By Palmer Johnson
Mason opens up conference play with a road game against 9-4 La Salle. The Explorers are coached by Philly coaching legend Fran Dunphy.
La Salle By The Numbers
The Explorers come in as the 209th ranked team on KenPom. Their offense is better than their defense, with them being ranked 156 and 266 respectively.
La Salle plays a slower tempo at 68.3 possessions per game, but are still a decent bit faster than Mason at 65.9.
Dunphy does not like to play his bench, as only 21% of minutes are played by non-starters, 350th in the country.
This team has a lot of chemistry, as they have 57.3% minute continuity between last season and this one, 56th in the country.
The Explorers are quite a small team, with their average height being 6’4, 339th in the country, compared to Mason’s average of 6’5.6. Mason could take advantage of their lack of size inside, as La Salle only has one guy taller than 6’8.
6’8 freshman forward Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi averages 5.3 fouls per 40 minutes. While he will definitely not be playing that amount of time, that is still a lot and could be something Mason takes advantage of since he occasionally plays small-ball 5.
5’11 Jhamir Brickus, one of their two star guards, plays 90.6% of their minutes and hits 42.9% of his threes.
6’5 wing Andres Marrero, is also an elite shooter, hitting 46.6% of his threes on the year.
6’1 guard Khalil Brantley is their shot taker and volume scorer, scoring 16.1 per game on 40.7% from the field, 32.2% from beyond the arc, and an eFG of 46%.
Next up, offense.
The North Philly squad are well-coached and do turn the ball over very often. They have a 14.5% turnover rate, 27th in the country, and have the second lowest offensive steal rate in the country at 6.2%.
La Salle hits their threes at a pretty good clip, 35.3%, 99th in the country, and at a high volume, as 41.5% of their shots are threes, which puts them at 83rd in the country. This could be a problem since Mason opponents generally shoot a lot of threes. If they are on from three and Mason isn’t able to run the off the line without losing integrity inside, that’s a way the Patriots could lose.
The Explorers do not get to the line too often, as they only get 27.1 free throw attempts per 100 shots, 304th in the country. When they do get to the line, they shoot 72.3%, decent.
La Salle is a below average offensive rebounding team, as they only have an offensive rebounding rate of 26.8%, 266th in the nation.
It looks like their big men are right-handed. The shooters who sit on the right side of the court are much worse than the guys who chill on the left. Odd.
Lastly, defense.
La Salle isn’t super bad at anything on defense, the problem is that most of their metrics are below average and they don’t have anything they’re particularly good at, which leads to having the second worst defense in the A10 so far.
The Explorers aren’t good at forcing turnovers, as their opponents only turn it over 16.4% of the time, 253rd in the country. I imagine they are much more focused on decreasing shot quality, since they have a decent defensive eFG% given up of 49.9, 170th in the country.
Opponents do not shoot a lot of threes, as they only take 33.7% of shots from beyond the arc, 65th lowest in the country.
Opponents get most of their points from twos, 54%, which is 84th in the country.
Not only are the Explorers a below average offensive rebounding team, the same could be said about them on this end. They give up a 31.5% rate of offensive rebounds, 243rd in the country and 13th in the A10.
It seems like they collapse inside a bunch, which leaves shooters open. Whoever guards the left corner must be a nuts athlete.
La Salle Scouting Report (vs. Howard)
Fun note, Baraka Okojie’s brother, Ose, plays for Howard.
On offense, Brantley creates his own shot a lot, sometimes very early in the shot clock.
Brickus is super patient. He’ll play a slow game, lull his defender to sleep, and hit a stepback jumper. The 5’11 guard is willing to kick the ball out to a shooter rather than take a heavily contested shot in the paint. He had this awesome no-look pass to a guy in the corner, who hit it.
Brickus, Brantley, and Anwar Gill can all run the offense on any given possession.
6’5 wing Daeshon Shepherd pulled up one step inside the three-point line and made it in a guy’s face. He can take that all day and I’m okay with it.
La Salle struggled when Howard went into their zone defense. On most of their possessions, they were forced to take contested jumpers, especially mid-ranges.
Even when Howard wasn’t in zone, a decent amount of La Salle’s possessions went down to the last seconds of the shot clock.
For a lot of the game, when Howard ran a full court press, La Salle was able to get right through it.
When the Bison were able to pull off running a full court press and then a half-court zone, La Salle was lost. They couldn’t get it across fast, and then had less time than they wanted to find a shot.
On defense, Rokas Jocius, their 6’10 big man, plays good straight-up defense. He will probably have Mason fans yelling at their TV for the refs to call something.
Pretty early in the game, a miscommunication on defense between Jocius and Brickus led to a wide open three for Howard. It was a pretty normal half-court situation, this could be something to look out for.
La Salle caught Howard sleeping and got two steals in the first three minutes. They’ll jump passing lanes. The season-wide numbers didn’t support this, this could be a gameplan thing. If they think Ronald Polite will turn autopilot on, they will try to take advantage of it.
Khalil Brantley gets a lot of steals, a big hustle guy. Sometimes that can be a problem though, as he thought he got fouled under the basket, then, on the other end, played hyperaggressive and physical defense that could have had a foul called against him.
La Salle went into a man full-court press, once the ballhandler got past halfcourt, they doubled him and swapped matchups. Dunphy didn’t press often, but it was decently effective when he did.
The Explorers had a lot of fouls away from the ball in the paint.
La Salle dropped into zone and gave up an open three, but it missed.
Howard is getting a lot of offensive rebounds, it seems like La Salle players always think another guy has it.
How did the game end?
La Salle lost.
With around 15 minutes left, La Salle was getting open shots but there was a lid on the basket. Howard pulled away a bit, then La Salle caused some chaos on defense and turned it into offense and pulled it back to a one possession game.
After Howard got another big lead, the Explorers gained some ground when they started playing hyperaggressive on defense and ran fast on offense so Howard couldn’t get their defense set, but it was too late.
The production for this game wasn’t good. The video will occasionally freeze when they switch cameras, and in the first minute of the second half, they blasted an ad for a ticket app during the game that was so loud you could not hear the announcers. With 10 seconds left when La Salle was down 5, the cameraman forgot to move the camera to the other end of the court so nobody on TV saw what happened.
What does this mean for Mason?
This won’t be an easy game for Mason. Nothing ever is in Tom Gola Arena, as KenPom has it as the 52nd toughest place to play. Some of Mason’s weaknesses line up with the Explorer’s strengths. If I’m a fan of La Salle, I don’t feel bad about this game.
Prediction: Mason wins 71-66. Keyshawn Hall should be able to take advantage of La Salle’s 4 either being an undersized wing, or a forward who has trouble staying out of foul trouble. Amari Kelly seems like he would be able to defend the paint well against everyone who tries, and score over Jocius, as he felt like more of a help defender than a one-on-one guy. Also, Mason, please hit your open threes.
Skinn is undefeated in conference play, let’s hope it stays that way.
Get excited Mason Nation, it’s conference play!
I loved even more than you will get done right here. The picture is nice, and your writing is stylish, but you seem to be rushing through it, and I think you should give it again soon. I’ll probably do that again and again if you protect this hike.
I loved even more than you will get done right here. The picture is nice, and your writing is stylish, but you seem to be rushing through it, and I think you should give it again soon. I’ll probably do that again and again if you protect this hike.