By Palmer Johnson
In the out-of-conference finale, Mason plays 2-10 North Carolina A&T of the CAA. The Aggies are coached by Monte Ross. Ross is in his first season as their head coach, but coached Delaware from the 2006-07 season to 2015-16.
North Carolina A&T By The Numbers
The Aggies are the 352nd ranked team, having the 295th ranked offense and 359th defense. That’s fourth to last on defense.
The HBCU out of Greensboro plays a pretty fast tempo, 71.2 possessions per game, which puts them at 84th in the country. That’s about 6 more possessions per game than how Mason games go.
What are their strengths?
Of course, they’re ranked in the 350s, they won’t be good at many things. The CAA member does take care of the ball very well though, only turning it over 14.4% of the time, 26th lowest in the country. Along with that, they have the 10th lowest non-steal turnover rate at 5.5%. The Aggies might not make a lot of shots, but they’re going to at least take them.
Another strength is that NC A&T gets to the line a decent bit, 36.4 free throws per 100 FGAs, 98th in the country, while hitting them at an above-average 72.2% clip.
What are their weaknesses? They have a lot.
First, NC A&T is a small team. Their average height is 1.1 inches below D1 average, which puts them at 331st in the country.
On offense, they don’t really grab offensive boards, only having a rebounding rate of 22.7% on that end of the court, 338th in the country.
Their offensive ranking is being carried by their low turnover percentage, as their eFG% is only 45.4, putting them at 318th. They shoot below 30% from three and only 46.4% from two.
Whoever is in the right corner must be pretty good, but the only other place they’re good at shooting from is the medium to long two.
On the defensive end, the Aggies give up a red hot 58.1% eFG, which is 357th. Even when their opponent misses, they’re giving up offensive rebounds 36.6% of the time, 346th in the country.
Opponents are shooting the three at a 39.4% rate, which is just nuts. They’re also shooting 57.6% from two.
How do they score their points?
Compared to the average, the Aggies score a lot of points from the line, getting 22.5% of them from there, putting them at 47th in the country.
There’s a whole lot of blue there.
How do opponents score their points?
Their opponents don’t take too many threes, which is odd since they make 39.4% of them. Opponents score 55.5% of their points from inside the arc, 52nd in the country. I guess teams will take what feels like a guaranteed two over a probable three.
Pretty much everywhere except the right wing is red. The spots Keyshawn Hall could be shooting from are all red.
North Carolina A&T Scouting Report (vs. High Point)
I picked their game against High Point since it was a road game, they’re relatively close to Mason’s KenPom at 137, and this game’s pace is pretty close to what their game against Mason is projected to be.
On offense, the Aggies have some interesting guys. Landon Glasper, a 6’2 guard, is a guy who takes a lot of shots, a lot of which are mid-ranges. He doesn’t really take threes, so on the bright side, if he gets hot, it won’t hurt as much as if a 3-point shooter did. Glasper took their first three shots to start the game.
Another player, 6’9 forward Nikolaos Chitikoudis, is interesting. He’s a great weakside cutter and is able to bring the ball up the court with some finesse. Definitely a fun guy to watch.
High Point’s big man got 2 fouls on the same possession, but I couldn’t tell if that was a him problem or if the Aggies were doing something.
I noticed that NC A&T struggles on fast break one-on-ones, and they tend to not push fast breaks unless they have numbers. Another tendency I saw was that they had lots of travels called on them, but it could be that the refs felt like calling it that day since High Point had a lot called on them as well.
When High Point went into a zone, NC A&T was forced to take a contested fading mid-range, while it did go in, I am ok with them taking that shot all day. I’m not sure why High Point got out of the zone even after the make, they forced a low-percentage shot.
On defense, the Aggies opened up in a pretty normal defense. They didn’t play any half-court zone throughout the game I believe, but occasionally ran a 1-2-2 full court press. Nothing of note happened during the press possessions, it seems like High Point’s offense was working at a similar rate.
No interior defense will be played by NC A&T since Chitikoudis is their starting 5 and not a very good defender, their coach realized this and took him out at the first media timeout.
Vertical paint ball-screens worked very well against the Aggies. High Point was getting a good look every time they ran it.
North Carolina A&T had a six-point lead with nine minutes left. They ended up losing by 13. What happened?
The Aggies’ mid-ranges finally stopped going in. High Point was stopping them from taking quality shots from outside the arc or in the paint, but were giving them semi-open mid-ranges.
NC A&T also increased their unforced turnover rate, which didn’t help. What also didn’t help is they threw multiple pick-sixes.
The CAA team did a great job staying out of foul trouble for the first 30 minutes of the game, but started getting caught reaching. High Point continued to use vertical paint screens and they had no counter.
As happens with many late-game collapses, their opponent was getting a lot of second chance points.
High Point scored 28 in the last ten minutes because NC A&T got down a little bit and had to start playing riskier defense, which didn’t pay off. High Point was capitalizing on the Aggies gambling for steals and double-teams by hitting their open threes.
Prediction
Keyshawn Hall will have a field day if he can get inside. While Chitikoudis is fun on offense, his feet are a bit slow and he will get destroyed by Hall if it’s a one-on-one at the rim.
While they are usually worth it, I don’t think Mason will have to resort to Jared Billups open threes this game, there will be a higher quality shot somewhere else.
My prediction is Mason wins 85-60.
It’s the last game before conference play, but show up anyway, Mason Nation. Get those attendance numbers up.
