By Palmer Johnson
Your George Mason Patriots look to move on to 9-2 this Tuesday, with their opponent being in-state D3 school Bridgewater.
The Eagles are 9-3 this season, with a 5-1 record on the road.
Bridgewater is coached by Steve Enright, who’s been the head coach since the 2018-19 season. He was the assistant director of basketball operations at Rhody with Dan Hurley.
Jordan Cooper reportedly had interest from Appalachian State and Landon Hawes is a former JMU walk-on commit, but ended up going somewhere else. Those are the closest things to D1 experience anyone has.
Bridgewater has played one game against a D1 opponent this season, 292nd ranked Elon. They lost that game 104-70. As expected, they couldn’t stop Elon from two or three, and couldn’t get boards.
Bridgewater Scouting Report (First Half vs. Mary Baldwin)
So…yes. I did watch a half of a Division 3 game. I found it easily with a Google search, I might as well.
It’s worth noting that this was the Eagles season opener, their playstyle could have changed a bit between now and then.
Keep in mind Bridgewater is D3, so their weaknesses will be awful, and their strengths will probably still be vastly outmatched by Mason.
They made two subs in the first two minutes. I don’t know what that means.
On offense, the Eagles run a lot of 5-out, using 1 on 1s on the perimeter trying to get someone past their man. When the guys do drive, they generally have made up their mind that they are shooting, taking super contested shots or losing the ball when a help defender arrives. Mary Baldwin, their opponent, was running a soft press but Bridgewater’s offense was mostly undisturbed.
On defense, Bridgewater ran a 2-2-1 press pretty often, which makes sense since they’re playing against easily fluster-able D3 point guards. I don’t think they caused any turnovers with it, but it probably disrupted Mary Baldwin’s rhythm. It seemed like the defensive game plan was to leave shooters open. I don’t know if that’s exclusive to them or if that’s what D3 teams do on purpose. Ten minutes into the game, Bridgewater dropped into a zone. It seemed to work about as well as their normal defense and I don’t think they ran it for another possession in the game.
What does this mean for Mason?
We, as fans, can’t really gather anything good from this game. If something works, well of course it did, it’s against a D3 team. If it doesn’t, then it’s extremely concerning. Hopefully this is just a tune-up game where you practice your weaknesses and get right. This is a game where you’d like your young bench pieces playing more.
Prediction
Mason wins a lot to a little, let’s go with 95-46. The Patriots are too fast, big, physical, long, skilled, all of the above for Bridgewater to handle.
