Game Thread: Mason (9-1) vs. American (3-4), Saturday, Dec. 7th, 7:00 PM

[Mason2005]

Game highlights and post game. 10-1! Changes were also seen after Bryan's rant on the last game post recap. A movement is happening.

View: https://youtu.be/2i-xdx8BAPU

 

[Patriotsince81]

Made the 12 hour drive to EBA for the game.

So you came from Centerville? LOL

 

[dr. gunnie]

One other thing I really liked were the green glow bracelets and how they looked during pregame. I was thinking it would be cool if there was an app that fans could download to do a custom light show with their cell camera flash. Apparently I’m too late. A company called Cue Audio does it and has recently started doing it at some bigger schools. It would be cool if Mason got on board. Would be really cool if they made little green cellophane sleeves that could go over your flash to turn the light show green.

 

[LOUDMOUTHS]

One other thing I really liked were the green glow bracelets and how they looked during pregame. I was thinking it would be cool if there was an app that fans could download to do a custom light show with their cell camera flash. Apparently I’m too late. A company called Cue Audio does it and has recently started doing it at some bigger schools. It would be cool if Mason got on board. Would be really cool if they made little green cellophane sleeves that could go over your flash to turn the light show green.

They do this at Xavier. Come the last game, fewer than 15% of fans seemed to participate. It will die out as a fad.

 

[tblack33]

Made the 12 hour drive to EBA for the game. Thought it was a pretty good crowd and overall had a great time. Got to see some of you there as well.

The reason we came for this one was so my son could play with the green machine. I know things on here can skew negative and we complain more than we should, but the band day promotion was an absolute home run. They sounded great, they looked huge, and there were a lot of parents in attendance which might draw some new bodies to the game. My son was nervous about it and had a great time. Job well done to everyone involved.

Not gonna lie, him on the drum set for This is How We Do It and Power gave me a little bit of a creeper.

Meant to comment on this, I really enjoyed having the Green Machine fill out that entire section of bleachers. Made the arena feel way more full. I'm all for having the Green Machine expand and take up the lower bleachers on that whole side and giving the other side to students (until attendance improves to the point where they need both sides).

Green Machine rocked it with all the extra bodies this weekend.

 

[tblack33]

Not much to say about the game that hasn't been said already. Bad first half, I don't know if we'll be able to come back from a bad half like that against the upper talent of the A10. Play like that against a vcu/Dayton in the first half and you are going into the locker room down 20. Second half was solid. XJ plays like a man. Javon has had a solid stretch here and is looking like I would have expected him to this year. AJ was due for a stinker, glad he got it out of his system now.

 

[Falco]

One other thing I really liked were the green glow bracelets and how they looked during pregame. I was thinking it would be cool if there was an app that fans could download to do a custom light show with their cell camera flash. Apparently I’m too late. A company called Cue Audio does it and has recently started doing it at some bigger schools. It would be cool if Mason got on board. Would be really cool if they made little green cellophane sleeves that could go over your flash to turn the light show green.

Mason should really do this! This is a no brainer!

 

[Patriotsince81]

Not much to say about the game that hasn't been said already. Bad first half, I don't know if we'll be able to come back from a bad half like that against the upper talent of the A10. Play like that against a vcu/Dayton in the first half and you are going into the locker room down 20. Second half was solid. XJ plays like a man. Javon has had a solid stretch here and is looking like I would have expected him to this year. AJ was due for a stinker, glad he got it out of his system now.

We seem to be a 2nd half team. We are -8 on the year in the first half and +71 in the 2nd.

 

[tblack33]

We seem to be a 2nd half team. We are -8 on the year in the first half and +71 in the 2nd.

I wonder why most of the teams in the Paulsen era have been slow starters (or am I just having some recency bias here?). I can only think of a few occasions over the last few years we came out of the gate swinging. Obviously it's great to crush the second half, but there has to be some reason for all the slow starts.

 

[GSII]

The Dew hasnt kicked in.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

We seem to be a 2nd half team. We are -8 on the year in the first half and +71 in the 2nd.

Damn! That's quite the stat.

So on average, that's a per game discrepancy of -.7 in the first half and +6.5 int the second.

Take out the American game as an outlier and it looks a little better at -.5 and +5.3 but that's still a pretty significant deviation over 10 games.

 

[MasonCrew]

Well second half adjustments are all about the coach. And yes as mentioned, it takes ~1hr for Mountain Dew to change it's consumer.

 

[Herndon]

Not much to say about the game that hasn't been said already. Bad first half, I don't know if we'll be able to come back from a bad half like that against the upper talent of the A10. Play like that against a vcu/Dayton in the first half and you are going into the locker room down 20. Second half was solid. XJ plays like a man. Javon has had a solid stretch here and is looking like I would have expected him to this year. AJ was due for a stinker, glad he got it out of his system now.

We probably won't.

I'm of the opinion that we still are what we are; an above average, but not elite A10 team. Last year's non-conference made the team look worse than it was. This year's has made the team look better than it is.

I expect us to finish 4th or 5th in the league, and for now, that's good enough for me.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

I expect us to finish 4th or 5th in the league, and for now, that's good enough for me.

I'd be satisfied w/that at this stage.

 

[Leesburg Chankenstank III]

I'd be satisfied w/that at this stage.

Absolutely! A 5th place finish or better this year would be more than satisfying for me. And a 5th place finish this year may almost be enough to at least have us in the discussion for an at large bid.

 

[MasonSAE4]

Absolutely! A 5th place finish or better this year would be more than satisfying for me. And a 5th place finish this year may almost be enough to at least have us in the discussion for an at large bid.

We'd probably have to beat TCU and only lose to the teams that finish top four to be in the discussion. If we end up 5th at 11-7 like last year it may be a hard sell. 5th at 12-6 with losses to only vcu, Dayton, Richmond, and Rhody (or however the top four shakes out) is I guess a possibility, but they'd have to be close and we'd have to lay the hammer down on some teams and make the A10 semi-finals.

Who knows though, the bubble sucked last year. Maybe if it's like that again we're in the discussion. I'm really hoping for an NIT appearance personally.

 

[GSII]

5th place would be remarkable. 6 or 7th is more realistic.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

Who knows though, the bubble sucked last year. Maybe if it's like that again we're in the discussion. I'm really hoping for an NIT appearance personally.

I almost feel like an NIT at-large is harder to get for a mid-major.

In the NCAA tourney, the committee is charged w/picking the best at-large teams, period. The NIT feels like they're keeping ticket sales in mind and giving the bigger schools ranking bumps and home games.

 

[Petey Buckets]

We talked about at-large chances across the A10 at the 60 minute mark, if you're into that sort of thing. Long story short - Mason goes into the "I wish they played a better schedule" bucket with Duquesne. Beating TCU would be great, but we don't have any of the wins that build a tournament resume at the moment, and noncon SOS is weak.

https://giantkiller.co/ByGeorge/2019/12/12/hey10-ep14/

 

[psyclone]

5th place would be remarkable. 6 or 7th is more realistic.

If you believe the Kenpom efficiency numbers, we're currently 8th in the A10 at #120 and much closer to #9 (St. Bonaventure) than to #7 (St. Louis). They still have us going 8-10 in conference.

However they have us losing by 1 or 2 in 3 different games (LaSalle away, Richmond & URI at home). We'll have to grab wins in those sort of games while hanging on to win the 3 others where we are only favored by 1 (UMass & Fordham away; St. Louis at home).

For us to improve our standing, you'd have to be thinking that our efficiencies will be improved once Kier is completely integrated into the lineup. But remember, St. Bonaventure with Osun's return has won 4 in a row and jumped from #144 to #124 nationally after beating Hofstra by almost 30 pts.

Still, fun to speculate as to how this season will unfold!