When the George Mason men's team resumes its season Sunday at home against George Washington, there will be mutual admiration among the coaching staffs though Mason coach Dave Paulsen and GW's Mike Lonergan have never faced each other, even during their pasts as coaches of Division III powers.
Paulsen coached DIII Williams, his alma mater, to the national title in 2003, two years after Lonergan took Catholic, his alma mater, to a DIII championship.
“I've known Mike for years but we've never played,” said Paulsen. “You'd think we'd have bumped into each other (before this).”
There's a close tie between the two staffs. Mason assistant Aaron Kelly, in charge of scouting for the GW contest, played at Catholic for two years under Lonergan before the coach left for the Vermont job.
“He's a guy who has stuck with his system,” Kelly said of Lonergan. “When I watch them on film, I see a lot of the stuff we did in practice and ran in games. He's a really good coach.
“He tweaks his stuff for his personnel, but it's the same kind of base stuff he's doing both offensively and defensively. He hasn't changed a lot. It's fun to watch. It kind of brings you back to when you played.”
Because the Colonials have a Thursday game against Richmond, Lonergan has yet to focus closely on the Patriots.
“One thing I know, they have a very good coach-- really a good coaching staff,” Lonergan said on Monday's Atlantic 10 teleconference. “Aaron Kelly is a young man I recruited to Catholic. I know those guys know what they're doing.
“They've had to play young guys, but they've been competing. Dave's a great coach. They're going to play hard. Rebounding is becoming a forte. In our conference, every game is going to be really difficult. I'm not looking forward to playing Mason because of the respect I have for their coaching staff.”
The Patriots will have had eight days without a game before meeting GW. Paulsen's plan is to hold training camp-type practices for the first few days before concentrating on the Colonials.
“With where we're at as a team,” Paulsen said, “we need to focus on improving defensively and offensively.”
One thing the Patriots will work on is playing against a 1-3-1 zone that GW has employed effectively when the two teams played in the previous two seasons.
“It's different – we haven't seen a lot of 1-3-1,”Paulsen said. “Obviously they're good with their 1-3-1 – they've got good length.
“George Washington is just a really good team, a veteran team, a solid team. Their man-to-man defense is very good and obviously they're a veteran team that executes well offensively.”
