Five Takeaways from George Mason vs Richmond

We didn't earn the split in the first game against Richmiond... and... how in the heck did Richmond's best 3 point shooter, a point guard, end up with Mason's freshmen center on him with less than 5 seconds left? Schwartz played well. Henry held his own. Ticket was Ticket and Johnson was great. Heck.. Blake Jones even had a few moment. Ugh. This one hurts. Mason missed Josh Oduro. Ugh. So close.

• Kudos to Kim English for throwing all sorts of spaghetti at the wall with Oduro and Polite out. This ganme was way closer than it could have been, and I thought the rotations, wrinkles, and everything else was outstanding.
• Mason's no-big, switch-everything lineup (with Frazier at the 5) looked a lot better than it has so far this season; they did a great job of forcing Richmond away from the basket.
• Speaking of Frazier... man, what does Mason have with this kid, and what might he be next year? I actually don't know, but his confidence is off the charts taking the ball to the hoop. If you squint hard enough, there might just a be a Jalen Adaway starter kit there.
• Hat tip to Richmond. They won at home despite an off night for BBurton and Golden.
• Jacob Gilyard... my goodness. He's amazing.

Yuri Collins and Jacob Gilyard have both pasted Mason in the last 10 days or so, and it's weird, because it doesn't feel like Johnson's defense has been bad. Great players making great plays? Mason's lack of depth meaning Johnson has to tamper it down a bit? I really don't know, but a pair of really great point guards have feasted on Mason lately, but I don't know what the fix might be.

Back home to EBA, hopefully with Josh and Ronnie back.

Five takeaways from George Mason vs LaSalle

Well, that sucked.

Immensely.

I don't have any problem with Kim English getting the boot in this one.. someone needed to have some fire, and it didn't seem to be the players.

Without further ado, here are five takeaways from LaSalle's vistory over George Mason.

• Mason only plays 7 deep, so seeing that two of those 7 were out (Oduro and Polite), it didn't take a rocket scientist to assume that there would be some odd lineups (Blake Buchannan anyone?).
• This offense really struggles without Josh Oduro, and while Schwartz might be the best player on Mason, he's seems to defer far more than I'd like to see. He seems like he can get wherever he wants on the court, and with Josh out, Mason could do a better job funneling the offense through him.
• I know he isn't a Josh Oduro replacement, but Malik Henry seems like a guy who should be able to play about 15-20 minutes a game (5-10 backing up Oduro, 5-10 next to Josh) as a guy who's only job is to run like his hair is on fire. He's terrific on the lob and amazing in transition.
• Cooper does a lot of things really well. He's a terrific defender (he draws more charging calls than anyone I can remember at Mason). He's amazing from deep. He's a good passer. He is not, however, a point guard. His handle is really rough, and it feels like he turns the ball over at least five times per game.
• I could go the rest of my life without hearing the LaSalle announcer yelling "pow" on 3 point shots.

Now we're on to a home and home with Richmond... Is it too much to hope for a split this week?

Five Takeaways from George Mason vs St. Louis

Mason had won four straight games heading into last night, so given the winning streak, I held off on starting a blog series about the team. I've been catching replays on ESPN+ due to living on the west coast, so a lot of the fun of watching the team in realtime and tweeting away has been limited (in fact, I've been avoiding my phone on gamedays until I get to watch the game).

The Patriots got beat last night in double overtime, with Yuri Collins of St. Louis playing Superman (Collins was amazing in the game).

Here's what I noticed from the game:

• Mason looked terrible for long stretches in this one. A lot of the bad habits we saw early in the season (unforced turnovers, missed foul shots) crept up on them. Everyone has an off game, but it was glaring, and if Mason wants to be one of the top teams in the A-10, this has to be corrected.
• That said, there were points where it felt like they were going to win. The team didn't panic or fold up, They lept plugging away, which is WAY different than the last few years of Mason basketball (and is wildly refreshing). I'm loving the Kim English era, and I'd note, for all of the chatter about St Bonaventure being a veteran team, Mason's not rolling a bunch of freshmen out there. This is a veteran team, even if all the guys haven't been together for all that long.
• Coach English has very little trust in his bench. At times this season, we've seen Malik Henry and Ronnie Polite as the only guys to get time, and in the case of Henry, it's usually until Henry makes his first egregious mistake (which is still pretty common). Polite seems to have been a littl injured last night, which exascerbated the issue.

  I asked Coach why Ronny didn’t get a his normal amount of playing time and he said the assistants noticed he wasn’t moving well and pulled him.

  — By George. (@ByGeorgeGMU) February 3, 2022

  This left Otis Frazier, who seems like a swiss army knife as an undersized 4 that can switch everything on defense but is still developing on offense, as the only bench player the coach English wanted to play in OT. Mason's starters looked gassed at the end of the game (deservedly so... they definitely left it on the court), but both this team could use one more strong bench piece. This team has a Tyler Kolek-sized hole in the roster.
• I though the refs were... questionable. Mason got a lot of homer calls (thanks, I guess), but at the same time, there were some BIG misses (the over and back being the biggest). I suppose it all came out in the wash, and Mason looked so lackadaisical that they didn't deserve to be in this one at different points... but yeah. Some questionable calls all around.

Let's also be clear. Kim English is a WAY better coach than I am, so take this with a grain of salt. But, I was surprised to not see coach roll Oduro and Henry together in the second overtime. St. Louis was basically out of bigs, and Mason's jumbo lineup was (by the eye test, and in a limited sample), pretty interesting against UMass.

On to Lasalle.