Mason Drops Two in a Row on the Road

By
Joseph Szymanski
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40
4317

By Palmer Johnson

Your George Mason Patriots unfortunately dropped to the Loyola Chicago Ramblers and Fordham Rams in the past week, getting blown out by Loyola 80-59 and blowing a 14-point lead to Fordham to lose 61-60.

Loyola Chicago

This game actually looked pretty good in the beginning, with Okojie getting multiple steals. Then the game kind of fell apart on both ends.

Loyola scored 80, but their top scorer only had 10. Everybody got involved.

As you’d expect against a Loyola Chicago defense, turnovers were a problem. Amari Kelly and Ronald Polite both had three.

This is the first time Mason has been blown out since MLK Day, and I really hope it is the last.

One of the lone bright spots for the Patriots was Darius Maddox’s driving to the rim and getting foul calls or making tough layups. Hopefully that can carry over into another game.

The other bright spot was Amari Kelly’s perimeter offense, going 3-5 from three. It’s unreal how underutilized he was at UNC Wilmington. Even if he took a massive shooting jump this offseason, there’s no way he was bad enough to shoot 12 threes all season. You don’t go from a non-shooter to 45.8% on 48 attempts in one offseason.

Kelly’s three-point shooting has been pretty important for Baraka Okojie’s success at the rim, as the threat of the big man from deep is enough that he can bring their center out of the paint.

Fordham

This was a rough game, both excitement wise and the result. There was pretty much no scoring in the first half, Mason went on a great run to make it 14 in the first ten minutes of the second half, and then Fordham started getting and hitting open threes.

The box score from this game is unreal, Fordham shot 7-29 from two, which is 24.1%. Turnovers and three-point defense continue to strike, often at the same time. If Antrell Charlton is going 3-4 from three, Fordham is going to have a chance to win.

Fordham shot 10-17 from three in the second half, which normally would be an outlier, but they were relentlessly getting open shots. I don’t remember a single make where I thought it was a bad shot.

I’m not going to show you the win probability graph, you know exactly how it looks.

Keyshawn Hall struggled inside with the physical, but foul-less defense. This continues to be a trend, hopefully he can get better at either avoiding the contact if he isn’t getting the calls, or finishing through it.

Baraka Okojie was forced to play 39 minutes due to the absence of Ronald Polite, and he had a bit of a rough game offensively. The pressure was a lot, and he couldn’t really get past his guy too often, and he wasn’t getting the calls he expected.

I would like to note, I’m not saying Mason wasn’t getting calls, as Fordham wasn’t getting them either.

Austin Ball may be the top wing off the bench now, getting 15 and 21 minutes during this two-game stretch, more than Woody Newton. It stinks to see Newton get his minutes taken, but at least it is by a freshman. It was an awful stretch of games for the team, but there are at least some positives to find.

Kelly did have a decent game, but the most important play was his game-typing putback after Keyshawn Hall took an unbelievably difficult shot.

He also deserves a lot of the credit for forcing Fordham to shoot so poorly from two.

What Now?

Mason is currently the 8 seed, with the 9 seed being Duquesne.

If Mason wins out, they are guaranteed to be out of the pillow fight. Fordham has the tiebreaker, but a Patriot win over Duquesne would be huge.

The goal in January was to get a double bye, then it became to get a 5 or 6 seed, and now it is to stay out of the pillow fight. This isn’t a pillow fight time, and I don’t think Skinn will let them drop into there. In my opinion, the goal should be to get the seven seed or better. Mason is favored in their last three games, and it is time for some positive regression to kick in.

Look forward to the potential of this team to get hot for a weekend in Brooklyn.

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