By Palmer Johnson
Your 16-8 and 5-6 George Mason Patriots are hosting the 14-9 and 3-7 George Washington Revolutionaries, a rematch of the MLK Day game where Mason got ran off the court. This one will be different.
The Revolutionaries have not won any of their six games since the Mason meeting. Make it seven.
Darius Maddox will be back in the lineup after missing the Davidson game with an ankle injury.
I don’t want to waste your time repeating things I’ve already said, if you haven’t read my article about the first GW game, here it is.
The Revolutionaries will likely be without star redshirt freshman forward Darren Buchanan, who is in the A10 Rookie of the Year race and put up an efficient 21 on Mason earlier in the season.
Injury update:
GW head coach Chris Caputo confirmed Darren Buchanan exited todays game with a groin injury.
There is currently no timetable for his return.
— David Korn (@david_korn4) February 10, 2024
I will be writing the rest of the article under the assumption that Buchanan will be out.
Without Buchanan, GW may have to play Stretch Akingbola the entire game, or play small ball and have a wing play center when Stretch is out.
George Washington By The Numbers
Since I’ve already done a piece on them, I’ll only use numbers from conference play.
Out of 15 A10 schools, GW has the 11th offense and the 11th defense, with ratings of 103.3 and 113.1 respectively.
Caputo has them playing at the highest pace in the conference at 70.6 possessions per game. Mason is the lowest at 65, so GW is really going to want to dictate the pace of the game, it’s probably their only chance of winning in Fairfax.
The Revs aren’t shooting very well, with an eFG of 47.7%, hitting only 32.2% of threes, and 47.3% of their twos. That’s 13th, 12th, and 12th. Not good when you pride yourself on relentlessly outscoring other teams.
Unsurprisingly, GW is last in assist percentage, with only 40.4% of their shoots coming off assists. If you’ve watched any of James Bishop, this makes a lot of sense.
Speaking of Bishop, he is still doing his best James Harden impression, shooting 28.8% of the shots when he’s on the floor in conference play. Luckily for his opponents, he’s shooting an ice cold 43% eFG, also shooting 39.1% from two and 32.8% from three. Those aren’t numbers you want from your fifth year senior taking all your shots.
The Revs don’t have as many shooters as I remember, as Garrett Johnson is the only guy above 40%, and he’s only at 40.4%, with Jacoi Hutchinson a little bit behind him at 38.5%. This isn’t how it felt against Mason in January.
I am unable to have it show only conference play or combine January and February into one, so we’ll have to use the season-long one again.
The right wing three looks scary, that is super big and red. I can see Buchanan in the right side of the paint there, get well soon. The conference is more fun when freshmen are outperforming expectations.
To go along with their ice cold shooting, the Revs are also giving up an eFG of 52.6%, 12th in the A10. Not only that, but they aren’t forcing turnovers, where they’re 13th…and to go on top of that, GW is 14th defensive rebounding, giving up a 30.9% offensive rebound rate. Those rebound number likely aren’t going up with your best forward out. This doesn’t sound like a fun team to watch on the defensive end.
On the bright side, George Washington is blocking 11.8% of shots, 2nd in the conference, mostly because of Stretch Akingbola. Surely being 2nd in blocks is conducive to good defense.
GW is really giving a lot up from straight on from both three and the mid-range. They defend the corners pretty well and Stretch uses his length and help defense to make those paint hexagons blue. Also, what freak is in that right corner. I still don’t know.
George Washington Scouting Report (2nd Half vs. Loyola Chicago)
I picked the second half because Darren Buchanan got hurt during it, and I want to see what’s different with him out.
I’ve already done a scouting article on GW, so I will try not to say things that I’ve already said, only new stuff I noticed.
On offense, the first possession of the half was Bishop taking and making a deeeep contested three with 15 seconds left on the shot clock. Throughout the second half, he would do this randomly, but of course, it didn’t go in very often. I can see why their offense is struggling. Later in the game, he had another highlight where he took Des Watson’s ankles and hit a three. The problem with him is what happens between those two highlights.
Loyola dropped into a 3-2 zone, GW took a contested three pretty early in the shot clock.
The Revs were staying in the game because of three Maximus Edwards contested threes. I’m kind of disappointed in Loyola Chicago for not running away with it earlier, as GW held on until the last four minutes.
Now, the defense.
Buchanan got hit getting around a screen, grabbed his groin, and couldn’t walk much for the rest of the possession. He was then taken out at the end of the possession after he collapsed trying to play through it.
#8, Zamoku Weluche-Ume checked in for Stretch. He’s a 6’8 freshman, I had no clue this guy existed. Zam played center, got caught on a screen set by 6’0 Braden Norris, and was nowhere to be found for the guy getting a wide open layup.
GW went into a 1-2-2 zone to try to mask their lack of interior defense and gave up a wide-open corner three.
Rebounding is a massive problem now, even bigger than before.
Stretch fouled out with nine minutes left, that was really bad timing for GW.
After they realized Zam wasn’t working out at center, they put 6’7 Antoine Smith at the 5. He looks like the widest guy available for them and seems like their best option. Rebounding was still a huge problem, and he wasn’t physically good enough to hang with bigs, but he wasn’t looking like a lost deer out there like Weluche-Ume.
I said Smith was the best option, not a good option. Adelekun was eating him alive, getting three and-ones. I do respect the effort from the 6’7 wing though, as he didn’t make it particularly easy for him.
Loyola Chicago scored 18 points in the last four minutes of the game, only 5 of them came from the foul game at the end. Good for Caputo and GW for holding on that long.
What Does This Mean for Mason?
Mason is going to dominate the Stretch-less minutes, and probably still win the minutes with him in. There’s really no way he can be out there for the full 40 minutes, since he’s a huge energy guy. Not only that, the chances of him not fouling out in a full game are not particularly high. I’m hoping Mason goes at him early and often, even if you aren’t scoring at a super efficient rate, if you can get him to commit fouls, that’s a huge plus.
Look for Ronald Polite to have himself a game during the time Stretch is out, hopefully it can be the start of a streak of good games for him.
And of course, Keyshawn Hall might go for 30… 40, especially if the pace of the game is super-fast. I think if Hall is dominating, Caputo will decide to triple team him and let everyone else be open.
Amari Kelly has had a rough stretch of games, and I’m worried this one could be similar. He’s struggled against double-teams, and I can’t imagine Caputo won’t be doubling him nearly every time he gets the ball inside.
Prediction: Mason wins 78-60. Skinn is able to dictate the pace of the game, rather than letting Caputo turn it into a track meet. GW won’t be able to overcome such a big piece in Darren Buchanan being out.
This is a big game, Mason Nation. I know it’s a Tuesday night, but be there. I only see 383 students registered to go to the game, that number will hopefully go up a lot.
Make it seven.
