By Palmer Johnson
Your 4-1 George Mason Patriots will be going up against a 4-2 East Carolina Pirates team that is coming off a miracle win against Kennesaw State where they won on a buzzer-beating half-court heave.
The Pirates are coached by Mike Schwartz, who is in his second season as head coach after being at Tennessee for seven seasons, being their defensive coordinator for his last five years there.
I watched the first half of the Pirates’ game against Kennesaw State, here are my takeaways.
ECU Scouting Report (First Half vs. Kennesaw St.)
The Pirates’ 6’9 forward, Ezra Ausar, is a scrappy dude. He hustles for the loose balls and thrives off chaos.
East Carolina’s point guard, Kansas transfer Bobby Pettiford, holds the ball for a long time on some possessions and then gives a grenade to someone else. He hesitated on a three where nobody was within ten feet of him. It was his first make of the year. The former top 100 recruit could be a guy that Mason can sag off of and go under on screens.
Their other guard, RJ Felton, has been red hot, but was not during this game. He was not given anything easy, and ended up scoring 19 on 5-16 shooting, going 0-1 from three. Jared Billups and Darius Maddox should be able to contain him.
On the offensive end, the AAC member is very aggressive going for offensive boards. It seemed like someone was always there when they missed layups and had a decent chance to put it back in. On fast break opportunities, they liked to play it slow and controlled instead of gambling on a possible man-up advantage.
On the defensive end, the Pirates play a half-court defense. They are willing to go into a zone, but from what I saw, they had to get out of it fast since it did not work on back-to-back attempts. East Carolina kept losing shooters in transition. I’m not sure if Mason has enough shooters to take advantage of that, but it is worth noting.
Way too many guys for Kennesaw State were getting open for three despite there not being major ball movement or pressure on the defense. The defender would kind of slowly drift away from his guy to the point that he doesn’t even go for the contest when he gets it, just starts boxing out for a possible rebound.
Another thing I noticed was that Kennesaw State’s guards were getting past their guys on the perimeter very often, and there wasn’t major help for them. This could be the game that gets Ronny Polite going.
ECU by the Numbers
East Carolina is the 193rd ranked team, compared to Mason at 119, on KenPom, with their offense being ranked 102nd and their defense 294th.
The Pirates rebound offensively very well, getting 38% of them, which is 24th in the country.
The team from Greenville hits their twos, shooting 56.7% from inside the arc, which is 40th in the country. I think Mason’s interior defense will be able to stop that. They also shoot a lot of free throws, being 57th ranked in free throw amount percentage, but they only hit 68% of them, which is not very good.
On the defensive end, teams shoot a lot of threes against them, with 45% of their opponent’s field goals being from behind the arc, and with 35.9% of them going in. When opponents do shoot from two, they hit 55.2% of them, which ranks them in the bottom 50.
The Pirates are one of the smaller teams in the country, with their average being a full inch below the Division 1 average.
This is a super weird shot chart. ECU does really well from straight on but struggle from the sides.
Prediction
Mason wins 78-69.
The game isn’t really close but they never really pull away. Ronny Polite takes advantage of their meh defense and scores 20 for the first time this season. Keyshawn Hall will continue his hot streak, doesn’t score too much, but does everything else, including grabbing boards, and ends with another double-double.
Show up and show out, Mason Nation.
