George Mason Basketball: Turnovers doom George Mason against FIU

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Turnovers doom George Mason against FIU

Well the thought of playing Virginia Tech for once sure was nice. Now the Patriots have to settle for Monmouth at 8:30 pm tonight after an overtime loss to FIU ended their hopes of playing at Madison Square Garden. The game was very similar to last Friday's win over Rhode Island, only this time the Patriots could outplayed in overtime. Again they allowed the other team's leading scorer to have a big night and killed themselves with costly turnovers at key moments. The Patriots don't have a shortage of scoring, that is not the issue, what the problem seems to be in getting back on defense and overall discipline on both ends. At times this team just looks erratic and with no fluidity. George Mason had no good looks at the end of regulation or in the overtime period and that is on Paul Hewitt. I'm not even sure what he was drawing up for these guys but it looked disorganized.

Sure guys like Ryan Pearson can pick up 18 and 10 but he also had a game-high six turnovers. Bryon Allen turned it over five times and freshman Corey Edwards somehow managed six in 15 minutes of action. Before the season started I stated my concerns with the back court situation and the weakness and inexperience there is a glaring problem. As a whole this team can drive and get to the free-throw line, but they almost are sending the other team there just as much. We heard so much about this team having great shooters, as the staff talked up Wright, Vaughns, and Gray but it seems that the game plan doesn't include any plays to take advantage of this. This is indeed a talented group, and that is why these last two games have been close despite them not really playing sound basketball, but it is not always going to produce wins.

Labels: Post Game Recaps

33 Comments:

Doug Economou said...: This team does not look good at all. Here in Atlanta, everyone was laughing at Mason for picking up Paul Hewitt. They all point to his debacle at Georgia Tech and I don't want to jump the gun here but so far it looks like they are right.; 9:40 AM
Jayvallance said...: i couldnt agree more.; 9:41 AM
Cager said...: If I'm a pessimist, I'd say that we're going to gain a deeper appreciation for Jim Larranaga now that he's gone.

If I'm an optimist, I'd say that this team has a new coach and several new/young players getting minutes, so it will take time for to gel.

About last night's game, with no disrepect to FIU, it should not have been close, if Mason is anywhere near the team of their preseason expectations. That said, how could a foul not be called on the last shot by Ryan Pearson? He should have been at the line and sent it to 2OT if he made all three.; 9:56 AM
Bentleydogg said...: No offense, but this may be one of the dumbest comments I've
seen in a long time. No, the team doesn't look good. But let's get
real here. They lost their best player, they lost their best reserve; the
new team has had a total of 4 weeks of practice together in a brand new system; they have players out
for injury, and their best guard is suspended until the end of December.
They are 1-1 with all of that and you are already writing off the Paul Hewitt
era? Wow. Really it will take a full 1-2 seasons to have a real
solid report card, but how about we at least hold off full judgement until, I
don't know, mid-season!

Do you want to fire the new Mason President too? I know he/she hasn't been hired yet, but why not go ahead and call them debacle and get a head start on things.; 10:42 AM
Rmjank said...: I didn't see a foul. There was contact, but it looked like he initiated at least as much as the other guy. Also I didn't see it because I was busy thinking, "Why the hell is Pearson getting this shot??!!"
Yeah, I guess I'm on the pessimist side of the ledger right now. The team looks in complete disarray. We're trying to do this run and gun stuff, but our gunners haven't been getting the shots and our runners are turning the ball over.; 10:43 AM
Bentleydogg said...: Good point. But in reality, how much confidence to you that any player on George Mason can hit 3 foul shots in row?; 10:44 AM
Matt said...: Maybe a foul at the end but V V was curling to the corner and they should have gotten it in to him since we needed the three and he was doing his thing. It's hard to hear Hewitt say the guys played "pretty well" he doesn't have to throw them under the bus but he shouldn't gloss the lackluster performance.

I hate this offense because it was rare to see Ryan in the post, I swear though when ever he was I'm almost a hundred percent sure he made the bucket. Nice to have Mike's energy and board on the floor but he was in the high post las tyear because he doesn't finish. Copes is young but the same applies. They are running the offense through Ryan but almost as a guard and that seems like a bad formula.

Again the defensive positioning was terrible, especially from the guards. Stop guarding right handers heavy to the left, stop leaving the baseline open, stop over playing your man! Again we did not cut to the ball against the press. FIU did as soon as we pressed and they got it in. We are getting past the press once the ball is in but we have such a crazy time getting it in.

This was a let down and just took two great games (Tech and Cuse) off the schedule. We need to make the same statement tonight that Tech made last night as a silver lining.; 10:51 AM
Bentleydogg said...: Agree. And I will also submit that if we win by only a point or two (or OT) or, gulp, lose and VT pounds on FIU, the whole PNIT experiment will have turned from a great opportunity to a total disaster.

Don't think this is any earth shattering news, but it is clear this team will have to win the conference tourney to get the a NCAA bid this year. There will not be an at large.; 10:56 AM
Christopher Hirsch said...: Not a good start to the Paul Blewitt era.; 11:17 AM
Essay said...: Well it was my first time watching the Patriots this season and one word to sum up their performance is Careless!! There really was no discipline and the game plan on defense seemed non existent. Turnovers were the order of the day. And as usual we left points at the free throw line while they were near perfect and took advantage. I cannot understand how 2 of their big men fouled out and we still lost. Fiu is not that talented but they were more disciplined, knew what they wanted to do (had actual sets on offense and not just running and gunning). Needless to say Hewitt was out coached. At least when Coach L was here we saw some hard defense, discipline, offensive sets that were designed to get points and limited turnovers....I don't know what this team's identity is....at least there were some positives like Wright and Vertrail putting up points alongside Pearson who can't do it all by himself.....all I gotta say is if we don't fix things real quick it's gonna get ugly.; 12:23 PM
YallRstoopid said...: The up pace tempo is nice when you make smart passes. Way to many turn overs. I am starting to think Hewitt dose not know how to draw up plays and that's why he resorts to an up tempo offense.; 12:54 PM
BatMason said...: You get upset, but maybe he's right. I said from the beginning since we lost Coach L, we'll know how things are headed after the first few home games. We did not dominate at home against RI, and we just got manhandled in the ball handling and perimeter defense department by what was supposed to be a much inferior team....I mean c'mon, 21 turnovers and 8 3balls allowed? You point out a lot of the obvious in terms of inexperience, transfers, suspensions and redshirts, but this should be obvious to coach H as well and he should be able to control the tempo a little better to limit the turnovers, run half court O and get the ball to our developing perimeter shooters. It'll be impossible to string together a long stretch of Ws like we did last season with sloppy game planning and tempo/clock management (which if I remember correctly were two of the biggest concerns from all of the bball fans from GaTech when they found out Hewitt was headed here) If he figures we're young and athletic and we'll just run and gun the whole game (i) we will not stand a chance against teams who are just as athletic with better game planning, so you can forget about NCAA chances we'll be extremely lucky to even be in contention for the CAA championship (ii) What type of foundation does that leave for next year once our players have been conditioned to have no fundamental discipline?

Now that I'm seeing what is unfolding here I can't blame Hancock for jumping ship because he was a very cerebral player, he would have been pulling his hair out over this type of scheme. I agree we haven't seen enough yet to deliver a "report card" yet, but I can say this, if wild gun-slinging game play takes us out of contention for a CAA title and an NCAA bid, when we were pretty much assured of this with Coach L here, this just reaffirms my stance from 6 months ago that the Administration and AD are absolute morons for letting coach L go and not solidifying a solid run of winning seasons which created a WINNING TRADITION amongst Mason bball, to keep the national buzz going and to go to consecutive Tourneys, the positive effect on the school at large would be priceless.; 1:47 PM
G-n-G said...: Well, the guys learned a valuable lesson last night. They played with fire in their opener against Rhode Island--sluggish first half, too many turnovers, too little outside shooting, etc.--but managed to eke out a win. Against FIU, GMU got burned. They cleaned up their turnovers when trying to get the ball inbounds, but more than made up for them by turning the ball over in myriad other ways. They also had far fewer assists than in their first game, a credit to FIU's defense but also testament to GMU's stagnation on offense.There was an early hint that Mason might have been overlooking FIU. In the postgame interview after Rhode Island, Ryan Pearson said that the team was looking forward to playing Virginia Tech. he quickly corrected himself with a laugh saying that the team was looking forward to playing in a tournament hosted by Virginia Tech. Now Mason gets the consolation game. We'll see how GMU responds. This should tell us a lot about the character of this year's team and the quality of Hewitt's coaching.; 2:04 PM
Matt said...: They don't have to be perfect but they shouldn't be this erratic regaurdless of change. Everyone does have expectations that Mason Basketball will play with a certain amount of discipline. I'm not throwing Hewitt out but if I can see glaring errors then the coaching staff should too and they should adjust, that's what they are paid for. Transition is not an excuse for poor use of Pearson's talent, bad defense and moving so fast the team is making careless turnovers. There were some good stretches last night but each was washed away by sloppy play. We were talented enough to win, we should have.; 2:51 PM
Matt said...: Agree on character, we can come in sulky or with a vengence. Rally and make one loss stop at one loss. If Manmoth has any smarts they will press, what will we do?; 2:52 PM
Dan said...: Will the link to ESPN 3 work again tonight?; 2:52 PM
gmuhoops said...: No, it is not televised tonight; 2:54 PM
Mark Schumaker said...: While I agree with a lot of the comments here, I'd like to be a little more optimistic. At least they showed that they can come together at the end and not let the game totally get away from them. They showed flashes of being the team that we all think they could be. But then at the end, just total confusion on offense. It's a frustrating time to be a Mason fan, But it's too early for me to jump ship.; 3:04 PM
Mooky_l3d said...: I was disappointed with the lose from last night. I hate sloppy play and costly turnovers, bad defense, and poor execution. That being my rant did anyone else see Drexel smash Rider. They looked really good. Givins is still a beast on the boards and their offensive sets were like clockwork. They will be really tough especially when they get some of their injured back in Dec. Their guards were pretty good too on both offense and defense.; 3:32 PM
Mason Fan said...: No disrespect to anyone else on the team, but Sherrod Wright didn't have the ball in his hands with 5 seconds left because...; 3:34 PM
gmuhoops said...: I have no idea why FIU didn't just foul Morrison on that play. Would have been game over right there.; 3:36 PM
Essay said...: That's why they were tabbed to finish first in the CAA preseason polls...; 3:42 PM
Ashaberspmt said...: This site used the ESPN3 feed last night. I'm not so sure we will get anything tonight.; 5:48 PM
Bentleydogg said...: Has nothing to do with getting upset about this. I don’t like Hewitt, didn’t like the
hire. But to be fair, you have to give
the guy a chance. It is comical that 2
games into his first season he is being written off with 33 more game to go. That is like being hired for a 12 month
project and being fired after the first day because the boss didn’t like how
you organized your desk.

I’ll remind everyone, late in 2010, Coach L’s team was a big
10-5 and not very sharp. And at one point early in the year
they were 2-2 after a loss to a bad NC State team and a really horrible loss to
Wofford. (A loss that almost cost them
their at large bid.) Not exactly stellar
until the winning streak.

But you can judge a new coach all you want, don’t let facts
get in the way.; 7:00 PM
Acustic2001 said...: Wow, just watched the post game interview and Paul Hewitt doesn't seem to be concern about anything that went wrong with the team.; 7:48 PM
Cager said...: Anybody getting this link to work? Can't find video, but audio available at:

http://wgmuradio.masonstudentmedia.com/www/radio.php; 8:46 PM
Cager said...: Play by play and box score:

http://www.hokiesports.com/mbasketball/live/; 8:48 PM
mooky_l3d said...: Yeah I saw the rankings and they will probably stay true with the way that they were playing today. I don't know of another CAA team that will be as dominant inside. They will be a tough play for everyone.; 9:00 PM
baller said...: Our offense looks exactly like streetball; 9:23 PM
Acustic2001 said...: Couldn't agree with you more...; 9:26 PM
BatMason said...: Fair argument, we'll see. If you want facts we can look at PH's tenure at Ga Tech. Then the best we can do is hope that his past there was an anomaly that won't predict our future.; 12:53 AM
Srcover said...: As a Ga. Tech fan, these are the same problems we saw year after year with Paul Hewitt. His teams always underachieved and that's why we were glad to see him go. It's the same thing over and over again. The only thing I haven't seen written up yet is that he likes to substitute about 40-50 times per game. I know there are some GM fans who don't want to believe this, but Hewitt is not a good floor coach. Good luck, GM! You'll probably be talking about gerting rid of him in a few years, just like Tech fans did after his title run year in 2004. Most fans reaklize now that his big year in 2004 was an anomaly.; 2:29 AM
Jayvallance said...: what i noticed i think anybody watching college basketball is how FIU played us defence on every play. We could learn from that. If we dont play defence it is going to be twice as hard for us on offence.; 2:05 PM

Turnovers doom George Mason against FIU

George Mason Basketball

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Turnovers doom George Mason against FIU

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