Welcome back to the George Mason basketball weekly rundown! You can read my reaction to the VCU win here. Since that leaves only the Richmond game to talk about, we’ll touch on that briefly, then take a look at the A10 tournament coming up this week in DC. If you’re a Mason fan in the area, move heaven and earth to get out and support the team on Thursday at 2:30pm. The GiantKiller crew will be there with bells on.
Richmond
This was a bad time to get lackluster performances from a few key players. Otis Livingston displayed his usual excellence with 21 points on 14 shots, 5 assists, and 4 rebounds, but contributions from the other starters were lacking. Greg Calixte had a solid 10 points on 5-5 shooting, but played only 16 minutes, his lowest minutes total in A10 conference play, likely due to the fact that he only had 2 rebounds. Jaire Grayer and Goanar Mar combined for 11 points on 5-11 shooting with 3 rebounds between them, while Ian Boyd and Justin Kier were uncharacteristically inefficient, shooting 3-10 and 3-9 respectively.
The bright spots were AJ Wilson and Javon Greene. AJ was 3-4 from the field and 4-4 from the line to chip in 10 points, including a couple highlight dunks in the second half that sparked Mason’s pseudo-comeback when they closed the deficit to four. Javon showed flashes of the player he can become, going strong to the paint on multiple occasions and either finishing at the rim or drawing fouls.
That said, offense was hardly the issue. Mason shot 51.7% from the field, the best mark since clearing 54% against St. Louis. The ultimate 14 point margin was due to Richmond’s lights-out shooting and Mason being uncharacteristically cold from behind the arc. Richmond was 10-18 from three and 27-41 from inside the arc, posting an offensive rating of 134.8. No team, not even Davidson, posted a higher offensive rating against Mason this season. On the other side of the ball, Mason was a very good 27-44 from two-point range but only 3-14 from deep, getting a lot of good looks that didn’t find their way down. That’s no way to win a shootout.
Luck
After a wild and crazy season, this young, small, eight man Mason team somehow claimed the fifth seed in the A10 tournament. You might hear a lot about Mason being lucky to finish fifth; here are some reasons why.
Margin of victory. Mason is third from the bottom in the A10 in Ken Pomeroy’s ratings, which rely heavily on margin of victory, and fourth from the bottom in point differential in conference. Mason’s conference wins come by an average of 5 points while the losses come by an average of 12. Mason won only one game in conference by double digits (Dayton at home); of the nine losses, five were by double figures. Mason is 5-2 in conference in games decided by one possession or in overtime. Four of those five wins were at the buzzer (thank you, Otis Livingston and Ian Boyd!) You can spin a narrative here about how Mason is maybe better suited to win close games behind a high-IQ point guard and tactically savvy coach, but records in close games tend to even out over time.
Schedule luck. Mason played the second game against St. Joe’s when they were missing James Demery, a top two player on the Hawks along with Shavar Newkirk, and played the second UMass game without Luwane Pipkins, the conference’s second leading scorer. Mason also only drew the top three teams (Rhode Island, St. Bonaventure, and Davidson) once apiece. That particular criticism is a little overstated since no one drew those teams for more than four total games, but it’s potentially important in a conference where fifth place and twelfth place are separated by two games.
Bad losses. Mason managed to lose to four of the A10’s bottom five teams (Duquesne, George Washington, La Salle, and Fordham). The only team in the bottom five they swept was UMass, who brought them to overtime twice, the second time playing without their best player.
No matter how much you attribute to luck, there’s a chance Mason is out over their skis as the five seed. There’s also a chance than the 9-9 five seed is only marginally better than the 7-11 twelve seed. But just a couple weeks ago I was in here wondering how Mason was going to stay out of the play-in game, and this is a happy ending. Mason overachieved to get here, and overachieving is becoming a staple of the Paulsen/Livingston era of Mason hoops.
A10 Tournament Prep
Mason plays the winner of the UMass and La Salle play-in game on Thursday at 2:30pm. That play-in-game takes place at 6pm the night before, so whoever wins will have about 20 hours of rest between games. No matter who you’re rooting for, root for overtime!
As to the question of who Mason would prefer to play, that’s a little tougher. La Salle beat Mason in their only matchup, and La Salle center Tony Washington was the unexpected difference-maker, putting up 20 points and 14 rebounds. La Salle’s BJ Johnson is also a size mismatch, a 6’7” inside/outside player who’s a legitimate candidate for the all-conference first team. It’s hard to see how La Salle presents a good matchup for Mason in any way.
UMass is probably the team Mason wants based on the paper matchup and also because they have only five scholarship players and have to rely heavily on walk-ons. Fresh legs will be an issue for them if they advance in the tournament. However, UMass may have a mental edge playing against Mason, knowing that they’ve brought them to overtime twice and they’ll be playing with house money since any game they win in the conference tournament is gravy. This is a long way of saying be careful who you wish for to win that play-in game – both teams are capable of beating Mason.
Let’s wrap this up with a couple more pre-tourney thoughts:
I still don’t think Jaire Grayer is fully healthy. Against Richmond he played 18 minutes, scored 6 points, and grabbed 2 rebounds. He grabbed only 4 rebounds at VCU. Once he’s back up to 6 rebounds per game consistently I’ll stop wondering if he’s healthy.
I wondered on more than one occasion why Mason goes small at the end of games. Bryan from By George asked Coach Paulsen about this in a postgame presser and Paulsen’s answer was something to the effect of “to keep our best rebounders on the floor.” That made me take a second look at Greg Calixte on KenPom. His 17.3% defensive rebounding percentage isn’t terrible but it is on the lower end of what you’d expect out of someone his size. It’s also conspicuous that AJ Wilson got a lot more run in the second half of the Richmond game, as Calixte had only 2 rebounds in 16 minutes of action. I’ve got to wonder if Paulsen is trying to light a fire under him to have him control the boards.
Who’s going to help Otis score? That’s been the question all year long. Against VCU it was Goanar Mar, but Mar struggled the second time around against Richmond. Jaire doesn’t seem fully healthy, and Kier quietly had two of his least effective games this past week. AJ, Boyd, and Javon have all had a smattering of high-scoring games throughout the season, but none of them are getting buckets night in and night out. I’m interested in seeing who steps up into a scoring role in the win-or-go-home format of the A10 tournament; Mason is a team that can get clutch contributions from anyone in the rotation. The more the supporting cast steps up, the deeper Mason can go in the tournament. Here’s to making a run.
See you all Thursday, and Go Mason!
