Welcome Kim English

[Jack Strop]

Won't happen if you keep putting them in caps.

Note to the moderators: We need to suspend members' accounts for not following the "vcu" rule.

 

[mkaufman1]

Note to the moderators: We need to suspend members' accounts for not following the "vcu" rule.

Not doing that but will encourage folks to use vcu haha.

 

[Walter]

A discussion for the off season, but I prefer fecesU over vcu.

 

[HoopsAdmin]

Hear ye, hear ye! From now on, in all messages posted here, we will automatically turn any uppercase vcu into a lowercase vcu.

Behold the magic of technology!

 

[tblack33]

vcu

 

[GSII]

Hear ye, hear ye! From now on, in all messages posted here, we will automatically turn any uppercase vcu into a lowercase vcu.

Behold the magic of technology!

The vibe just keeps getting better!

 

[GreenLantern]

vcu

 

[GMU79]

vcu

How low can you go?

 

[bravesfan]

Seeing some Georgetown fans wanting Kim to be their next coach. I remember before the year started calling that out as a risk, but today I'd be surprised if they made that jump.

I think they need to go with someone more established after the Ewing experiment failed.

 

[Patriotsince81]

After year 2 KE is:

34-29 (.540) overall
18-16 (.529) in the A10
24-6 (.800) at home
8-15 (.348) away
2-8 (.200) at neutral sites
1-2 (.333) in the A10 Tournament.

I'm not trying to stir the pot. I'm not advocating for an extension or dismissal. Just posting fact.

 

[MasonMojo]

Seeing some Georgetown fans wanting Kim to be their next coach. I remember before the year started calling that out as a risk, but today I'd be surprised if they made that jump.

I think they need to go with someone more established after the Ewing experiment failed.

I am VERY intrigued to see who ends up there. They are already pretty much at rock bottom so whoever comes in can just get them to .500 and be seen as a genius. I doubt CKE has done enough to warrant a big boy job like that one yet though.

Also, as a test: VĆU vcu

 

[mkaufman1]

After year 2 KE is:

34-29 (.540) overall
18-16 (.529) in the A10
24-6 (.800) at home
8-15 (.348) away
2-8 (.200) at neutral sites
1-2 (.333) in the A10 Tournament.

I'm not trying to stir the pot. I'm not advocating for an extension or dismissal. Just posting fact.

Lifetime extension!!!! Buy him out!!!

Yeah, its been a rocky 2 years not going to lie. We have some good things (home record) some "ok things" (A10 record) some bad things (away record) and some really bad things (neutral record).

I will say that going 20-13 overall in year 2 is very nice progress. I thought the way Mason played in conference going 11-7 was good as well. We beat Richmond 3x this year, we beat Dayton on the road and we won 7 in a row towards the end. All really nice things.

There were some choppy parts to this year too. We lost 3 in the Virgin Islands, we had some stinkers as well.

I see things going in the right direction overall, and its now time to take the program from 20 wins upward. Does that mean 23? 25 wins? We'll see. We all want the NCAA tournament obviously.

This will be a very interesting offseason and as @tblack33 said it could define where our program is really going. I think we are definitely headed in the right direction and somehow we still have to be patient. Its hard because I dont' want to be patient.

 

[Walter]

Pat Kelsey is being mentioned for many P6 openings. We dodged that bullet.

 

[GMUgemini]

The thing about our MTE record (which is an abysmal 0-6) is that in both years we played with an incomplete team. Last season, XJ played sick and we were without Polite (so had to play more Hartwell), and this season Polite missed both games after BC with an injury.

We don’t have the depth to cover up a missing starter (especially the point guard yet). That’s something he has to build.

Would love to finally go into one of these with a fully healthy and motivated roster one of these years.

 

[Verdad]

After year 2 KE is:

34-29 (.540) overall
18-16 (.529) in the A10
24-6 (.800) at home
8-15 (.348) away
2-8 (.200) at neutral sites
1-2 (.333) in the A10 Tournament.

I'm not trying to stir the pot. I'm not advocating for an extension or dismissal. Just posting fact.

If the season finished the way it was going through the Duquesne game, I would be very pessimistic. I know 7 games is not a definitive sample, but it showed the progress I wanted to see and what I was most concerned about prior to that point - ability to win on the road and overall improvement.

I think we rarely had all of our starters together with VBJ going down right around when Ticket came back, and it is beyond obvious how important each of our starters were. We saw a glimpse of what CKE was able to get out of this group in that 7 game stretch, and we all now know how limited the group is. To me he has shown that he can translate his obvious intelligence into learning and improving as a HC and it has me excited to see what he can do with a properly built roster from a continuity and talent standpoint.

Going forward into year 3, the main thing I'm looking forward is improved roster building. CKE needs to flex that recruiting prowess to bring in some selective transfers (rather than take what's available ala Singleton) and start showing that his HS recruits can play at the A10 level.

 

[gmujim92]

If the season finished the way it was going through the Duquesne game, I would be very pessimistic. I know 7 games is not a definitive sample, but it showed the progress I wanted to see and what I was most concerned about prior to that point - ability to win on the road and overall improvement.

I think we rarely had all of our starters together with VBJ going down right around when Ticket came back, and it is beyond obvious how important each of our starters were. We saw a glimpse of what CKE was able to get out of this group in that 7 game stretch, and we all now know how limited the group is. To me he has shown that he can translate his obvious intelligence into learning and improving as a HC and it has me excited to see what he can do with a properly built roster from a continuity and talent standpoint.

Going forward into year 3, the main thing I'm looking forward is improved roster building. CKE needs to flex that recruiting prowess to bring in some selective transfers (rather than take what's available ala Singleton) and start showing that his HS recruits can play at the A10 level.

Honestly I think the most important thing that happened over the 7-game win streak is Kim was finally able to get the guys to understand and accept how hard they have to play to win games in the A-10.

This is what people mean when they talk about the importance of establishing program culture.

Other than at Dayton, which was a huge statistical outlier, we were not a pretty team during any of those wins. But we gutted out wins over a LaSalle team that was riding a 5-game win streak and the best Fordham team in 50 years, won at GW for only the second time ever and won 3 straight road games.

The next step for Mason is for whichever guys come back to enter the offseason with the baseline expectation that our culture is tough, physical, take no shit from anyone and if you want to get meaningful minutes in our program, you’d better spend the next 7 months preparing your body and mind accordingly.

I’m willing to put up with games where we turn the ball over too much and heave up bricks by the dozen as long as what we saw over those 7 games was real and not a mirage. Because even winning ugly is fun if you know your guys are bought in from Day 1 and willing to fight for each other.

 

[Verdad]

Honestly I think the most important thing that happened over the 7-game win streak is Kim was finally able to get the guys to understand and accept how hard they have to play to win games in the A-10.

This is what people mean when they talk about the importance of establishing program culture.

Other than at Dayton, which was a huge statistical outlier, we were not a pretty team during any of those wins. But we gutted out wins over a LaSalle team that was riding a 5-game win streak and the best Fordham team in 50 years, won at GW for only the second time ever and won 3 straight road games.

The next step for Mason is for whichever guys come back to enter the offseason with the baseline expectation that our culture is tough, physical, take no shit from anyone and if you want to get meaningful minutes in our program, you’d better spend the next 7 months preparing your body and mind accordingly.

I’m willing to put up with games where we turn the ball over too much and heave up bricks by the dozen as long as what we saw over those 7 games was real and not a mirage. Because even winning ugly is fun if you know your guys are bought in from Day 1 and willing to fight for each other.

Agree 100% - and that was an observation I made prior to the 7 game streak, that our guys did not play tough.

The home game against Fordham was one of the most fun and exciting games I can recall because we matched their physical intensity. Came away with a lot of respect for Fordham after that game - CKE could produce amazing results if he can recruit elite talent like JF AND get them to play with that intensity.

Fingers crossed that Barron, Ball and White have "it"

 

[tblack33]

Honestly I think the most important thing that happened over the 7-game win streak is Kim was finally able to get the guys to understand and accept how hard they have to play to win games in the A-10.

This is what people mean when they talk about the importance of establishing program culture.

Other than at Dayton, which was a huge statistical outlier, we were not a pretty team during any of those wins. But we gutted out wins over a LaSalle team that was riding a 5-game win streak and the best Fordham team in 50 years, won at GW for only the second time ever and won 3 straight road games.

The next step for Mason is for whichever guys come back to enter the offseason with the baseline expectation that our culture is tough, physical, take no shit from anyone and if you want to get meaningful minutes in our program, you’d better spend the next 7 months preparing your body and mind accordingly.

I’m willing to put up with games where we turn the ball over too much and heave up bricks by the dozen as long as what we saw over those 7 games was real and not a mirage. Because even winning ugly is fun if you know your guys are bought in from Day 1 and willing to fight for each other.

This is it. Kim didn’t really change up any schemes during this timeframe, dudes just finally bought in and went all in on what we’d heard he was asking for all along.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

Honestly, the injury thing is just an excuse. All teams have injuries. You have to have a decent level of depth to overcome them. It’s not like our all A-10 player got hurt and was out for an extended period….As Jim and others have said and I agree, I can deal with ugly offense at times as long as we grind teams out on D. Our best teams have always locked people down first and been good to great on offense second.

 

[GMU79]

Honestly, the injury thing is just an excuse. All teams have injuries. You have to have a decent level of depth to overcome them. It’s not like our all A-10 player got hurt and was out for an extended period….As Jim and others have said and I agree, I can deal with ugly offense at times as long as we grind teams out on D. Our best teams have always locked people down first and been good to great on offense second.

UVa might be example #1