Stats first today, then chalk talk afterward. Here we go!
Stats
Congratulations to my man Otis Livingston II for his A10 Player of the Week award. Here’s his combined stat line against St. Louis and La Salle:
48 points on 20 FGA (that’s crazy), 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal
Otis shot 8/10 from three combined in both games as well. He very nearly carried the team to victory in his career game against St. Louis – here’s a depressing split from the game:
Otis – 29 points on 15 shots
Rest of team – 45 points on 42 shots
Some other notes:
- Marquise, Otis, Jaire, and Jalen combined for 85 of the team’s 95 points against La Salle. We can’t count on that every night, which is why I’m very worried about missing Karmari for one more game and Boyd for two. The contributions from the bench are already slim, and we’re already riding our starters for heavy minutes. Otis and Jaire played over 80 minutes apiece in the past two games and Jalen played 75. Being short-handed against two very beatable teams in Davidson and Fordham is not ideal.
- Mason combined for five total steals this week. Dave’s defense doesn’t try to force turnovers (never has, even at Bucknell) but this is extreme. St Louis only turned the ball over nine times, and they were a bottom-50 team in turning the ball over before entering the Mason game. La Salle also turned the ball over nine times, but they’re much better at protecting the ball.
- Mason shot 10/18 from behind the arc and 21/31 inside it against La Salle. That 63.3% shooting performance is the best of the season by a country mile – we shot 52.2% against Lebanon Valley, and if you want to throw that out because they’re a D3 school, we shot 51.8% against Penn. The La Salle game was fun, but it’s well outside of what we should expect each game.
- Since recording a season low 5 assists against George Washington, Mason responded with 17 assists, 16 assists, and 15 assists in the three games since.
- Mason is shooting 26/51 (51%) from three in the last three games.
- Is the perimeter defense slipping? Mason allowed opponents to hit just 39/124 (29.1%) through the first six games of conference play. In the last four games, that number has ballooned to 40/101 (39.6%). Mason has faced two of the better three-point shooting teams in conference in George Washington and La Salle, but this is still something to keep an eye on.
Chalk Talk
All chalk talk today is from the La Salle game. I ain’t here to talk about Saint Louis. La Salle was a lot of fun, but we should keep things in perspective. They were even more short-handed than we were, missing BJ Johnson and Pookie Powell, two 30 minute per game players. But winning is still fun so we’re going to celebrate anyway.
La Salle’s threes to start the game were the kind of shots that our scheme encourages opponents to take. They came when we doubled the post and the post kicks out to the man who’s now open. The rotations were a little slow and they shouldn’t have been as open as they were, but that’ll happen. The rotations got tighter throughout the game and La Salle ended up taking a lot of contested threes in the second half. Here, Jaire leaves his man to double, Otis is slow to rotate, and Jaire is slow to recover, leading to an open three on the first play of the game. These ultimately aren’t a big deal, but they feel really bad when the opponent hits a few in a row like La Salle did:
I’ve given Relvao some grief in this space so it’s time to give him some credit. He was a big part of the 15-0 first half run where Mason went from down 11 to up 4. Here are a couple nice plays of his. First, he catches a nice entry pass from Kam and does a nice job of spinning, ducking under the weakside help, and laying in the bunny. This is an easy play, since his defender leaves him for some reason, but earlier in the season this was the sort of play he wasn’t converting, so this is progress:
Next, he leaves his man to block a shot in the paint that starts a fast break for Marquise. He actually runs the floor very well and is in position for a tip-in that’s not necessary because Marquise finishes:
I think that for freshman bigs, it’s more important to pay attention to what sort of potential they flash than dwelling on what they don’t do well. Relvao and Temara both have a long way to go, but they’ve shown flashes of potential on both ends of the court. Writing them off at this point would be a mistake.
Let’s take a moment to pay homage to Justin Kier, king of the back cut. This first one comes against a 3-2 zone from La Salle, and the fun thing about this one is that it looks like improvisation. Justin sees Phiri (13) take a step toward Jalen and boom, he attacks the space in the zone and gets to the rim for the and-one:
Here’s a beauty in the second half. La Salle’s defense gets stretched out when they try to trap Jaire on the baseline. Kier realizes no one is marking him and cuts hard to the basket again:
Otis had an absurdly efficient 19 points on 5/5 shooting. Nights like that don’t happen often. In this clip, Jalen sets a good screen, and Otis uses the space to hit a step-back, shades of Tony Skinn:
This was a great game for bench reactions. We’ll get to some more in a moment, but right now watch A) Kam break the ankles of Phiri, and B) Troy’s reaction on the bench, pointing to the spot where Phiri’s soul left his body:
You don’t need me to tell you La Salle’s defense was atrocious all night, but here’s one of the more fun examples of a total team brainfart. Shot goes up and no one boxes out the weak side:
Alright, now we’ll get to Marquise’s career-high 28 points. Short-handed La Salle didn’t have anyone who could hope to stay with him. Here’s a simple rub play he runs with Jalen to get himself in the post against a smaller defender. Gonna miss these two next year:
Marquise is so lethal because you can’t keep him out of the paint by single-covering him. If you send help, here’s what happens when your whole defense bends to keep Marquise from getting to the rim. Jaire has time for a nap between catching the pass and shooting:
This is also a good example of why Jaire getting hot from three is so important – the offense looks U-G-L-Y when teams collapse on Marquise in the paint and the shooters can’t hit the kickouts.
Here, the help is weak and Marquise is too fast. He hits a scoop shot and the bench goes nuts:
Marquise hits a three, one of three on the night. Look to the bench at Karmari’s disbelief as the ball is in the air. He can’t believe this shit:
And I love Marquise to death. Putting your guns in the holster after hitting three of your eleven career threes in the same game is laugh-out-loud funny:
One last tribute to Mason’s bench mob. There’s so much going on here:
Until next week, Mason fans. Go Patriots!