Hewitt, Extension, wait, what?

[gmujim92]

Jim,

Let's just agree that AD Brad Edwards should wait until the end of this season before making any recommendation with respect to Hewitt's job status.

Oh I certainly agree with that.

I was just surprised when I started thinking about everything that has gone wrong -- most of which were out of Hewitt's control -- since the coaching change.

Just got me to wondering if maybe we really don't know as much about him as we think we do.

 

[GMUgemini]

Playing devil's advocate, who's to say we don't pull a UNCW?

They screwed up originally by not paying big to keep Brownell, then hired a bad replacement in Benny Moss, then got rid of him and hired Buzz Peterson.

Through all those coaching changes, they had numerous kids transfer out, back out of commitments and struggle academically to the point that their APR was among the worst in the nation.

In the process, they turned one of the most-respected mid-major programs in America into a dumpster fire.

They've now gambled that Kevin Keatts can pull them out of the abyss, but even that is nothing better than a short-term fix because he's gonna bolt as soon as he gets a better offer.

Point is, as hard as it is to fathom, we could conceivably do worse than Hewitt.

UNCW hired an anti-sports chancellor who hired an AD to de-emphasize sports.

Our situation and theirs is totally different.

 

[gmutom]

Like a snowball that eventually becomes an avalanche, I think Hewitt fell behind the from the jump and was never able to recover. Like Jim said, he came in thinking he was inheriting a tournament-ready team only to find out his best and most important player was transferring. With Whack already out the door and Cornelius facing suspension, he had no choice but to aggressively re-recruit Edwards and Gray — neither of whom have panned out to this point.

I still remember watching us at Virginia Tech in the PNIT three years ago against Isaiah Thomas' team and thinking, "Holy crap, we're in trouble if Edwards and Allen are going to be our starting PGs for the next three to four years." To this day, I'm not sure why it took Hewitt that long to realize the same.

Flash forward to today, and I think Moore could end up being a very good A10 PG, especially if he has worked on his shot as reported. And I'd be lying if I didn't admit to being excited about some of the players Hewitt is bringing in. However, I don't think that can be a factor any more moving forward. If we crap the bed again this year, we'll just have to hope the current players and recruits stay on even if he is let go.

 

[Vurbel]

Jim,

Let's just agree that AD Brad Edwards should wait until the end of this season before making any recommendation with respect to Hewitt's job status.

Or by March 1. It is my understanding PH gets a $75,000 bonus if he's kept past then (I forget where I heard that).

 

[Pablo]

Or by March 1. It is my understanding PH gets a $75,000 bonus if he's kept past then (I forget where I heard that).

It's actually $85,000 - see http://www.washingtontimes.com/blog...paring-deals-mason-gave-hewitt-and-larranaga/.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

Like Jim said, he came in thinking he was inheriting a tournament-ready team only to find out his best and most important player was transferring. With Whack already out the door and Cornelius facing suspension, he had no choice but to aggressively re-recruit Edwards and Gray — neither of whom have panned out to this point.

Ryan Pearson, Mike Morrison, Sherrod Wright, Bryon Allen, Andre Cornelius, and Vertrail Vaughn sounds an awful lot like a tournament-ready team to me with the right coach. Maybe not NCAA, but NIT was certainly attainable under the right coach.

 

[gmutom]

Ryan Pearson, Mike Morrison, Sherrod Wright, Bryon Allen, Andre Cornelius, and Vertrail Vaughn sounds an awful lot like a tournament-ready team to me with the right coach. Maybe not NCAA, but NIT was certainly attainable under the right coach.

Hugh/Quentin/wiig, we really weren't that far off from making it to the NCAAT that year. Unfortunately, like his predecessor, Hewitt couldn't get through vcu in Richmond. Had we won that game, I liked our chances against Drexel in the championship game.

I do feel bad for Morrison and Pearson that they had to go out that way. To lose to vcu in such a humiliating fashion was horrible. To this day, I wonder how that season would have gone had DJ not gotten suspended and Hewitt was able to experiment with him at PG from the beginning.

 

[Pablo]

Tom,

How about the following season with vcu out of the league? Was there any doubt that Mason was capable of winning the 2013 CAA tourney until the final 2:40 of the semifinals vs. Northeastern:


02:54 61-67V 6GOOD! LAYUP by Arledge, Jonathan [PNT]
02:42 SUB IN : Copes, Erik
02:42 SUB OUT: Arledge, Jonathan
GOOD! FT SHOT by Lee, Jonathan 02:40 62-67V 5FOUL by Arledge, Jonathan (P5T11)
GOOD! FT SHOT by Lee, Jonathan 02:40 63-67V 4
02:31 TURNOVR by Edwards, Corey
STEAL by Ford, Quincy 02:30
TIMEOUT 30sec 02:24
GOOD! FT SHOT by Ford, Quincy 02:21 64-67V 3FOUL by Copes, Erik (P3T12)
GOOD! FT SHOT by Ford, Quincy 02:21 65-67V 2
02:21 SUB IN : Bennett, Paris
02:21 SUB OUT: Copes, Erik
02:14 TURNOVR by Gujanicic, Marko
STEAL by Ford, Quincy 02:13
MISSED LAYUP by Ford, Quincy 02:10 REBOUND (DEF) by Wright, Sherrod
02:06 TURNOVR by Wright, Sherrod
STEAL by Smith, Joel 02:04
TIMEOUT TEAM 02:04
SUB IN : Pollard, Demetrius 02:04
SUB OUT: Smith, Joel 02:04
SUB IN : Smith, Joel 01:32 SUB IN : Copes, Erik
SUB OUT: Pollard, Demetrius 01:32 SUB OUT: Bennett, Paris
MISSED JUMPER by Spencer, Reggie 01:29
REBOUND (OFF) by Lee, Jonathan 01:29
GOOD! LAYUP by Ford, Quincy [PNT] 00:57 67-67T 6
ASSIST by Smith, Joel 00:57
00:50 TIMEOUT TEAM
00:50 SUB IN : Holloway, Patrick
00:50 SUB OUT: Edwards, Corey
00:31 TURNOVR by Allen, Bryon
STEAL by Ford, Quincy 00:29
GOOD! LAYUP by Lee, Jonathan [PNT] 00:03 69-67H 2

Northeastern 69, George Mason 67

 

[gmutom]

Tom,

How about the following season with vcu out of the league? Was there any doubt that Mason was capable of winning the 2013 CAA tourney until the final 2:40 of the semifinals vs. Northeastern.

Pablo, don't even get me started on that game. To blow the huge lead we had in that game was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. We still had chances to win the game as you pointed out, but it never should have been that close. I would put that down as one of the worst-coached halves in Hewitt's time at Mason.

 

[GSII]

The Arledge situation shouldn't be discounted either. That may have jolted the locker room last year.

 

[MasonFanatic]

Hugh/Quentin/wiig, we really weren't that far off from making it to the NCAAT that year. Unfortunately, like his predecessor, Hewitt couldn't get through vcu in Richmond. Had we won that game, I liked our chances against Drexel in the championship game.

I do feel bad for Morrison and Pearson that they had to go out that way. To lose to vcu in such a humiliating fashion was horrible. To this day, I wonder how that season would have gone had DJ not gotten suspended and Hewitt was able to experiment with him at PG from the beginning.

And if Hewitt had pulled Pearson in favor of Arledge sooner ... Pearson simply couldn't guard Burgess in that game.

 

[JimP]

Pablo, don't even get me started on that game. To blow the huge lead we had in that game was like watching a car wreck in slow motion. We still had chances to win the game as you pointed out, but it never should have been that close. I would put that down as one of the worst-coached halves in Hewitt's time at Mason.

That game was so painful to watch unravel. What did GMU have, a 20 something point lead at some point during the 1st half? I remember being nervous about the game even then. We saw what we were getting throughout that year, as time and again Hewitt's team could not put teams away when it mattered.

 

[MasonFanatic]

That game was so painful to watch unravel. What did GMU have, a 20 something point lead at some point during the 1st half? I remember being nervous about the game even then. We saw what we were getting throughout that year, as time and again Hewitt's team could not put teams away when it mattered.

After NU hit back-to-back treys to end the first half, I had an uncanny feeling that the game was over. I should not be able to predict blown leads / losses so easily, but here we are. And then to top it off, I got heckled by an usher on my way out of the brown spaceship.

 

[JimP]

After NU hit back-to-back treys to end the first half, I had an uncanny feeling that the game was over. I should not be able to predict blown leads / losses so easily, but here we are. And then to top it off, I got heckled by an usher on my way out of the brown spaceship.

Ouch - that would have been tough to take in person. I watched that game in a bar - the same bar I watched the awful South Florida collapse last season. NU hurt more - tournament and all.

 

[GMUgemini]

After NU hit back-to-back treys to end the first half, I had an uncanny feeling that the game was over. I should not be able to predict blown leads / losses so easily, but here we are. And then to top it off, I got heckled by an usher on my way out of the brown spaceship.

I had the same sinking feeling at the end of the first half...

 

[gmutom]

I had the same sinking feeling at the end of the first half...

The vcu debacle aside, it almost seems like Hewitt is looser and allows the players to play in the first half, and then he finds the need to micro-manage in the second half. The constant substitutions and timeouts prove an inability to not 0ver-coach, which ultimately backfires more often then not. If he could somehow find a way to approach the second half like he does the first, I have a feeling we'd win many more of these close games.

It would also be nice if we had some players who learned how to finish games. I know Patriot99 brought up Sherrod and Bryon in another thread, but our biggest issue last year was the two guys who kept us in most games were often the same two guys who played us out of them. A great example is the UMass game at home when we squandered a five point lead with about 40 seconds left after Sherrod turned it over twice in a 10 second span.

That said, the buck ultimately stops with the head coach. He needs to find a way to get his players to close out games, and a lot of that starts with him loosening the reins more in the 2nd half.

 

[KAOriginal]

Despite all the talk of perfect storm of things that happened to Hewitt.....the bottom line he is not a good coach. His overall track record at GT proves what happened here is not just a fluke that befell him. Sadly the same things we talk about in how he gets good talent, but cant seem to manage them into a good team, is a cut and paste job on the reasons he ended up failing at Tech.

As for the "he may not be as bad as we think"....hiring a coach is always a gamble, but I will certainly take a swing at a guy who appears on his way up.

 

[Quentin Daniels]

It would also be nice if we had some players who learned how to finish games.

And there it is.

You sure do love ripping players.

 

[Patriot Lawdog]

Despite all the talk of perfect storm of things that happened to Hewitt.....the bottom line he is not a good coach. His overall track record at GT proves what happened here is not just a fluke that befell him. Sadly the same things we talk about in how he gets good talent, but cant seem to manage them into a good team, is a cut and paste job on the reasons he ended up failing at Tech.

As for the "he may not be as bad as we think"....hiring a coach is always a gamble, but I will certainly take a swing at a guy who appears on his way up.

Unfortunately, its a carbon copy, but at GT there wasn't the changing conferences excuse.

 

[KAOriginal]

Unfortunately, its a carbon copy, but at GT there wasn't the changing conferences excuse.

I don't even find changing conferences an excuse. We didn't lose every game by 20. Our players didn't look like they were playing at the wrong level.

We looked like we didn't belong because our strategies and execution were confusing and lacking. And while I will also blame the players for parts of this, its our head coach's job to figure out what can work.

The fact we saw the same things from year 1 through year 3 with different players tells me its a system issue.....