Game 6: GMU (2-3) at Paradise Jam - Buffalo (1-4) on Monday, November 21, at 1 PM.

[GMU79]

I am as deeply disappointed in the team's performance this year as anyone. But I must say all of the talk here about the coach's status seems way overboard to me. I expect I'll get a lot of blowback on this, but I really think we should all take a deep breath and give English a chance to fix things. He has been the head coach for 1 year and 6 games. Let's see where we are later this year. I hate the way we've started the year, but I have confidence in English.

I hear you, but playing soft with seemingly no fire, and what appears to be no game plan (or a poor one), is on the coach(es).

 

[mkaufman1]

I think you are right that he’s still learning how to be a head coach, whether he gets there or not (and especially while at Mason) is a big question.

I’m not sure how much patience this fan base has to give someone 5-7 years to learn on the job when we went from potential top 25 team in 2012 to losing our hall of fame coach and sinking into whatever hell this tournament is 10 years later.

I said it in another thread, but his first job is in learning how to be a head coach of a college program rather than treating his players like professionals. It was pretty obvious today that there is absolutely no cohesion in our defense and we’ve got 5 guys just desperately trying to do whatever they can to read the game properly the way English wants them to. That’s not working (in fact I think it’s why Gaines hurt himself—he had just tried to jump a pass and had to recover on defense, then ran and missed a corner three on the other end and came up hobbling).

I certainly don't think English will get 5-7 years and I'm not waiting around for it. Programs need 2-3 years tops with the transfer portal. Right now its only early in year 2, but year 2 has not been good at all.

If they didn't do their diligence on him and thought he needed that much of a learning curve, Mason should have passed and let him go to a high major to crash and burn. It was obvious from the research they did, that he was ready to run his program, and there would not be much of a learning curve. At the very least, it is up to him to surround himself with coaches to cover up his inexperience as a head coach. When I see more than 1 person commenting to me on here or on text about "lack of gameplan" "lack of offense" "confusion on both sides of the ball" "too many transition 3s for no reason" or "hewitt 2.0", I get very concerned because those are some VERY serious issues.

Time is ticking away, but if year 2 is bad, I will be very disappointed. It is only November so there is time to turn around.

 

[EXpatriot13]

My first priority would be to try to figure out how to get Oduro the ball in better position so he can be more like the player he was last season. I feel like the biggest reason he's looked horrible so far is that he keeps getting the ball at or near the 3pt line, and then tries to make a play from there.

With Ojiako showing some ability on offense, they should run the ball thru him and Oduro consistently. Can't double both of them. Enough with the rushed 3pt attempts as soon as they cross half court.

There have certainly been times where the players just flat out haven't been good enough, but this is largely on the coaches to put your players in the best positions to succeed. I haven't seen them come close to doing that yet.

 

[Patriotsince81]

Time is ticking away, but if year 2 is bad, I will be very disappointed. It is only November so there is time to turn around.

Love ya brother but I couldn't resist.

hokey pokey

 

[gmujim92]

My first priority would be to try to figure out how to get Oduro the ball in better position so he can be more like the player he was last season. I feel like the biggest reason he's looked horrible so far is that he keeps getting the ball at or near the 3pt line, and then tries to make a play from there.

With Ojiako showing some ability on offense, they should run the ball thru him and Oduro consistently. Can't double both of them. Enough with the rushed 3pt attempts as soon as they cross half court.

There have certainly been times where the players just flat out haven't been good enough, but this is largely on the coaches to put your players in the best positions to succeed. I haven't seen them come close to doing that yet.

We pounded the ball into the paint with great success today until Ginika went to the bench with his fourth foul. Undoubtedly the best game we’ve gotten from both bigs together, although it did come against a very small Buffalo team. Honestly we should’ve punished them even more considering our size advantage.

I will be surprised if Kim doesn’t switch the focus from a perimeter-oriented attack to playing 2 bigs as our primary lineup. I’d like Ginika to be more aggressive as a shot-blocker, but he and Josh together gives us the best chance to be successful IMHO.

 

[Masonfan3]

I am as deeply disappointed in the team's performance this year as anyone. But I must say all of the talk here about the coach's status seems way overboard to me. I expect I'll get a lot of blowback on this, but I really think we should all take a deep breath and give English a chance to fix things. He has been the head coach for 1 year and 6 games. Let's see where we are later this year. I hate the way we've started the year, but I have confidence in English.

Curious..what have you seen on the court that has given you confidence in CKE? I am hoping to see him turn it around and think he has a good basketball mind but I have seen nothing from an X’s and O’s Standpoint from the entire coaching staff to have any confidence.

 

[Patriotsince81]

Patriots Drop Paradise Jam Finale to Buffalo, 84-72 - George Mason University Athletics

The George Mason University men's basketball team struggled on the defensive end of the floor during an 84-72 setback to the University at Buffalo Monday afternoon

gomason.com

 

[Patriotsince81]

"This was a disappointing ending to a disappointing trip," head coach Kim English said. "We have to go back to the drawing board. Losing Ronald [Polite III] wasn't ideal - we thought he was coming along at that position. I'm proud of Devin [Dinkins] for what he did stepping up into the point guard role. I'm proud of the steps Ginika [Ojiako] took down here. But we didn't get it done as a group, and it starts with our defense. We'll keep building our habits and building our discipline on our journey to becoming a team that does take care of the ball, gets great shots, contests every shot and limits opponents to one shot."

 

[gmujim92]

Curious..what have you seen on the court that has given you confidence in CKE? I am hoping to see him turn it around and think he has a good basketball mind but I have seen nothing from an X’s and O’s Standpoint from the entire coaching staff to have any confidence.

Guess you missed last season?

 

[Falco]

English better turn the program around fast. New AD will want to bring his own coach in. At this rate English has three years Max.

 

[Falco]

"This was a disappointing ending to a disappointing trip," head coach Kim English said. "We have to go back to the drawing board. Losing Ronald [Polite III] wasn't ideal - we thought he was coming along at that position. I'm proud of Devin [Dinkins] for what he did stepping up into the point guard role. I'm proud of the steps Ginika [Ojiako] took down here. But we didn't get it done as a group, and it starts with our defense. We'll keep building our habits and building our discipline on our journey to becoming a team that does take care of the ball, gets great shots, contests every shot and limits opponents to one shot."

Why would we expect polite to not get hurt. His body has failed him every year

 

[gmujim92]

English better turn the program around fast. New AD will want to bring his own coach in. At this rate English has three years Max.

Y’all do know the president hires and fires the coach, right? The AD can make a recommendation but it’s Dr. Washington’s call. Barring something serious off the court, Kim isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

 

[mkaufman1]

English better turn the program around fast. New AD will want to bring his own coach in. At this rate English has three years Max.

Come on man, you know and I know that anything short of Kim punching players or having a major scandal, its 4 years minimum.

Why would we expect polite to not get hurt. His body has failed him every year

100%. Its a major fail and pain point on the staff that we put 1) so much on Ronny and 2) didn't seemingly do enough to protect against him potentially getting hurt (which happens a lot).

For anyone who thinks I am picking on Ronny or anything of that nature, I'm calling what I see. I think he was much better the first 3 games and thought he was figuring it out. Against Boston College he did not perform well defensively, and then seemingly that was when he got hurt.

I hope he comes back to where he was and figures it out.

 

[Falco]

Guess you missed last season?

I would say there were reasons to be optimistic in the first half of the season. But English finished the seaosn with a losing record.

Obviously way to early to make any real judgments.

 

[EXpatriot13]

I will be surprised if Kim doesn’t switch the focus from a perimeter-oriented attack to playing 2 bigs as our primary lineup. I’d like Ginika to be more aggressive as a shot-blocker, but he and Josh together gives us the best chance to be successful IMHO.

100% agree. It's this second paragraph above that I am worried about. I hope KE and the staff recognize that this is a needed adjustment moving forward and that we don't revert back to shooting from and running around the perimeter.

 

[Falco]

Come on man, you know and I know that anything short of Kim punching players or having a major scandal, its 4 years minimum.

100%. Its a major fail and pain point on the staff that we put 1) so much on Ronny and 2) didn't seemingly do enough to protect against him potentially getting hurt (which happens a lot).

For anyone who thinks I am picking on Ronny or anything of that nature, I'm calling what I see. I think

Come on man, you know and I know that anything short of Kim punching players or having a major scandal, its 4 years minimum.

100%. Its a major fail and pain point on the staff that we put 1) so much on Ronny and 2) didn't seemingly do enough to protect against him potentially getting hurt (which happens a lot).

For anyone who thinks I am picking on Ronny or anything of that nature, I'm calling what I see. I think he was much better the first 3 games and thought he was figuring it out. Against Boston College he did not perform well defensively, and then seemingly that was when he got hurt.

I hope he comes back to where he was and figures it out.

Good points. You’re probably right with English getting at least 4 years. However, none of us really know how long of leash Washington is willing to give. Plus he will have the pressure from a new AD who will want to put their stamp on the program.

All that said, it’s a pointless debate because it’s so early in year 2. CKE has plenty of time to turn this season around.

 

[TweederGMU]

Dumbfounded we couldn't beat this team.

Officially at Rock Bottom.

A10 is gonna go off on us if we continue to play like this. PIG bound

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

My first priority would be to try to figure out how to get Oduro the ball in better position so he can be more like the player he was last season. I feel like the biggest reason he's looked horrible so far is that he keeps getting the ball at or near the 3pt line, and then tries to make a play from there.

With Ojiako showing some ability on offense, they should run the ball thru him and Oduro consistently. Can't double both of them. Enough with the rushed 3pt attempts as soon as they cross half court.

There have certainly been times where the players just flat out haven't been good enough, but this is largely on the coaches to put your players in the best positions to succeed. I haven't seen them come close to doing that yet.

Not to be trite, but anything related to offense is just a 3rd or 4th priority right now. The defense is a calamity. We just shot 47% and 78% from the line and made 21 FTs and basically got smoked. Buffalo went 23-36 from inside the 3!!! That's semi impossible. At this point, you start your 5 best defenders or best defensive unit and go from there.

 

[Masonfan3]

Guess you missed last season?

Nope, I did not. Saw a team that finished with a losing record, 9th in the conference, and lost first round of the A10 tourney. While the year prior we had a winning record, 6th in the conference, and actually won a game in the A10 tourney. Don’t get me wrong we needed to make a change but can you honestly say that we are better off today than we were when DP got fired…

 

[GMU79]

Love ya brother but I couldn't resist.

hokey pokey

Well played!