Building the Mid-Major

It shouldn't come as a great surprise that George Mason is "down" this year. They lost a bunch of talent from their Final Four squad (see the below post) and play in one of the underrated conferences in the country. The real concern, as stated, is capitalizing on their year in the spotlight and emerging as the east coast mid-major.

Obviously, when you talk mid-major success, one program stands above the rest as a blueprint for others to follow - Gonzaga. So, how did they do it? How do they continue to power through the WCC each and every year, seemingly locking themselves into an NCAA seeding without the help of the automatic bid awarded to the conference tournament winner? How did they change from simply being the trivial answer to where John Stockton played his collegiate ball to a national name? It's not an easy answer, which is probably why it's been so difficult to duplicate at other middies.

When Gonzaga first took the basketball world by storm in 1999, making it all the way to the West Regional Final before falling at the hands of eventual champion Connecticut, they had come off a few good seasons (losses in the WCC title game and appearances in the NIT in '96 and '98) and had built a strong, veteran team. Since then, they have seemingly been able bring in talented players to reload their program.

Did the Gonzaga teams of '99 and '00 help that much on the recruiting front? To me, it's only marginal. Gonzaga still doesn't grab the top blue-chip recruits and settles for second or third tier players who they feel will fit their system. Take a look at their recruiting efforts since 2002. It's a small handful of recent 4-star recruits (Josh Heytvelt and David Pendergraft in 2004; Larry Gurganious in 2005; Matt Bouldin in 2006), but mostly 3-star guys (including some players that made up the nucleus of their recent teams like Derek Ravio, Adam Morrison and J.P. Batista) and some lesser-starred players. Additionally, they have combed the world and won talents overlooked by other programs (Ronny Turiaf out of France) and have since their '99 run gained some highly regarded transfers. Former All-American Dan Dickau and 2006 role player Erroll Knight both transferred from Washington to Gonzaga, and recently, former 5-star recruit Micah Downs transferred in from Kansas.

If it helps anywhere on the recruiting trail, it'd be on the marginal D-1 Pac-10 players I would guess. Gonzaga has become the mid-major "name" program out west, a place where marginal "power conference" players from the northwest as well as solid players from ranking tiers below them choose to play their basketball. Can George Mason corner that market in DC? That's a tall order simply due to the volume of schools at not only the power conference level (with the ACC and Big East home to schools right in their backyard) but also at the mid-major level.

The biggest key has to be continuity. Since Dan Monson left to take over at Minnesota after the '99 run, Mark Few has been at the helm and taken his team to the NCAAs each year, winning the league regular season and earning WCC Coach of the Year honors every year but 2000. Few has built an absolute beast of a mid-major and, because of it, is able to schedule unlike any mid-major by getting home-and-home or mirroring neutral games with the big boys. A huge reason for this is because while Gonzaga was building its reputation, Few was willing to travel his team any time, anywhere to play anybody. Most importantly, Few hasn't hardly even considered a new job, spurning many potential suitors at the instant his name has been thrown into the head coaching ring.

Can George Mason coach Jim Larranaga duplicate this success? One thing working against Larranaga is his age, as he is in his late-50s with Few in his mid-40s. If and when Larranaga does move on or move elsewhere, I would suggest building and hiring from within, as Gonzaga did with Few. First, however, Larranaga needs to guide his team back to the NCAAs by next season. The success has to happen again and soon. Fans and recruits need to be reminded that they aren't a one-hit wonder. We live in a society that is built to forget championship game losers. In order for George Mason to stay out of major college basketball obscurity, they need to remain fresh in people's minds.


-- RK