This page has moved to a new address.

George Mason will open against Mercer in 2012 Paradise Jam

George Mason Basketball: George Mason will open against Mercer in 2012 Paradise Jam

gomason.com gomason.com gomason.com gomason.com gomason.com

Tuesday, May 29, 2012

George Mason will open against Mercer in 2012 Paradise Jam

ESPN's Andy Katz provided a look at the bracket for the 2012 Paradise Jam tournament that George Mason will be playing in this November:
If Mason wins against Mercer it appears they will have a chance to play New Mexico, the best projected team in the field. But let's not get ahead of ourselves like last year in the preseason NIT, when most thought it was a lock Mason would get to play Virginia Tech before that FIU game. Mercer is coming off a solid season in which they won the CIT championship, and they return four starters next year.

Much like last season an early loss in this tournament could greatly affect the Patriots' RPI. Certainly I would think they have motivation this year to not miss another golden opportunity again.

Labels:

posted by Ryan at 10:23 AM

15 Comments:

Anonymous Matt_LC said...

Pretty sure Mercer made that CIT run through CAA schools as well!  They will enter that game with the continuity of their returning roster.  We will have to hope the talent of our can prevail because starting 5 next year is anybody's guess.  Allen, Copes, Wright, ?, ?  If VV gets his shot back and can defend better, if JW isn't super rusty coming bad from redshirt, if AO is as good as advertised, if Gary gets time many thought he should have had more of last year, if Corey can play the way he did early in the season, if Bennet and Arledge can play with the burst we saw late for longer, if Gujanicic can contribute right away.  Lots of possibilities, which ifs will play out?

1:30 PM  
Anonymous Chris Paleczka said...

Mercer had some decent wins last year, at Georgia Tech, beat Georgia St. in the CIT 2nd round, beat ODU in the CIT quarterfinals, beat Fairfield (22-15) in the Semi's and Utah St. (21-16) in the Final. They also played Belmont(27-8) tough although they lost both meetings 82-78 and 62-61. 

Should be a good match-up!  

3:33 PM  
Anonymous BP99 said...

some quality teams in this tournament, could be a great boost for our RPI. Little worried about another early tournament exit though. 

4:26 PM  
Anonymous taylormade703 said...

COMPLETELY RANDOM:

I found it interesting that in Andy Katz's twitter he mentions UIC and UNM and MASON.  Not GMU or George Mason, just "Mason".  Maybe that's the branding the athletic dept. was going for with out "Mason Patriots" star logo.

4:37 PM  
Anonymous airgold10 said...

Random point related to your random point. Kourtney Kardashian named her son "Mason" and as a result that name become one of this most popular names for a newborn. I guess we just started a trend..haha.

1:29 AM  
Anonymous Rick Jank said...

Hmm, I know I'm dredging up an old controversy, but here we are "talking up" Mercer's CIT run and the quality teams they beat ... and that's the same CIT we told in advance not to bother inviting us, because it wouldn't be "cost effective."

11:45 AM  
Anonymous gmuhoops said...

No one is "talking up" the CIT. I'm merely pointing out that they aren't just some random low major team, they won some quality games last season, that's all.

11:49 AM  
Anonymous Matt_LC said...

I'm sticking with the thought that continuing to play wouldn't have hurt and in this case we might have already played Mercer and learned something.  But we have seen over and over that the university is not maxing out for our basketball team!  Hopefully Hewitt and the boys can do plenty despite that reality.

2:47 PM  
Anonymous HardHead said...

GMU is projected to finish 5th in the conference.....what a joke because I believe GMU can win the CAA(regular season and tourney) but Coach H must get B. Allen off the ball this kid can not play the point and neither can C. Edwards.  If those two sorry azz pts. are on the ball we will finish in the bottom tier of the CAA.  Gray will have a break-out year and Wright will be ever better than last year....Get Allen sorry azz off the ball.

9:11 AM  
Anonymous gmuhoops said...

That's one bloggers opinion on CBSSports.com. They will be projected #2 on CAA media day if you ask me. People see that we lost Pearson and think we will be a disaster next year which is sort sighted and a lazy analysis.

9:17 AM  
Anonymous Matt_LC said...

You need to recognize that Allen is not a natural 1 and probably would prefer to play the two.  Mason doesn't have a true 1 unless Edwards emerges as the player he was recruited to be.  I'm not sure why he play got worse over last year but the reality is we don't have a straight PG and we really won't so we'll have to take Allen's best and hope Edwards was struggling as a first year players.  I don't see a Folarin Campbell type on the teams who can also suddenly bring the ball up.  I haven't seen anything from Wright or Gary that would suggest they could do it.  BTW are you better than either of those guys???? Hmmmm.

11:03 AM  
Anonymous HardHead said...

How could he play the 2 spot when he can't shoot at all?

11:16 AM  
Anonymous Rick Jank said...

I think if anything Allen is a 1.  The best component of his game seems to be the ability to penetrate, draw contact, and shoot through the contact.  He can certainly build a 1 game around that.  He and Edwards both failed last year when they were simply not being effective quarterbacks, seeing the floor and diagnosing.  That could be at least partly the product of young players in a new uptempo system.  Many of the problems from last year are correctible, and for that reason I think the onus is as much on the coaches as it is on these two players.

3:28 PM  
Anonymous novavaboom said...

When Merten first came to Mason, he dictated that the "GMU" moniker be retired.  Why they didn't change the university's domain name (e.g., mason.edu instead of gmu.edu) is a simple error they made.   It's still available and perhaps with the new prez in place, it will be done.

10:32 PM  
Anonymous ymcareds said...

Mason needs a higher sos out of conference than last year's lowly rank of 237...not to mention, Mason was only 1 win and 4 losses against top 75 teams...wow.  However, with the conference the way it is...looks like only the tourney winner is in the big dance.  I just hope Mason plays some bigger, more highly rated teams!

3:21 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

Blog Counter