well when the student-athletes have more contact with the general student population instead of being sequestered in athlete-only dorms and athlete-only facilities . But if this is your philosophy that facilities should be shared, that everyone should benefit, own it and sell it (hell, even if the real reason is they couldn't find a way to fund a basketball-only practice facility, own the lie and sell the lie).

The real question is, how is the AD going to translate our president's aversion to raising the student fees to pay for athletics into a strategy to make sure we have the funding to be competitive in the A-10?

 

[gmujim92]

First of all, vcu has been "outrecruiting" us since about 2004 and that was way before Shaka Smart showed up (he was probably still an undergrad).

I'm fine with the philosophy the school has (or at least had). I think ultimately it does the program well when the student-athletes have more contact with the general student population instead of being sequestered in athlete-only dorms and athlete-only facilities . But if this is your philosophy that facilities should be shared, that everyone should benefit, own it and sell it (hell, even if the real reason is they couldn't find a way to fund a basketball-only practice facility, own the lie and sell the lie).

The real question is, how is the AD going to translate our president's aversion to raising the student fees to pay for athletics into a strategy to make sure we have the funding to be competitive in the A-10?

I'm not surprised by your response. Denial is a powerful drug.

While vcu's program history is obviously more impressive than ours, I'm tired of people here pretending that they've always been some power and we've been lucky to simply exist in their orbit.

That's BS, plain and simple.

Other than the coach, which is obviously a huge factor, what vcu has (and what we hopefully have now) is a president who understands the value that a successful basketball program can return to a university and is willing to invest accordingly.

I know, many of you have convinced yourselves that we don't need a practice facility, we've got the RAC, lots of other teams do just fine without practice facilities, blah blah freaking blah.

If built properly, a practice facility would immediately help our recruiting. Regardless of what our coach says, that stuff has proven to matter to teenage athletes who are used to being pampered.

vcu used to be a peer. We used to go after the same level players and occasionally went head-to-head on the recruiting trail.

But now they've made the commitment to do everything they can to be a consistent tournament team. They've committed to paying Shaka, they're spending $25 million on a practice facility and have plans to expand/renovate the Siegel Center after the practice facility is finished.

Meanwhile, we've got a crappy overpaid coach, an aging arena with zero amenities, no practice facility and no commitment to be anything more than the answer to a 2006 trivia question.

That's not going to get it done in the A-10. If we weren't going to step it up and really try to compete, we should've just stayed in the CAA.

 

[Patriotfan49]

At least we had a real announcer for all of one game. So there is that.

 

[Five Two]

Speaking of practice facilities, I poked fun a month ago that Delaware had built a practice facility two years ago and they hadn't won a CAA title ever. Well........