WELCOME JUSTYN FERNANDEZ!!!

[GMUgemini]

For 2021 Dayton is ranked 22 with 2 4 stars and 2 3 stars.

2021 Team Rankings

The definitive source for all Rivals news.

n.rivals.com

Tbat was a monster class. They stole Castro from us (well let’s just say they did) and then recruited right over him.

 

[JPgmuswim]

Tbat was a monster class. They stole Castro from us (well let’s just say they did) and then recruited right over him.

Stole is probably the wrong word when DP had so little success recruiting anyone at Castro’s level, and by little I mean none.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

For 2021 Dayton is ranked 22 with 2 4 stars and 2 3 stars.

2021 Team Rankings

The definitive source for all Rivals news.

n.rivals.com

That's a historic haul for an A-10 program. Making up that ranking, you have (per Rivals)
DaRon Holmes in the Top 50
Kaleb Washington in the Top 100
Malachi Smith in the Top 150
Lynn Greer Unranked, but offers to Big10 & SEC programs

If we end up w/a Top 50 class this year, that's an absolutely incredible accomplishment for CKE.

 

[Herndon]

That's a historic haul for an A-10 program. Making up that ranking, you have (per Rivals)
DaRon Holmes in the Top 50
Kaleb Washington in the Top 100
Malachi Smith in the Top 150
Lynn Greer Unranked, but offers to Big10 & SEC programs

If we end up w/a Top 50 class this year, that's an absolutely incredible accomplishment for CKE.

If we end up with a top 50 class, incredible isn't the word, it'd be arguably the best class ever at Mason (maybe 2008 (Pearson/Cornelius/Morrison/Foster, maybe 2004 (Thomas/Vaughan/Carter/Campbell). Recall there are 65-70 P5 schools pending realignment.

If we're getting a top 50 class, we're recruiting like Virginia Tech.

It's ESPECIALLY amazing given A) it's from absolute scratch (no time to build relationships with players/coaches in English's capacity at Mason) and B) There's really no reason for it, other than English's ability as a recruiter. (Facilities/program attractiveness/community support/etc are all "meh" at best).

We shall see if this is sustainable (as opposed to the old "new coach, new excitement" recruiting bump) but if it is, and English and his staff can develop the players, we may be able to put the cart before the horse, and let the program drag the fundamentals up, as opposed to how it usually works, in reverse.

I'm as excited as I've been since the day before Larranaga left for Miami, when we had a young Luke Hancock and Sherrod Wright coming into their prime, Morrison and Pearson as upper classmen, Cam Long and Ike Tate as the steady senior leaders, and a good looking freshman class coming in.

It's always a gamble to hire the up and coming assistant, because they flame out as often as they shine bright, but things are looking REALLY REALLY good at the moment

 

[MasonSAE4]

Just saw the news on Justyn and my HR department just pinged me to let me know that some un-American co-workers of mine have complained about my visible erection.

 

[Petey Buckets]

It's ESPECIALLY amazing given A) it's from absolute scratch (no time to build relationships with players/coaches in English's capacity at Mason) and B) There's really no reason for it, other than English's ability as a recruiter. (Facilities/program attractiveness/community support/etc are all "meh" at best).

Nitpicking, but can we stop saying the facilities are "meh"? That was Dave's go-to recruiting excuse before the RAC and locker room upgrades. We now have one of the best venues in the A10 with EBA, a dedicated 24-hour practice facility, and sweet locker rooms. Facilities aren't quite up there with vcu, Dayton, and SLU, but they're on par with everyone else and it's not a reason we're gonna lose recruits to anyone in the A10.

I agree with everything else. We're all drinking the kool-aid and much remains to be seen, but at this point in time it feels impossible that anything about English's tenure will fail. It's a great feeling.

 

[Herndon]

Nitpicking, but can we stop saying the facilities are "meh"? That was Dave's go-to recruiting excuse before the RAC and locker room upgrades. We now have one of the best venues in the A10 with EBA, a dedicated 24-hour practice facility, and sweet locker rooms. Facilities aren't quite up there with vcu, Dayton, and SLU, but they're on par with everyone else and it's not a reason we're gonna lose recruits to anyone in the A10.

I agree with everything else. We're all drinking the kool-aid and much remains to be seen, but at this point in time it feels impossible that anything about English's tenure will fail. It's a great feeling.

So, when I say "meh" I mean "nothing special", not "crappy".

Our facilities are fine. They're not going to win us any recruits, they're not going to lose us any recruits. Maybe vis-a-vis the bottom of the A10 they're nice, but they didn't help us sign Fernandez. A kid like Fernandez didn't pick Mason over the schools we were competing with for him because of our facilities, which means that English recruited his a** off to land the kid.

 

[He15man]

What makes CKE's recruiting success thus far especially incredible is that he hasn't coaching a single minute of competitive A10 basketball yet. Not a single game for a recruit to look at and say, "yeah, i like the system he runs," or "I like how he lets his players do X in games..." Most of these highly ranked guys won't commit somewhere until they see that coach collecting W's. CKE has been able to recruit despite all this - and at the highest level Mason has ever seen. I can't help but get excited for what he'll be able to do when the wins start rolling in and he shows he's more than an awesome personality and players coach; he can also win games and get the most out of his players.

 

[sleeperpick]

What makes CKE's recruiting success thus far especially incredible is that he hasn't coaching a single minute of competitive A10 basketball yet. Not a single game for a recruit to look at and say, "yeah, i like the system he runs," or "I like how he lets his players do X in games..." Most of these highly ranked guys won't commit somewhere until they see that coach collecting W's. CKE has been able to recruit despite all this - and at the highest level Mason has ever seen. I can't help but get excited for what he'll be able to do when the wins start rolling in and he shows he's more than an awesome personality and players coach; he can also win games and get the most out of his players.

eh that isn't necessarily true... just look at Penny's first recruiting class or Juwan Howard's first... It is super impressive what he is doing... but it is certainly more normalized that recruiters can recruit without any games played. Kids are going to CKE because of his personality and because of their connection... Which should continue even if we aren't great this year. The dude is a bonafide dog recruiting wise... Kennedy Chandler didn't go to Tennessee to be coached by Rick Barnes... super surprised he kept his LOI when CKE left

 

[GMU79]

eh that isn't necessarily true... just look at Penny's first recruiting class or Juwan Howard's first... It is super impressive what he is doing... but it is certainly more normalized that recruiters can recruit without any games played. Kids are going to CKE because of his personality and because of their connection... Which should continue even if we aren't great this year. The dude is a bonafide dog recruiting wise... Kennedy Chandler didn't go to Tennessee to be coached by Rick Barnes... super surprised he kept his LOI when CKE left

Yes, but KE isn't Penny or Juwan in terms of name recognition. They'll get recruits just because of who they are.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

What makes CKE's recruiting success thus far especially incredible is that he hasn't coaching a single minute of competitive A10 basketball yet.

There's some advantage to that though. You get to sell pure potential and playing time and there's no results to counter what you're selling.

But results are better. Let Mason start rolling again and can't wait to see our recruitment take off.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

Kennedy Chandler didn't go to Tennessee to be coached by Rick Barnes... super surprised he kept his LOI when CKE left

Mmmmm....I don't know. Chandler admitted he was going to miss CKE, but that arena gets pretty rocking too and Knoxville is a nice town. It's not like Barnes hasn't recruited and developed stars before CKE either and Chandler didn't hesitate to tweet out he was keeping his commitment and looking forward to being coached by Barnes.

 

[He15man]

eh that isn't necessarily true... just look at Penny's first recruiting class or Juwan Howard's first... It is super impressive what he is doing... but it is certainly more normalized that recruiters can recruit without any games played. Kids are going to CKE because of his personality and because of their connection... Which should continue even if we aren't great this year. The dude is a bonafide dog recruiting wise... Kennedy Chandler didn't go to Tennessee to be coached by Rick Barnes... super surprised he kept his LOI when CKE left

I hear what you're saying, but Penny and Howard are famous NBA All-Stars. CKE played in the league, but he's HARDLY the name those other two are. It's not going to take much for Howard to convince a 5-star forward to come play for him at Michigan considering he was one of the best power forwards of his era. Recruiting to Michigan and Memphis vs Mason is also apples and oranges. So yeah, while I agree it's not unheard of for a first-year coach to recruit well out of the gate, we can both agree that it's rare as s**t - and even rarer to pull a Top 100 guy to a (currently struggling) program like Mason before you've even coached and won a game.

 

[sleeperpick]

I hear what you're saying, but Penny and Howard are famous NBA All-Stars. CKE played in the league, but he's HARDLY the name those other two are. It's not going to take much for Howard to convince a 5-star forward to come play for him at Michigan considering he was one of the best power forwards of his era. Recruiting to Michigan and Memphis vs Mason is also apples and oranges. So yeah, while I agree it's not unheard of for a first-year coach to recruit well out of the gate, we can both agree that it's rare as s**t - and even rarer to pull a Top 100 guy to a (currently struggling) program like Mason before you've even coached and won a game.

CKE has become a commodity in recruitment in the last 3 years. Howard and Penny came in on name recognition Alone (penny brought some of his high school studs with him to Memphis)

 

[MasonSAE4]

Imagine if we were heading into another season with DP. Right around now we'd be hearing him hype up our new transfer from ITT Tech by saying something like "the only reason he wasn't one of the top players in the country last year is because his school went bankrupt and folded."

 

[GMUgemini]

Imagine if we were heading into another season with DP. Right around now we'd be hearing him hype up our new transfer from ITT Tech by saying something like "the only reason he wasn't one of the top players in the country last year is because his school went bankrupt and folded."

This is what would happen. Expectations would be high because AJ returns for year six and we still have Miller and Kolek (Greene was gone regardless). The season starts and it looks like the team has never played together before. Kolek goes through the sophomore slump, Miller pulls the Paulsen special senior year disappearing act and we lose our first three games and we’re yelling for Paulsen to be fired only for him to win the last three of four (including a season sweep of vcu) and we go into the conference tournament with unearned hope for a deep run only to lose by 25 to St. Bonaventure in a quarterfinal game that was never close.

 

[He15man]

This is what would happen. Expectations would be high because AJ returns for year six and we still have Miller and Kolek (Greene was gone regardless). The season starts and it looks like the team has never played together before. Kolek goes through the sophomore slump, Miller pulls the Paulsen special senior year disappearing act and we lose our first three games and we’re yelling for Paulsen to be fired only for him to win the last three of four (including a season sweep of vcu) and we go into the conference tournament with unearned hope for a deep run only to lose by 25 to St. Bonaventure in a quarterfinal game that was never close.

What is this wizardry?!?!?!

 

[Quentin Daniels]

CKE has become a commodity in recruitment in the last 3 years. Howard and Penny came in on name recognition Alone (penny brought some of his high school studs with him to Memphis)

Paid $11,500 to James Wiseman's family to make that trip from Nashville to Memphis and ended up costing the kid his eligibility.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

Imagine if we were heading into another season with DP.

No thanks, hard pass.

 

[tblack33]

Imagine if we were heading into another season with DP. Right around now we'd be hearing him hype up our new transfer from ITT Tech by saying something like "the only reason he wasn't one of the top players in the country last year is because his school went bankrupt and folded."

It takes a true masochist to want to imagine that terrible alternate timeline when we are arguably flying on the highest times of Mason basketball in the last decade. I’ve chosen to let those memories fade, just like Paulsens chances of head coaching at the D1 level again.