What’s this, George Mason University is making headlines again? It’s been a minute since anyone has given us any attention, outside of the sound wave fire extinguisher back in 2015, Mason and specifically Mason Basketball has been muddling around in obscurity for the better half of the last decade. All it took was the announcement of Mason hiring a 32 year old, up-and-coming, DMV native as it’s new men’s basketball coach. Kim English is a disciple of the Rick Barnes (former one and done Mason basketball coach) coaching tree out of Tennessee. In the -assistants who should be promoted to head coach- conversation, English was the hottest name floating around and Brad Edwards secured the bag.
George Mason basketball for me is like a child star. I was a sophomore in 2006 when we went to the Final Four and fame came at us hard and fast. We were the talk the town, our name was synonymous with Cinderella and March Madness. ESPN was airing our Midnight Madness events, we were recruiting bigger names than ever before. Like every child star, fame comes crashing down just as hard and fast. Coach L was gone and so were the cameras and headlines. We became irrelevant. Like many child stars, you grow up and become less relevant and start taking roles in straight to DVD films like Critters 4 to make ends meet (Paul Hewitt). Hollywood tabloids are then only talking about you when you’re found in an L.A. hotel room passed out with 7 lbs of cocaine, 19 Percocets and a hooker in your bed. Similarly, Mason was only making headlines for the new lows the program had hit.
Then one morning, our agent calls us and tells us about a new pilot they’re filming for Netflix. It looks promising, it co-stars a Jonas Brother and Jason Momoa and we feel like we’re on top of the world again. That was Dave Paulsen. Mason Nation felt like they hired a true X’s and O’s, well respected head coach to right the ship but low and behold, we were wrong. Our Netflix show was cancelled after a few mediocre seasons with subpar reviews and minimal viewership. We were back to the drawing board.
The announcement of the Kim English hiring feels like Martin Scorsese personally called us and pitched us an Oscar worthy movie role co-starring Leonardo Dicaprio and Lupita Nyong’o. This is the role of a LIFETIME. Apologies for the drawn out analogy but the the Mason/Child Star story arc feels apt. Could this new role in the Scorsese movie turn out to be another Irishman? A drawn out, regurgitated telling of a story we’ve heard a million times before or are we about to get like Goodfellas? We don’t know just yet but there’s hype. I can predict however, that like Hollywood, Fairfax will be luring some stars again. I have no doubt in my mind, Kim English will be pulling 3 star recruits and we may even be in the conversation for a few 4 star recruits in a few seasons. I don’t know what type offensive or defensive schemes coach will want to run here at Mason but one thing is for sure, Kim English will recruit and he will recruit local talent. I personally can’t wait to start looking at recruiting rankings again and see kids with offers from P5 programs. I have to imagine with the improved talent coming through Mason that the wins will follow.
We are relevant again and god dammit it feels good.
TLDR: Mason was something, then nothing, now we might be something again.
