Let the Rankings Begin

As the summer is officially winding down you can expect every college basketball website to start putting out pre-season rankings. Collegehoops.net and Rivals.com have already gotten underway with this and recently Rivals countdown has placed Mason at #47. Whats interesting is that Maryland is listed at #48, ha I love it. Even though I've stated many times that these rankings are total bs, it's still entertaining. Rivals has mentioned that they believe both Mason and VCU should make the NCAA tournament this year, I couldn't agree more but at this point its mostly just hype. The article mentions that importance of the bench players contributing as the starting lineup provided a large majority of the scoring. Rivals seems to think Vlad Moldeveanu will be thrown into the fire early due to the lack of size and depth in the front court, but I'm not sure if we will see this right away. Vlad might be 6'10" but he is not a bruising power forward or center, his game is based mostly on his outside shooting. I could see Chris Fleming and Louis Birdsong logging more minutes in the frontcourt as they both showed improvement during the CAA tournament.

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Mason not in Munson's Plans

After a lot of rumor and speculation by Mason fans that the former All-Met Dematha point guard Nigel Munson would transfer to Fairfax it seems that he is intent on attending George Washington. He is so intend on going there that he is attending community college this fall just so he can later enroll at GW. His desire to transfer to a school closer to home was made difficult after his release from VA Tech prevented him from directly transferring to GW because they were in the the Hokies future schedule plans. After hearing this news some Mason fans (including myself) held on hope that he would chose to play for Coach L as it would seem like the only logical choice if he could not go to GW. I'm not even sure if Munson was ever considering Mason but we fans are used to "Livin' on a Prayer" when it comes to these matters. But hey look on the bright side at least the charges against our recruit Jay Threatt have been dropped.

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Former 'Skins GM Joins Mason

In an interesting news story I just came across it seems Mason has brought in former Redskins GM and NFL analyst for CBS, Charley Casserly. Recently Casserly was with the Houston Texans and was the decision maker behind the selecting of Mario Williams over Reggie Bush or Vince Young in the 2006 draft. Wow, im so glad this sports genuis has decided to spread his "wisdom" with the Mason community. I'm not even a Texans fan and that draft still upsets me. But have no fear as according to the DC Sports Bog Casserly will be titled as an executive-in-residence and instructor of sport management, hopefully meaning he has no decision making abilities related to men's basketball. I'm not even going to continue the rumors that this move might show that Mason is making some sort of progress on getting a football team because I've given up on that for the time being. Lastly, Casserly's job description involves career counseling for Sport Management program students. Hope he doesn't come across any Texan fans while providing this counseling, as I'm sure they would have some "counseling" ideas of their own to share with him.

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More Than Just Hoops

Coach Larranaga: basketball coach, motivator, public speaker, geography educator? Yes, that is correct, Coach Larranaga's basketball summer camp apparently is not limited to just hoops. GMU Geography Department Chair Allan Falconer discovered that Larranaga would often quiz his campers on geography. This prompted Coach L and Falconer to develop the "Mason World Ball", an NCAA-regulation basketball that is also a globe providing a correct scale representation of the location and areas of the continents. I'm not making this up, take a look. I'm sure the campers loved that during their summer break from school their basketball instructor was quizzing them on how many U.S. states start with the letter 'M', I can hear the screams of joy now. I joke about it but it is free publicity for Mason as they teamed up with National Geographic Society and the Geographic Information System (GIS) software company ESRI to develop the ball which also sports the Mason logo. I think it's great Coach L is helping out other departments of Mason but for the love of God focus on getting us a football team first! Is that really too much to ask? Well it might be, but still.

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BB&T Classic Update

I had mentioned in an earlier post that it looked like George Washington was going to be our opponent in this years BB&T Classic, but I've come to realize that's not happening. Instead of having the local teams play each other they are matching up Mason, Maryland, and GW with three different opponents. Makes no sense to me. Why can't this be an annual local rivalry tournament, wouldn't that draw more interest? Well anyway today in Andy Katz's insider blog he mentions that Mason's opponent in the BB&T Classic is in fact East Carolina.

"The love affair with the Patriots for TV, though is gone. The Patriots, who have nine of the top 10 back that played in the CAA tournament title game, should be co-favorites for the league title with VCU. But Mason couldn't get games better than Vermont and Dayton for its new home-and-home series. The BB&T Classic in D.C. got Mason a game with East Carolina. George Mason is in the Old Spice Classic in Orlando with Kansas State, N.C. State, Villanova, South Carolina, Central Florida, Penn State and Rider for what could be the best three games of its nonconference schedule."

Not really the news I wanted to hear, as our non-conference schedule is starting to look dreadful. Looks like after Drexel, Hofstra and ODU's non-conference success last year no one wants to play the CAA this season. I'm sure at least Gary Williams is happy.

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Kenner League Champs

The Nike "Jabbo" Kenner League is among the premier summer college basketball leagues in the country and is annually held at McDonough Arena on the Georgetown campus. Every year most of Mason's squad participates and mix it up for some glorified summer street-ball action. You will even see some NBAers as Jeff Green and James Lang played as well as Tony Skinn, who was supposedly a player-coach. It's always a great chance for the new recruits coming in to get some experience as Vlad Moldoveanu, Cameron Long, and Isaiah Tate all played. Most of Mason's players were on the championship Meyers & Alterman team, with the exception being Will Thomas. Kind of interesting that both teams made up by mostly Georgetown players and recruits were beaten in their own gym by a team that had mostly mid-major players.

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Scheduling Rumors

So far the word on the street is the beginning of our schedule will look something like this:

Friday, Nov 9 - Vermont (home opener)
Tues, Nov 13 - Cleveland State
Sat, Nov 17 - Dayton
Weds, Dec 5 - Hampton
Sun, Dec 30 - Liberty

I know what your thinking, wow we will never have an at-large chance with these guys on our schedule, but Dayton and Vermont could end up being solid RPI-opponents. Don't forget that we do play a stacked Kansas St. team in the Old Spice classic with the possibility of also playing Villanova. Also, the possibility of four consecutive home games in the beginning of the season is a luxury mid-major teams never see. Usually mids are on the road in the beginning of the season collecting game checks and getting hammered by powerhouses so they can pad the win column. Some people think its win-win, I think it totally sucks. Then again, why can't we pad the win column early in the year? Having consecutive home games this early helps Mason get into a rhythm and have confidence going into the conference schedule. Yes, it was cool to watch Mason last year on ESPN play Duke at Cameron, but that game did nothing but destroy confidence and rattle our young squad that was trying to find an identity from the previous years team. The big conferences schedule "cupcakes" teams early in the year to give their squads a tune-up, so why don't more mid-majors do it?

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