George Mason announced on Monday morning that head coach Paul Hewitt has been fired after four seasons with the program.
“Mason made a significant commitment to its athletic programs, especially men’s basketball, when the university moved to the Atlantic 10 Conference two years ago,” said GMU AD Brad Edwards. “The university has high expectations for the program and thus determined a change was needed.
“Paul has always been a tremendous advocate for the sport of college basketball and we are extremely appreciative for the manner in which he has represented the university and for his service to the student-athletes and to the program.”
Hewitt was 66-67 in his time with the Patriots, but in two seasons in the Atlantic 10 conference his team went just 8-26. Hewitt was the head coach at Georgia Tech when the Yellow Jackets made their run to the 2004 national title game.
Two names have popped up right away as potential replacements, both of whom have connections to Mason’s 2006 Final Four run. The first, as mentioned by Adrian Wojnarowski of Yahoo! Sports, is Jay Larranaga, the son of former George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga and currently an assistant with the Boston Celtics. The other is Chris Caputo, who was on Jim’s staff at George Mason and is currently an assistant on his staff at Miami. Caputo has strong recruiting ties to the DC area; Mason is located in Fairfax, Virginia, just a few miles outside of DC.