By Palmer Johnson
After a convincing home win against Monmouth, Mason looks to improve to 2-0 with their next opponent being the Austin Peay Governors, the 203rd ranked team on KenPom.
Corey Gipson, their coach, is in his first season in Clarksville, though his first season as a head coach was last season at Northwestern State, where he went 22-11.
Austin Peay plays fast; they had 75 possessions in their game against Life University, an NAIA team, which they won 90-72, although the game was very close until around the 12-minute mark in the second half.
Along with playing fast, the Governors shoot a crazy number of threes, with 41 of their 66 shot attempts being threes against Life. They hit 17 of their 41 attempts, which is 41.5%. I am hopeful that they hit that many because they were playing an NAIA team and that won’t happen against Mason.
Overall, they are a pretty small team, with their biggest guy in the rotation being 6’8. Mason should be able to take advantage of that inside and use their size, speed, and length to bully them.
The main three guys to watch out for are guards Dez White, Ja’Monta Black, and Dezi Jones.
Dez White is a former Mason commit that was going to play for the previous staff. He went 2-10 from three in their first game, going 0-1 from two. Coming out of high school, he was looked at as a good shooter, so he could get hot.
Ja’Monta Black is wild. He shot one two in their first game, and took 21, yes, I repeat, 21 threes. He made 9 of them. This isn’t an extreme outlier either, last season, he averaged over 10 threes attempted per game. Black is a scary shooter, hitting 37.7% of his threes in his career. You just have to hope it is not his night.
Dezi Jones, 5’10 guard, was one of their more balanced scorers in their first game. He went 8-11 from the field, 3-3 from two, and 5-8 from three. Jones is another guy who can really hit it from deep, shooting 41.7% from three last season at Quinnipiac.
It seems like if Mason is able to run them off the three-point line and not give up wide open twos, they’ll be able to win this one easily. Billups and Maddox are going to have to stay locked in on defense, these guys are going to shoot if they think they have any chance of making it.
On the other end of the court, they don’t really have anybody big. Amari Kelly, Malik Henry, and Keyshawn Hall should be able to feast inside, while Maddox should be able to create for himself on the perimeter if needed.
If Austin Peay goes ultra-small, I would not be surprised to see Woody Newton play the 5.
My prediction is that their shot does not fall tonight, Mason wins 81-61. Austin Peay’s game makes for very volatile scores, so if it isn’t falling, they’re going to keep shooting and shooting, and hopefully missing.
Get excited Mason Nation, it’s the Gold Rush game!
