Yeah, they picked UMass 8th too. That’s a bit….interesting.
Predictions - Lindy's College Basketball Magazine
- Thread starter jessej
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Yeah, they picked UMass 8th too. That’s a bit….interesting.
Guilty as charged here too, but having an experienced 3rd year big with upgraded experience talent that has already won on the D1 level should yield dividends. The mystery like everyone has spoken about is point guard play.
But that first sentence alone should help Mason to a 8-10th finish I would think. There is no reason to think there won't be growing pains of some sort, but I have to think there's enough proven and experienced talent to help with that.
Thats another program that somehow always gets some decent hype preseason. McCall is about 20 games under .500 in conference, almost 20 under overall and is in a decision year for his career at Umass.
Quentin Daniels
Hall of Famer
I don't think so either, so don't crucify me for this, but I'll play Devil's advocate.
Weak point guard play. XJ is your returning assists leader and is a turnover machine. Behind him is Hartwell who as a Senior has hit his ceiling, then Polite who was even worse than XJ in turning over the ball in limited minutes. Gray is a freshman coming off injury and not the same player he was in HS.
No PF depth after Oduro. Henry played in a total of 8 games for 14 minutes last season. Jones is tall, but game is more outside shooter, rail thin, and needs time to acclimate to college game. Kabimba struggled for minutes at Stetson.
Transfers in not as good as transfers out. AJ>Schwartz, Greene>Cooper, Miller>Gaines, Kolek>>>Kabimba.
Coaching is all hype. Super-nice guy, great recruiter and promoter on social media, but weak on X's & O's and in-game adjustments. Team is simply unprepared on the court.
Team does improve, or at least doesn’t regress. But programs ranked ahead of it are still better. Even UMASS w/trio of transfers in Kelly, Kelly, & Steadman.
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I would personally feel much better if we had a PG. I think anywhere 5-10 is ok to put us at. Schwartz, Cooper and Oduro are the only known commodities. Gaines should be great in the A10 but he played less than Leander Rehnstrom last year
. And Frazier was REALLY good for 3 games out of a whole season. They will learn to respect CKE soon enough but I don't see a reason to gripe about 10th (other than them putting UMASS, St Joe's and GW ahead of us in some predictions which is just NUTZO.people forget about the Kelly bros over at UMASS... the Albany kid's game is made for A-10 even if McCall is a horrible coach. They also return Fernandes who is a top 3-4 A10 PG that can fill it up on offense. It will also be very interesting to see what type of offense they run without giving touches to Tre Mitchell inside or on the top of the key each possession... They might be an addition by subtraction scenario. The amount of times that kid quit on defense when it mattered was staggering.
donate it to CKE's recruiting budget if you are in the market for throwing away $$ lol
Barring significant improvement from one of the other guys, I strongly suspect Cooper is gonna be the de facto PG so Kim can get the most minutes from the best 5 guys.I would personally feel much better if we had a PG. I think anywhere 5-10 is ok to put us at. Schwartz, Cooper and Oduro are the only known commodities. Gaines should be great in the A10 but he played less than Leander Rehnstrom last year
Also, my issue with picking us 10th is not that I think we’re gonna be world-beaters by any stretch. I just don’t see Duquesne and UMass finishing ahead of us and am
also skeptical of Davidson and Rhody — I would put us anywhere from 6-8, with a very outside shot at surprising and contending for a top-4.
KAOriginal
All-American
My thing...ranking us 10th going in to the season....I get it.
I just believe the makings are there for better at the end.
I just believe the makings are there for better at the end.
Quentin Daniels
Hall of Famer
Yeah, or by committee approach w/whoever else gets the start (Hartwell, XJ, Polite).
Also, the lack of forward depth can possibly be offset by having Schwartz and Gaines on the court.
URI's talent will make up for some of Cox's middling coaching ability. Davidson will always overperform their roster because of McKillops ability to coach. Not sure where they'll finish, but I'd be surprised if either of them finished lower than 8th.
Cooper averaged about the same assists per game as Kolek and Greene last season. Cooper (2.4 apg), Greene (2.2 apg), Kolek (2.3 apg). He also had a 1:1 assist to TO ratio, which isn't really great. I'd rather see Ronald Polite or Xavier Johnson (probably our best passer on the team) have breakout seasons and take over that PG spot and let Cooper be the primary shooter he is meant to be.
But, hey, if Ticket can be the guy to bring the ball up the court (even under pressure) and get the offense started, who am I to argue with a lineup that big? It'll probably also be, by far, the best defensive starting 5 we've seen in a LONG time at Mason.
Quentin Daniels
Hall of Famer
Added the one thing I'll quibble with. Hopefully we do have that PG on the roster and just haven't seen him yet. But you're def. right that it wasn't there last season.
It is interesting that CKE didn't add a PG w/the roster haul-over. I wonder if that had more to do w/being comfortable w/what he had, or not wanting to take up one more scholarship w/Hartwell, Polite, XJ, and Gray on the roster and having other needs to fill. I am hopeful that having Tomlinson on the coaching staff will help at least one of those four develop and not have to immediately rely on Dinkins next season.
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Quentin Daniels
Hall of Famer
I don't recall ever seeing him do that at Tennessee. Not sure that's exactly his strong suit or putting him in the best position to be successful.
that is fair enough... one has to think that next year Dinkins can come in and take the starting spot... Hopefully Ronnie is good enough and has developed for that not to be the case
He barely played at Tennessee, so it's hard to say what he can and can't do. But apparently Gaines was the primary ballhandler for the starting team in the practice the Giant Killer team watched, Patriotsince81 also witnessed it in open practice, so I'm assuming they are at least testing it out.
Also, apparently, Frazier is practicing at three positions (the 2-5) as well.
I have no idea if any of these stats/conclusions are right, but this was a fun read and chart to go with it:
View: https://twitter.com/A10Stats/status/1442519129278271502
View: https://twitter.com/A10Stats/status/1442519129278271502
Mason32
Starter
Cooper will probably have a big impact but Schwartz to me is an unknown. Can you he create his own shot? Was on a power team at CU, he won't get the same looks. Agree we don't have an established PG. Also a lot seems to hinge on Oduro making a big leap, will he? Also there's zero depth in the front court
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Doc Nix and the Green Machine
Bill Bride - DMV Sports Shots
Patriot Brew Blog/Newsletter