Well… that one hurts.
It was Deja Vu in DC as Fordham once again shut down Mason’s offense, to take the Round 2 matchup against Mason.
It caps off a rough end to the season for Mason, who after starting 4-1 in A-10 play, went 3-9 in their last 12 A-10 games, including today’s tournament game.
It was a very slow start to today’s game, as neither team shot above 30% in the first half. Mason got a good head of steam in the start of the second half, but went cold against the Rams D, and didn’t have a field goal in the last 5 minutes of the game.
It’s a bittersweet ending to the season for Patriots fans, as a season that started with such hope ends in a feeling that this team could have done more. There is more hope going into next season compared to previous years, but questions remain. Will DeVon Cooper stay and use his extra COVID year? Who could transfer out of the program? Will Coach English look to the transfer portal for key players again?
We’ll be right here for all of that.
Update: In today’s Press Conference, we heard from DeVon Cooper, Josh Oduro and Coach English. Coach was clearly upset about the two consecutive fouls called on Josh Oduro in the second half and had this to say about the impact, “Huge impact on the game. Ronnie Polite had a wide open layup, up seven. Oduro boxed the kid out in a very physical game. Fordham may foul the most in our league, and it’s a very physical game. And physical games are ok, that’s fine, however the conditions are we like it… Inconsistent to the way the game was going. Huge plays.”
DeVon Cooper also had this to say about coming back next year: “I haven’t thought about it. I will sit down with Coach English and we’ll talk about it in the next couple days.”