Strong second half performance helps Mason edge out William & Mary

On Saturday, George Mason (4-5)went on the road to take on William & Mary (2-5) at Kaplan Arena.

Again, before the game, there was bad news.

George Mason will be without Jaire Grayer today against William + Mary, per team spokesman. Senior is missing his second consecutive game with a foot injury.

— Petey Buckets (@peteybuckets) December 1, 2018

If I had to guess, I would say that Grayer is not returning to the lineup anytime soon, maybe not even this season. This will take a bite out of the Patriots offensive productivity, however, it’s best that Mason has a healthy Jaire Grayer that can contribute in the future than one that is at risk to further injure himself and produces at a much lower rate. Stay tuned for an article on him soon.

Anyway.

In the first half, the Tribe outscored the Patriots 42-36 going 15-29 from the field, 5-14 from behind the arc, and recorded 16 rebounds.

Mason shot 14-28 on FG’s, 4-11 on 3’s, and recorded 15 rebounds.

The Patriots struggled in the first half, Justin Pierce looked like he was open and sinking threes, and Mason defense looked full of holes. There were at some points during the first half where someone could drive a car into the lane because the Patriots were so spaced out.

In the second half, the Patriots went 22-33 for FG’s and 6-13 on 3’s, scoring 51 points. Additionally, Mason went an astonishingly low 1-1 from the stripe, recorded 17 rebounds, and had 13 assists.

The Tribe scored 42 points going 13-27 for FG’s, 7-16 on 3’s, and 11 rebounds. They also recorded 4 turnovers and only 5 PF’s in the second half.

MASON WINS 87-84 TO WILLIAM & MARY

Some notable things from this game:

• Mason had 6 turnovers going into the under 8 media timeout in the first half. The Patriots only had 6 turnovers in the final 27ish minutes, which is decent. Mason is now 4-1 when turning the ball over less than 15 times.
• Something I really liked was how all of the points were spread out over the whole team, five players scored in double digits, and two others had 8 points (Boyd and Calixte).
• Goanar Mar finally sparked a flame in his game scoring 10 points going 4-10 from the field, and 2-6 from three. Additionally, he had 4 rebounds and 4 assists in almost 30 minutes of play. Here’s a play from under the basket:

Jarred finds @YounginGoanar around the hoop for the score!

Mason 18, William & Mary 17 (10:20 1H) #GetPatriotic pic.twitter.com/YNFJbNX19s

— Mason Men’s Basketball (@MasonMBB) December 1, 2018

• Justin Kier had a solid night scoring 15 points, going 6-9 from the field, 2-3 from 3, and led the team in rebounds with 8.
• Javon Greene also scored 15 points in this contest and registered 6 rebounds.
• Jarred Reuter scored 11 points in his 20 minutes of play, but only had one rebound in the entire game. That has to change, Reuter needs to have a bigger presence in the lane, and box out more to grab those balls.
• Otis Livingston II led the way again with 18 points going 7-15 from the field, 2-7 from three, a perfect 2-2 from the stripe, and dished out 10 assists. He came up clutch at the end with this mid-range:

In his bag 💼 pic.twitter.com/ekI9RKwoDz

— By George. (@ByGeorgeGMU) December 1, 2018

Questions of the game: After seeing this performance, how do you think the Patriots will fare in the last non-conference games? Also, how many do you think they will win out of the 4 remaining?

Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Anyway.

Mason will return home on Monday, Dec. 3, to take on Vermont in their next big test. If they can play as well as they did in the second half in this game, they might actually have a chance.

See you there.