Well, we're officially an above average A-10 program

[Falco]

Stole this from another poster on a different thread. Its well said; "this is the ceiling of the underdog strategy - 3rd or 4th if we're lucky in a crappy A10. We're in real danger of getting lapped by the A10 next year since Dayton, Davidson, vcu, and Duquesne are gonna be LOADED while the Bonnies, La Salle, and URI could all be a ton better."

 

[TweederGMU]

Stole this from another poster on a different thread. Its well said; "this is the ceiling of the underdog strategy - 3rd or 4th if we're lucky in a crappy A10. We're in real danger of getting lapped by the A10 next year since Dayton, Davidson, vcu, and Duquesne are gonna be LOADED while the Bonnies, La Salle, and URI could all be a ton better."

St. Bonnie is going to be good. Same with URI as Dowtin and Langevine are Seniors. La Salle.... ehhh don't see them being very good as they lose ol' Pookie.

Anyways..... 6-7 very good teams we will have to battle with. A-10 will be very hard next year.

 

[GMUgemini]

Stole this from another poster on a different thread. Its well said; "this is the ceiling of the underdog strategy - 3rd or 4th if we're lucky in a crappy A10. We're in real danger of getting lapped by the A10 next year since Dayton, Davidson, vcu, and Duquesne are gonna be LOADED while the Bonnies, La Salle, and URI could all be a ton better."

That was sleeperpick, right?

It may be true, but we only lose Otis next season and get Mar back plus bring in Xavier Johnson coming in for PG depth who looks like he’s going to be good. I’m cautiously optimistic for next season.

 

[patriotchild]

I'd really like to see solid lineups and rotations figured out early in the year. It killed us in OOC and with injuries we've gone through another mix that's cost us a few games. There was no excuse for that this year and similarly no excuse next year with only losing Otis as a starter.

I'd also like to see meaningful basketball at the end of next year, but, there's not a whole lot changing here to make me think we'll be competing at the top of the league. If other teams get better then I think we fall back to the middle 7-9 range and cap out at 4-6.

Why you may ask?

• Jamal/whomever have to replace Otis 15ish ppg (this year, or very good otis numbers from previous years), a couple assists and limit turnovers. Not impossible, actually probable
  
• Everyone else need to improve (no Mar situations). Overall the entire team lacks consistency. Need to develop guys who can be consistent for the entire season.
  
• We still have a gaping hole at the 4 and 5 that won't magically be fixed by throwing out the same 3 guys (Mar and Miller are not 4s) we have now (unless the point above is addressed and proves me wrong). As we've seen this year, we don't match up well against teams with good 4 and 5 combos.

Result, we look good at times, we fight, we struggle, up and down like this year. Hopefully less injuries and we are again in the 4-6 debate. Not ideal, but I think reality. We can't really take off until our recruiting at the 4/5 catches up and we are probably 1-2 more cycles away.

 

[MasonSAE4]

That was sleeperpick, right?

It may be true, but we only lose Otis next season and get Mar back plus bring in Xavier Johnson coming in for PG depth who looks like he’s going to be good. I’m cautiously optimistic for next season.

That was Petey

 

[sleeperpick]

That was sleeperpick, right?

It may be true, but we only lose Otis next season and get Mar back plus bring in Xavier Johnson coming in for PG depth who looks like he’s going to be good. I’m cautiously optimistic for next season.

not me but I agree with that poster... except probably Lasalle finishing higher than us... Ashley Howard is a better in game coach than Paulsen... his team is just really shitty right now

 

[GMUgemini]

Hopefully Paulsen has the right vision for the team next year, because I don’t think the rotations are as clear cut as you might think:

Vision One: Go Bigger

Kier, Greene, Miller, Mar/AJ, Reuter (because he won’t start Calixte)

Vision two: like for like replacement of current lineup

Hartwell, Kier, Greene, Miller, Reuter

And then there is a question of Boyd his senior season. Does he start?

Vision three: senior heavy

Kier, Greene, Boyd, Miller/Mar, Reuter

 

[patriotchild]

Unfortunately for Boyd I don’t think he starts. The injury this year stopped him from being able to show anything consistent and earn a starting role.

I don’t see anyone but Jamal starting at PG. unless kier or Greene fall off it looks like Boyd is 6th man.

 

[GMUSig03]

Unfortunately for Boyd I don’t think he starts. The injury this year stopped him from being able to show anything consistent and earn a starting role.

I don’t see anyone but Jamal starting at PG. unless kier or Greene fall off it looks like Boyd is 6th man.

Jamal, Greene, Kier, Miller, Reuter. Book it.

 

[MudKat]

Vision 4...playing on Wednesday..

Hopefully Paulsen has the right vision for the team next year, because I don’t think the rotations are as clear cut as you might think:

Vision One: Go Bigger

Kier, Greene, Miller, Mar/AJ, Reuter (because he won’t start Calixte)

Vision two: like for like replacement of current lineup

Hartwell, Kier, Greene, Miller, Reuter

And then there is a question of Boyd his senior season. Does he start?

Vision three: senior heavy

Kier, Greene, Boyd, Miller/Mar, Reuter

 

[patriotchild]

Jamal, Greene, Kier, Miller, Reuter. Book it.

God help us if Reuter is still starting next year.

 

[patriotchild]

Haven’t seen this discussion and want to throw it out there

2-5 against the top half of the league, 1 to play
8-1 against the bottom, 1 to play


Pretty much sums up why we are in our current situation. And we only had to play 2 top half teams twice SBU and vcu.

Unlike previous years we’ve taken care of business (or escaped) relatively unscathed by the lower half which is what we wanted to see. But as the season has played out, it’s obvious that we still haven’t made progress against the top half, even in a down year.

So are we really above average?

 

[GMUgemini]

Haven’t seen this discussion and want to throw it out there

2-5 against the top half of the league, 1 to play
8-1 against the bottom, 1 to play


Pretty much sums up why we are in our current situation. And we only had to play 2 top half teams twice SBU and vcu.

Unlike previous years we’ve taken care of business (or escaped) relatively unscathed by the lower half which is what we wanted to see. But as the season has played out, it’s obvious that we still haven’t made progress against the top half, even in a down year.

So are we really above average?

Two losses that could have gone either way, two bad losses on the road, two dominant wins, I'd say above average is about right.

 

[gmujim92]

Haven’t seen this discussion and want to throw it out there

2-5 against the top half of the league, 1 to play
8-1 against the bottom, 1 to play


Pretty much sums up why we are in our current situation. And we only had to play 2 top half teams twice SBU and vcu.

Unlike previous years we’ve taken care of business (or escaped) relatively unscathed by the lower half which is what we wanted to see. But as the season has played out, it’s obvious that we still haven’t made progress against the top half, even in a down year.

So are we really above average?

Forgive me for always being the “glass half full” guy, but suppose we beat vcu tonight (not predicting that by any means):

We would’ve split with vcu
Had a shot to tie Davidson in last :10
Beat Dayton in their sold-out gym
Split with Bona
Lost by 1 to Duquesne after blowing a 19-point lead

Looks a little better, right?

 

[GSII]

Forgive me for always being the “glass half full” guy, but suppose we beat vcu tonight (not predicting that by any means):

We would’ve split with vcu
Had a shot to tie Davidson in last :10
Beat Dayton in their sold-out gym
Split with Bona
Lost by 1 to Duquesne after blowing a 19-point lead

Looks a little better, right?

How about we beat vcpoo and gw then I can agree to a TINY bit better. Cmon jim, its gotta bother you that in year 4 we are this bad?

 

[gmujim92]

How about we beat vcpoo and gw then I can agree to a TINY bit better. Cmon jim, its gotta bother you that in year 4 we are this bad?

Would I rather be in first place by two games right now instead of looking up at vcu? Absolutely.

But while we’re obviously not as good as I thought we were going to be, I don’t think we’re as bad as the doomsayers and trolls think we are, either.

Stuff happens. Things don’t go as planned. That’s life. Gotta take the bad with the good.

 

[Haxormax]

Do we have any players that other teams fear?

I'm a pessimist for sure.

 

[patriotchild]

Would I rather be in first place by two games right now instead of looking up at vcu? Absolutely.

But while we’re obviously not as good as I thought we were going to be, I don’t think we’re as bad as the doomsayers and trolls think we are, either.

Stuff happens. Things don’t go as planned. That’s life. Gotta take the bad with the good.

I'll bite on this a little. I like the positivity, I want to be positive. But, given the way the season started and is seemingly coming to an end its kinda hard to see. And I don't view this as our conference record is over .500 so we are automatically "above average." Our conference record, although better, is going to leave us, more than likely, smack in the middle of the conference at 11-7. Only a two game improvement over last year. Even a win over vcu still only puts us at 3-5 against the other top 7 teams and possibly 3 games better than last year.

The real only positive I see, barring a catastrophe at GW, is that we didn't poo the bed against any bottom 4 teams (although we came close). Losing at Richmond, not ideal, but I'm OK with that. This is a sign of us being in contention to be "above average."

And while we can say we were within a few points against some of the top teams (Davidson & Duquesne), we can also say we were within a few points of losing to really bad teams (UMass x2 and Fordham) so that argument has to go both ways and we have to dig a little deeper into each of those scenarios.

Based on the totality of the way those 5 games played out, I'm leaning more toward average, we blew a big lead and couldn't overtake weaker Davidson team, at home, that shot poorly. Somewhat concerning is that we still had to have heart attack plays to win against two of the 4 bottom teams.

To be "above average" I'd think we'd have to take care of business against the lower half, as we've done, and get to .500 or slightly above against the top half teams. The unbalanced schedule is not always going to be in our favor and at some point, we have to get over the proverbial "hump."

 

[GSII]

Duquesne guys! We are talking about Duquesne being and finishing better than us with a 2nd year coach most have never heard of. We are in year 4. Jim is right. Things do happen and it's life. We just have zero margins protecting whats important. Mar goes down and Miller steps right in. One example of how we were able to respond. With everything else we weren't. We are stuck in a vortex it seems.

 

[gmujim92]

Duquesne guys! We are talking about Duquesne being and finishing better than us with a 2nd year coach most have never heard of. We are in year 4. Jim is right. Things do happen and it's life. We just have zero margins protecting whats important. Mar goes down and Miller steps right in. One example of how we were able to respond. With everything else we weren't. We are stuck in a vortex it seems.

You are correct that our margin for error is thin because the staff is still building up the roster.

Most of us had high expectations because for the first time we weren’t counting on freshmen (and sophomores, to a lesser extent) to do the heavy lifting.

Unfortunately the veteran team we thought we had never materialized.

Otis has taken a step back for some reason, Grayer barely played, Reuter has been far less than advertised and Boyd has been banged up.

Among guys junior or older, only Kier has taken his game to another level — and he seems to have run out of gas the last couple weeks.

As a result, we’re left once again to count on sophomores (Greene, Calixte) and freshmen (Miller, Hartwell) to play much larger roles than expected.

Young players are usually inconsistent, and isn’t that what so many people have said about this team?

I still think our future looks bright, but we need the older guys to start playing like older guys if we’re gonna get where we all want to go.