The Paul Hewitt Thread

[Pablo]

Does anyone know the name of Hewitt's agent? I want to use him to negotiate all of my contracts. His agent must be one of the best negotiators on the planet..

More importantly IMO, is who negotiated for Mason and agreed to having the longevity bonus earned on March 1?

 

[Dawgs99]

Hewitts teams at Mason have never been fundamentally sound, nor have they played good team defense. Even in year 1 when we won a bunch of the games it was ugly basektball. Last nights game was very similar to Westheads last game in the CAA tourney year ago. We played Richmond I beleive in the PIG and were not competitive. I have to admit many on these boards said PH would ruin the program, I didn't want to believe it but sure as shit here we are today. The jump up to the A10 IMO is not an excuse for the results. More talent may mask some of Hewitts issues but when you get paid like PH you shouldn't have to over recruit talent to hide the fact that your at best a mediocre coach. Cya Paul!

 

[Patriotfan49]

Hewitts teams at Mason have never been fundamentally sound, nor have they played good team defense. Even in year 1 when we won a bunch of the games it was ugly basektball. Last nights game was very similar to Westheads last game in the CAA tourney year ago. We played Richmond I beleive in the PIG and were not competitive. I have to admit many on these boards said PH would ruin the program, I didn't want to believe it but sure as shit here we are today. The jump up to the A10 IMO is not an excuse for the results. More talent may mask some of Hewitts issues but when you get paid like PH you shouldn't have to over recruit talent to hide the fact that your at best a mediocre coach. Cya Paul!

You dont say, maybe the "broken records" were onto something. Denny Green laid it out for the entire world......"they are who we thought they were" . No simpler advice that can be applied to something like coaching hires.

 

[Dawgs99]

You dont say, maybe the "broken records" were onto something. Denny Green laid it out for the entire world......"they are who we thought they were" . No simpler advice that can be applied to something like coaching hires.

Please don't pat yourself on the back young fella. I never had a problem with your coaching critique, it was generally spot on. The broken record thing was about everything else that you continue to spew about....non committal to athletics, stale game day environment, yada yada yada. Everyone knows how you feel and most including me agree.... it just gets tiresome.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Please don't pat yourself on the back young fella. I never had a problem with your coaching critique, it was generally spot on. The broken record thing was about everything else that you continue to spew about....non committal to athletics, stale game day environment, yada yada yada. Everyone knows how you feel and most including me agree.... it just gets tiresome.

Nobody is patting themselves on the back. Whether you were delusional to think Hewitt would be a good hire, or figured he would be who he has always been...either way were all in the same boat.

Again, its a message board where opinions are shared. The nature of it is going to be very repetitive, especially when the same stuff is trotted out there year after year. Trust me, the same folks pining for any and every silver lining trying to find any positive was quite old and broke record like too. Im not sure why you are so grumpy....perk up, no more Mason bball disasters for a few months.

 

[AAUMAN]

Hewitts teams at Mason have never been fundamentally sound, nor have they played good team defense. Cya Paul!

The three years that Hewitt has been the coach can you count how many open court fast breaks this team attempt and finished? Remember this is an NBA style offense......NOT. When you have guards that haven't been coached(or instructed) to hit the open man on the wing or guards that will hold the ball during transition when you have a player WIDE-OPEN on a fast break is just unacceptable. How many points did this team leave on the court because of their lack of court presence? I blame Hewitt and that weak coaching staff for not instructing these players to play defense with a passion because defense is the element of bball that forge a teams identity.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

I have to admit many on these boards said PH would ruin the program, I didn't want to believe it but sure as shit here we are today.

At least you weren't a douche questioning others fanhood for not drinking the Hewitt kool-aid and constantly bashing players. You'd appear quite the silly nanny now if that were so.

I was always skeptical of the hire, but never thought it would be this level of train wreck so quickly

• getting swept by Fordham
• 18 home losses - same as last 5 seasons under L combined
• 9 game losing streaks
• losing to a Jeff Jones ODU squad
• first ever loss to Towson - winless 2 seasons prior
• losing to Princeton
• major roster/talent questions in 4th year
• questionable coaching hires
• players relegated from starters to DNPs game to game
• pattern of late game collapses and OT chokes

On the plus side, my biggest concern wasn't that Paul Ball 2.0 would be a disaster, but he'd do just enough and we'd have years of mediocrity ahead of us.

 

[psyclone]

More importantly IMO, is who negotiated for Mason and agreed to having the longevity bonus earned on March 1?

While I do think that paying longevity bonuses before the season actually is over is a bad policy, why is it surprising that any new coach wouldn't model his contract demands from what the previous guy was getting?

And when Larranaga left us in the lurch, many on these boards were screaming that "Mason was being too cheap"; "we should have met Larranaga's demands sooner"; "we don't spend enough to support the basketball program"

 

[JimP]

One thing I didn't like going into this season - everytime I heard Hewitt or one of the players interviewed prior to the season about joining the A-10 they spoke about how much tougher the league would be. While that should've been acknowledged, I never heard enough of "we can play with these guys" or "we'll be up to the challenge." The psyche of this team was so fragile, I really think this mindset hurt them. A coach like Larranaga would have had these guys believing they belonged.

 

[gmujim92]

One thing I didn't like going into this season - everytime I heard Hewitt or one of the players interviewed prior to the season about joining the A-10 they spoke about how much tougher the league would be. While that should've been acknowledged, I never heard enough of "we can play with these guys" or "we'll be up to the challenge." The psyche of this team was so fragile, I really think this mindset hurt them. A coach like Larranaga would have had these guys believing they belonged.

It's the same thing as after we blew the 28-point lead in the CAA semis and lost to Northeastern, Hewitt goes to the press and admits that he hoped we could "hold on" in the second half.

Look it up. He actually said that he knew NU would make a run, and he hoped our players could "hold on" to a 28-point freaking halftime lead!

Consistently putting your players in such a defensive mindset -- essentially creating doubt in their minds -- is p!ss-poor leadership.

No, scratch that. That is ZERO leadership. It's a loser's mentality, and that quite frankly is what Hewitt is. No more sugar-coating it.

 

[Walter]

No, scratch that. That is ZERO leadership. It's a loser's mentality, and that quite frankly is what Hewitt is. No more sugar-coating it.

That is right, Jim. No more sugar-coating this. HE IS A LOSER AND HE MUST GO NOW!

 

[AAUMAN]

We have all been giving Cabrera a pass. If no action is taking soon, he no longer will get the benefit of the doubt from me. It is starting to look like he is nothing more than an affirmative action hire with very little substance who will likely hire Kelly Mehrtens to replace O'Connor.

Walt! I feel your pain but Cabrera has no clue about bball(he's a futbol guy) which is a shame because this bball program help put MID-MAJORS on the map and now this. This s**t is painful to accept.

 

[GSII]

It's the same thing as after we blew the 28-point lead in the CAA semis and lost to Northeastern, Hewitt goes to the press and admits that he hoped we could "hold on" in the second half.

Look it up. He actually said that he knew NU would make a run, and he hoped our players could "hold on" to a 28-point freaking halftime lead!

Consistently putting your players in such a defensive mindset -- essentially creating doubt in their minds -- is p!ss-poor leadership.

No, scratch that. That is ZERO leadership. It's a loser's mentality, and that quite frankly is what Hewitt is. No more sugar-coating it.

Same thing when asked about getting picked 8th in A10. His reply was a pussy a** "that seems fair".....I bet he didn't even use that as motivation. f**king sheep!

 

[gmujim92]

Same thing when asked about getting picked 8th in A10. His reply was a pussy a** "that seems fair".....I bet he didn't even use that as motivation. f*cking sheep!

Motivation? That's a concept for other coaches, not a high-level thinker like Hewitt. He's far too above it all to worry if his players are motivated.

 

[psyclone]

Walt! I feel your pain but Cabrera has no clue about bball(he's a futbol guy) which is a shame because this bball program help put MID-MAJORS on the map and now this. This s**t is painful to accept.

I think you sell Cabrera short. Yes, he's a "futbol guy", but from the tweets he writes about soccer, we can surmise he is a very avid fan so he knows how important it is in the lives of those fans. He and his wife do come to many of the games so he is well familiar with the vibe of how the games are going.

He did go to Georgia Tech for graduate work (he graduated some years before Hewitt arrived as coach) so he must been at least vaguely familiar with big time college football and how seriously the alums and undergrads are about it. Even more recently than his graduate student days, some of his tweets last fall indicated he was down in Alabama visiting his wife's family (she was an Alabama undergraduate) watching the Alabama-Auburn game. He commented on the despair of the Alabama people in losing that game.

But perhaps most importantly, every academic at Mason that has had interactions with Cabrera describe him as a very, very bright guy and a quick study. I'd be extremely surprised if the marketing/publicity/fundraising implications of a university's successful basketball program escapes him.

As evidence for that he supported the move to the A10, apparently thinking that it would be a good return on investment. He saw that the Mason Inn (which seemed like a good idea when it was built) was a poor return on investment so he "re-purposed" it.

I'm not saying he will pull the trigger on Paul Hewitt right away, but to cast Cabrera as being too naive or apathetic about how ANY aspect of the university is performing, I believe, is way off the mark.

 

[Pablo]

Walt! I feel your pain but Cabrera has no clue about bball(he's a futbol guy) which is a shame because this bball program help put MID-MAJORS on the map and now this. This s**t is painful to accept.

I'm sure you're aware that President Cabrera is a native of Spain, where basketball is a very popular sport (I'm guessing his second favorite sport).

 

[EA Aymar]

Criticizing President Cabrera is way off the mark. He took us to the A10, after all, solely to strengthen the basketball program. He attends tons of games, tweets constantly about the team and seems to realize that our basketball program is the lifeblood of our school. I wouldn't expect a move on Hewitt this year, but I will after next season (and, likely, after these same results).

On the Hewitt note, serious fans of the program realize it hasn't been as good as its record indicates over Hewitt's first two seasons, but it's hard to explain that to an outsider - or an outside coaching prospect who would wonder why we fired a coach after two 20-wins seasons.

So two "successful" seasons, followed by one bad season. My guess is outsiders would think it's too early to pull the trigger, and you risk losing some quality candidates. But after next season, Hewitt should be gone, and there will be little reason for anyone to wonder why.

 

[JimP]

Worst part of this whole mess is that GMU actually approached Hewitt about coaching.

 

[gmujim92]

Criticizing President Cabrera is way off the mark. He took us to the A10, after all, solely to strengthen the basketball program. He attends tons of games, tweets constantly about the team and seems to realize that our basketball program is the lifeblood of our school. I wouldn't expect a move on Hewitt this year, but I will after next season (and, likely, after these same results).

On the Hewitt note, serious fans of the program realize it hasn't been as good as its record indicates over Hewitt's first two seasons, but it's hard to explain that to an outsider - or an outside coaching prospect who would wonder why we fired a coach after two 20-wins seasons.

So two "successful" seasons, followed by one bad season. My guess is outsiders would think it's too early to pull the trigger, and you risk losing some quality candidates. But after next season, Hewitt should be gone, and there will be little reason for anyone to wonder why.

20-win seasons don't mean nearly as much as they used to since most D-I teams play at least 30 games.

I look at Hewitt's record another way: He's lost 14 or more games in 2 of his 3 seasons. That's awful.

If Cabrera truly doesn't think things will get any better next season, keeping Hewitt around for 2014-15 is ridiculous. The amount of money it will take to get rid of him shouldn't be that big a deal for a university with more than 30,000 students.

 

[Walter]

I get that it isn't likely that Paul "Program Destroyer" Hewitt will be fired this week. However, under no circumstances should Tom "Dumb a**" O'Connor get an extension.