Game 20: George Washington University, Jan 25th, Noon, NBCSN

[dr. gunnie]

GMU84fanman is quickly becoming my favorite poster.

People always bring up the switching on screens as a big negative for Hewitt's defense, and it does cost us at times. You know what hurts us 10 times more a game? Our guys getting blown past like they are in quicksand w/o any screen. Of course, people don't talk about that as much because it's harder to blame Hewitt for it.

After watching these other teams, I think we have one player over 6'4" that would get meaningful minutes for most other A10 schools. One.

I know the cool thing to do is blame everything on Hewitt, but the blame goes all around.

 

[Patriotfan49]

GMU84fanman is quickly becoming my favorite poster.

People always bring up the switching on screens as a big negative for Hewitt's defense, and it does cost us at times. You know what hurts us 10 times more a game? Our guys getting blown past like they are in quicksand w/o any screen. Of course, people don't talk about that as much because it's harder to blame Hewitt for it.

After watching these other teams, I think we have one player over 6'4" that would get meaningful minutes for most other A10 schools. One.

I know the cool thing to do is blame everything on Hewitt, but the blame goes all around.

I can honestly tell you, majority of posters here have posted at least 5 times about the lack of our guys to defend anybody. That is simply on the player.

I can also honestly tell you, majority of posters understand its not an either or situation.....its an all encompassing, everybody involved has left alot to be desired.

However, when it comes down to it....there are bigger problems going on. Some feel its the players, some feel its Hewitt. Being on either side, does not automatically mean you have completely forgotten or neglect that equal blame goes around to everybody. That being said, Hewitt is the coach...the supposed leader of the players. Its his job to get them doing what they need to do out on the court.....and its his blame to take...perks of the job. You cant dismiss 9 players, but you can get a different coach. Just how it works....

 

[gmubrian]

Gunnie, I am sorry, but your point does not explain how we can compete with even the top teams or how we do fine in the first half, and then the other team makes an adjustment that we don't adjust for in the second half. On a broad basis, Hewitt only seems to be able to make in-game adjustments through personnel changes, not by adjusting the strategy. That is why I think we end up with some mind boggling substitutions.

All of our guys have their faults, there are only so many Chazz Williams out there. It is the coaches job to use the talent he has in the most effective way, to improve it through practice, and to get better talent on the team. I am completely unimpressed with all of those aspects at this point. For those of you that are hesitant to express that the coach is the problem, I suggest you ask yourself this:

What aspect about Hewitt's coaching are you impressed with so far?

I am not impressed with anything so far, and many aspects I am downright disappointed. If you can't come up with something to answer that question, then I think you, too, know where the problem really lies.

 

[GMU84fanman]

Brian--First, I respect your opinion. You have been and continue to be one of the best posters on this blog.

We currently average less than 70 points a game so thus far in the season. That is a fact--not a foul. Perhaps we will reach that plateau but I am not as confident as you.

Against UMASS we lost via the inability to execute an inbounds play by a senior starter, had the ball taken away from that same senior starter, failed to rebound a missed lay-up and had another senior starter dribble the ball off his leg for a game ending turnover in the final seconds. So let me get this right, we have the talent to compete with the best until we lose at the end then its on the coach. Do we give Hewitt any credit up until these end game lapses. While I agree that reserving timeouts would have helped, that ending was not all on the coach.

If we have the talent to compete against the best I guess you could ask the corollary as to why our talent doesn't show up against weaker competition? Oh wait, it must be the coach.

I personally believe the recruits he is bringing in will be better able to compete in the A-10 but perhaps I am too optimistic. He has had little time to date to recruit as a member of the A-10. I think the jury is still out on that one. I however respect your opinion.

Finally, I share your disappointment at where the program is to date and agree that the coach shares a good portion of the blame. However, no matter the coach, you have to have a team that is athletic and talented enough to compete against the elite in your league. I don't think we are there yet and you do. Fair enough. I hold both the OCM and Hewitt for the athletic/talent deficit at this level. I am optimistic that the athletes/talent we have coming in will be more prepared to compete at the A-10 level. I will not quibble however that we could need a new coach to optimize those athletes.

 

[Patriotfan49]

84, you seem to be lumping in things that are separate issues.

GMU has sooo many issues with the coaching angle as well as player angles they are all not interchangeable or have the same root problem.

Certain games are let down games, and you dont have your best A game....which is why we tend to play down to lower teams. As for the A10 games, we have seen against the top half of the league we clearly have the talent to compete...because we did. Would you disagree? In those same games, against the better coaches....did you feel we have equal ability on that level? I dont because in critical portions of the game, we clearly saw the opposite coach make adjustments, while ours did not. Nor did he have any answer for said adjustments.

The losses in UMASS, vcu, GWU extend beyond a play here and there. At least to me, there are strategic fatal flaws in the plan that cripple us beyond dumb turnovers. For example, imo the bigger issue in the UMASS game then Sherrod's inbound blunder was that stretch that they went to zone and Hewitt drew up nothing in order to attack it and we didnt score for a long stretch of time. We could have used some extra buckets there, to help cushion the lead. Also, putting the ball in the hands of two known shaky ball handlers in Sherrod and Bryon......is a pretty risky call there.

As for recruiting, I dont doubt that Mayimba, Lockett are good players and that Jackson and Porter could be eventually as well. But in a guard heavy league like the A10......Im not sure the emphasis on SF tweeners will exactly help us out in the near future. Im looking at the Hewitt recruits....Marko, Jenkins, Lockett, Mayimba, Jackson.....and see the same thing. 6'5+ tweeners that wont really contribute to our guard situation. Moore may turn out to be a good player for us, but at the moment he is very limited on the offensive side and in regards to ball handling he cant do it all himself.

So to me, in my opinion we have two problems. Players who have flaws on the surface, but those all can be worked on or schemed to be less emphasized. The second is the coach and the deep rooted problems he brings. A system on both ends of the floor that does not suit our team nor utilize strengths, personnel decisions that do not put us in the best position to win, mismanaged clock and timeouts that leave us short handed, and being too stubborn, stupid, ignorant, prideful whatever you want to say...to make adjustments.

 

[gmubrian]

Brian--First, I respect your opinion. You have been and continue to be one of the best posters on this blog.

We currently average less than 70 points a game so thus far in the season. That is a fact--not a foul. Perhaps we will reach that plateau but I am not as confident as you.

Against UMASS we lost via the inability to execute an inbounds play by a senior starter, had the ball taken away from that same senior starter, failed to rebound a missed lay-up and had another senior starter dribble the ball off his leg for a game ending turnover in the final seconds. So let me get this right, we have the talent to compete with the best until we lose at the end then its on the coach. Do we give Hewitt any credit up until these end game lapses. While I agree that reserving timeouts would have helped, that ending was not all on the coach.

If we have the talent to compete against the best I guess you could ask the corollary as to why our talent doesn't show up against weaker competition? Oh wait, it must be the coach.

I personally believe the recruits he is bringing in will be better able to compete in the A-10 but perhaps I am too optimistic. He has had little time to date to recruit as a member of the A-10. I think the jury is still out on that one. I however respect your opinion.

Finally, I share your disappointment at where the program is to date and agree that the coach shares a good portion of the blame. However, no matter the coach, you have to have a team that is athletic and talented enough to compete against the elite in your league. I don't think we are there yet and you do. Fair enough. I hold both the OCM and Hewitt for the athletic/talent deficit at this level. I am optimistic that the athletes/talent we have coming in will be more prepared to compete at the A-10 level. I will not quibble however that we could need a new coach to optimize those athletes.

84, I too appreciate your posts and debating with you. I like having people express their views, either way, when backed up by facts and analysis.

As for not being able to score 70 points, we averaged 72 points in our A10 games.

My point about talent is that we have the talent to compete with the top teams of Div 1 as evidenced by our play against U-Mass. The players can't have talent one day and not have it the next. Why they don't perform up to their ability in some games, well, I would say that goes to my point that it is the coaches responsibility to ensure the talent is performing at 100%. That is what was impressive about the OCM. He may not have been an impressive recruiter, but he knew how to get as much out of the talent we had.

As for the U-Mass loss, you are right that those plays were key, but I think if you take a step back and look from a little higher level, you see that it was because people were put in a position that was not suited to their strength. The two turnover's by Wright at the end, after we were up by five with 41 seconds to go, yes I put those on Hewitt. Why? Wright should not have been handling the ball. He has a horrible handle on the ball, so he should not be asked to that in games. Did you see who was subbed out right before both of those turnovers? Our point guard, the guy that should be handling the ball.

 

[dr. gunnie]

I'll just ride on GMU84fanman's coat tails on this and say +1

Unfortunately - there is very little that we can do as fans to help what's going on. We can't hire/fire the coaching staff. We can't play defense, score, or rebound. There is not a lot that we can control. If it makes people feel good to leave a message for TOC saying we should fire Hewitt, knock your socks off - but I think there is a lot more to that decision than a couple dozen fans calls/emails.

So what can we control? What can we do to help the team?

1) Continue to go to games and cheer as loud as possible. Make it a tough place for opposing teams to play. My guess is most of us on here will continue to do so. If you are one of those that will stop going to games because we lose, your not a true fan... sorry, but it's true.

2) Stop the negativity. Hyjacking every thread saying Hewitt sucks hurts our program. Cheering "Fire Hewitt" hurts our program. We had recruits at the game yesterday - what kind of message does "Fire Hewitt" send to recruits? If you truly want our program to get better, you can't justify that garbage. Same with the message board - recruits and players read this stuff. There is nothing positive that can come from it - only negative. Sure, we all vent, but you know very well others just want to fan the fire every thread which doesn't sell our program very well. Like it or not, what we post here has an impact on recruiting and the team - maybe it shouldn't, but it does.

I'm not telling people what to do, just some food for thought. Everyone loves to point fingers at everyone else and place blame, but are we doing what we can do to help or are we hurting?

 

[Patriotfan49]

Im curious what is more negative or hurts our program more:

Some barely audible chant, or some message board venting or the product on the court and being 0-6?

 

[masonjoe]

Oh good more information on how to be a "true fan".

I'd be more worried about recruits not coming here because of the fact that this team simply cannot compete in the Atlantic 10 rather than a few drunken students chanting BS.

 

[JimP]

Even with his deficiencies on the X and O side, if Hewitt could at least motivate it no doubt would have been good for some additional wins. Let's face it, L wasn't always the best tactician, but he has mastered the art of motivation.

The other day I attended a Binghamton University vs. Hartford game. I sat behind the Hartford bench. The Hartford bench was really into the game, something that seems to be missing from the Mason bench. The coach was too - I thought he used a nice combination of encouragement along with a willingness to get in a guys face when it was warranted.

There was one forward in particular who was pulled off the court after either being out of position or lacking in some effort. The coach got in his face and among other things, told the player "to be tougher than them." I had the same idea about the guy, he looked physically able to dominate against BU. It worked too, the next time he went in he played much better on the court.

I'm not sure we see much of this out of Hewitt. He's gotta know what makes each player tick and how to get the best out of him. It ain't happening.

 

[gmujim92]

Criticizing fans or message board posters for being fed up with the product on the court is just an attempt at deflection by people who would do anything to avoid placing the blame where it really belongs.

Frankly, I think it would make this board look pathetic to visiting recruits/parents if there weren't a bunch of critical posts about a coach who is winless in conference play.

Let's all hold hands and sing Kumbaya while our program burns! Yippeee! That's the positive spirit.

B Freaking S.

Hold a second-half lead for once. Make an adjustment other than bringing Okoloji into the game to guard the opposing team's PG. Win an A-10 game and magically this place will become significantly happier.

Oh and by the way, recruits don't need to hear chants from drunken students or come to this site to know that Hewitt is in trouble. I'm quite sure they can all access the A-10 standings on their iphones and come to that conclusion quite easily on their own.

 

[azgmu]

Gunnie, I am sorry, but your point does not explain how we can compete with even the top teams or how we do fine in the first half, and then the other team makes an adjustment that we don't adjust for in the second half.

Cynically speaking, it can be explained by a game plan that lets the real competitors take over in the second half, combined with a horrible mis-judgement about who the real competitors are.

 

[GMUgemini]

Even with his deficiencies on the X and O side, if Hewitt could at least motivate it no doubt would have been good for some additional wins. Let's face it, L wasn't always the best tactician, but he has mastered the art of motivation.

The other day I attended a Binghamton University vs. Hartford game. I sat behind the Hartford bench. The Hartford bench was really into the game, something that seems to be missing from the Mason bench. The coach was too - I thought he used a nice combination of encouragement along with a willingness to get in a guys face when it was warranted.

There was one forward in particular who was pulled off the court after either being out of position or lacking in some effort. The coach got in his face and among other things, told the player "to be tougher than them." I had the same idea about the guy, he looked physically able to dominate against BU. It worked too, the next time he went in he played much better on the court.

I'm not sure we see much of this out of Hewitt. He's gotta know what makes each player tick and how to get the best out of him. It ain't happening.

A good example of what a coach can do is Georgia State. They always had the talent to compete against the top of the CAA, but something was always missing and they'd wind up losing a lot of close games. Hunter comes in and he turns them around in no time.

 

[gmutom]

So a coaching issue......yeah?

Of course coaching is a big part of our issues, and you can find about 100 posts where I've bitched about some of the hair-brain rotations, lineups, schemes and any other number of knucklehead things Hewitt has done.

That said, and this is a big disclaimer, I've played, watched and covered enough basketball to know that there are severe limitations on this roster. And anybody who keeps saying we are loaded with talent is lying through their teeth or is in serious denial. Allen and Wright may combine for 20-some points a game, but I bet they give him more than that with their defensive deficiencies.

I'm all for people holding Hewitt accountable, because the buck ultimately stops with him; but I have to laugh any anybody who acts like we are oozing with a roster full of studs when it simply isn't true. I wish, for once, we could have an honest conversation about everything encompassing the problems with this team, but that would entail people putting their pitchforks down long enough for that to happen.

 

[gmujim92]

Of course coaching is a big part of our issues, and you can find about 100 posts where I've bitched about some of the hair-brain rotations, lineups, schemes and any other number of knucklehead things Hewitt has done.

That said, and this is a big disclaimer, I've played, watched and covered enough basketball to know that there are severe limitations on this roster. And anybody who keeps saying we are loaded with talent is lying through their teeth or is in serious denial. Allen and Wright may combine for 20-some points a game, but I bet they give him more than that with their defensive deficiencies.

I'm all for people holding Hewitt accountable, because the buck ultimately stops with him; but I have to laugh any anybody who acts like we are oozing with a roster full of studs when it simply isn't true. I wish, for once, we could have an honest conversation about everything encompassing the problems with this team, but that would entail people putting their pitchforks down long enough for that to happen.

Once again Tom, our players certainly look like studs in the first half. What's your theory for why they turn to duds after halftime?

 

[gmujim92]

I've got one: our coach's offensive and defensive schemes suck.

They didn't work consistently with NBA-level talent, and they don't work with what some here think is a team full of CAA-level players.

I'm putting my pitchfork down now.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Of course coaching is a big part of our issues, and you can find about 100 posts where I've bitched about some of the hair-brain rotations, lineups, schemes and any other number of knucklehead things Hewitt has done.

That said, and this is a big disclaimer, I've played, watched and covered enough basketball to know that there are severe limitations on this roster. And anybody who keeps saying we are loaded with talent is lying through their teeth or is in serious denial. Allen and Wright may combine for 20-some points a game, but I bet they give him more than that with their defensive deficiencies.

I'm all for people holding Hewitt accountable, because the buck ultimately stops with him; but I have to laugh any anybody who acts like we are oozing with a roster full of studs when it simply isn't true. I wish, for once, we could have an honest conversation about everything encompassing the problems with this team, but that would entail people putting their pitchforks down long enough for that to happen.

This must be the twilight zone.

Again, like I said to Gunnie....you wont find a single person who doesnt think nor admit our roster has limitations. NOT ONE.....if they do, they are insane. However, with that being said I think the more glaring and obvious limitations are with our handsomely paid coach. Our players have shown, through their limitations that they can still compete up and down the A10. Our coach on the other hand, has not shown that against UMASS, vcu, Fordham or even UMBC.

Tom, Gunnie it would help if you stop saying that anybody is advocating that we are loaded with talent. Nobody has said that, not one. Please also do not misconstrue that somebody saying we do have talent to compete with the A10 upper class, means that we are a top tier team. It in fact does not say that.

Again, to reiterate.....simply criticizing Hewitt or even wanting him fired, does not magically mean you think the roster is loaded with all conference talent. The same as thinking more fault lands with the players doesnt mean you think Hewitt is the second coming of Wooden. The sooner some people can understand that, the sooner we can stop having the same deadbeat conversations.

 

[gmutom]

Once again Tom, our players certainly look like studs in the first half. What's your theory for why they turn to duds after halftime?

Jim, you've covered enough basketball for me not to have to answer that question for you. I know you hate Hewitt and want to put it all at his feet, but I know deep inside you that Jim the sports writer could come up with enough ammo for three articles holding these players accountable for their play — yes, even in the second half.

I just wish you could actually go one post without a Hewitt rant and actually talk basketball like you used to. I'm not saying he hasn't made some bad coaching moves after intermission, because some have been God awful; but I also know that you know it's not all on him.

 

[JimP]

Of course coaching is a big part of our issues, and you can find about 100 posts where I've bitched about some of the hair-brain rotations, lineups, schemes and any other number of knucklehead things Hewitt has done.

That said, and this is a big disclaimer, I've played, watched and covered enough basketball to know that there are severe limitations on this roster. And anybody who keeps saying we are loaded with talent is lying through their teeth or is in serious denial. Allen and Wright may combine for 20-some points a game, but I bet they give him more than that with their defensive deficiencies.

I'm all for people holding Hewitt accountable, because the buck ultimately stops with him; but I have to laugh any anybody who acts like we are oozing with a roster full of studs when it simply isn't true. I wish, for once, we could have an honest conversation about everything encompassing the problems with this team, but that would entail people putting their pitchforks down long enough for that to happen.

I'm not sure who is saying we're loaded with talent or have a roster full of studs. At the same time, do we have so little talent that we should be 7-13, 0-6 in conference?Personally, give me an 11-9, 3-3 or even 2-4 and I'm not nearly this anti-Hewitt. This is his third year with this group of guys and the A-10 coaches themselves picked them for 8th after all. I think the A-10 coaches have enough experience to properly evaluate the talent on our roster. I agree with them - we have the talent to be a middle of the pack team.

 

[Patriotfan49]

Jim, you've covered enough basketball for me not to have to answer that question for you. I know you hate Hewitt and want to put it all at his feet, but I know deep inside you that Jim the sports writer could come up with enough ammo for three articles holding these players accountable for their play — yes, even in the second half.

I just wish you could actually go one post without a Hewitt rant and actually talk basketball like you used to. I'm not saying he hasn't made some bad coaching moves after intermission, because some have been God awful; but I also know that you know it's not all on him.

Jim has never said its simply Hewitts fault. Im not sure how in reading the same posts of his that I do, you came up with that. Like everybody else, he has mentioned faults of our players..multiple times...But he ultimately places more blame with the coach. As the same you are placing more blame with the players, and less with Hewitts shortcomings.

Seems to me, that you don't like when people call you a Hewitt apologist, just because you think the players are more at fault than others.....so Id assume you would be more apt to not do the same to the opposite side of view.

Also its such a misguided thought to chastise somebody for "not talking basketball" or "constantly repeat the same things". Frankly, GMU bball there isnt much good to talk about, and every game is about a carbon copy of the last.....so thats what there is to talk about. Now if we want to talk about some actual hoops, maybe we should talk about the way GW played yesterday.