Mason Lands Their First Portal Commit in Giovanni Emejuru

By Palmer Johnson

Tony Skinn and your George Mason Patriots have gotten a commitment from Siena 6’11 redshirt junior forward Giovanni Emejuru. He has two seasons of eligibility.

🔰 𝓟𝓪𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓽 𝓟𝓵𝓮𝓭𝓰𝓮 🔰

George Mason has earned the commitment of Siena transfer Giovanni Emejuru.

The 6’11 Center averaged 11.3ppg & 6.3rpg for the Saints last season. A native of Leicester, ENG, Emejuru has two years of eligibility remaining.@Giovanni_0021 pic.twitter.com/ZuOMo1DSfK

— George Mason Recruiting (@GMURecruiting) March 28, 2024

Mason had an advantage over other schools in the Emejuru sweepstakes, as he was familiar with Mike Ekanem from their overlap at Sam Houston State in 2022-23.

Despite his first name, Giovanni is from the United Kingdom, playing for the England’s Charnwood College before coming over to the United States.

Prior to his season at Siena, Emejuru was at Sam Houston State for two seasons, redshirting in his first. He was sparingly given playing time as a redshirt freshman, but broke out after transferring to Siena.

In his lone season at Siena, Giovanni averaged 11.2 points, 6.2 rebounds, 0.6 assists, 0.8 steals, and 0.7 blocks per game on 56% shooting from the field and 58% from the line. He has not taken a three in his college career. The UK native took the role as their third leading scorer, and seems to have been very effective in it.

Emejuru ended up with a eFG of 56.8%, 58.3% true shooting, a 12.3% offensive rebound rate, which is 79^th in the country, drew 5.8 fouls per 40 minutes, 84^th in the country, but led his conference in that stat, and shot 73.4 free throws per 100 shots, 16^th in the country.

This is team-wide, so it counts while he is off the floor, but you can see here that Siena’s interior defense wasn’t a problem, it was probably a strength. This is encouraging for Emejuru’s potential as a rim protector.

Giovanni played three games against A10 teams last season against Richmond, St. Bonaventure, and UMass. In those three games, he averaged 10.3 points, 6.7 rebounds, including 4 offensive rebounds on 54.5% shooting in 26.2% minutes per game. Offensive rebounding seems to be a strength of his.

I can’t see the video of it, so I’ll have to go purely based on stats, but he held Josh Cohen to 5 points in the UMass game, got roughed up by Chad Venning for 20 points on 8-12, and held Neal Quinn to 9 points on 8 shots. I don’t know the full context, but you’ll take 2/3 down games. I so wish I could see these games.

See his highlights for yourself.

🇮🇹 Giovanni Emejuru showed his strength inside and posted a career-high effort for a heavily shorthanded Siena in a tight loss to Manhattan, 70-68

30 PTS • 11-18 FG • 8-10 FT • 9 REB • 3 AST • 2 BLK

11.2 PPG and 6.2 RPG on the season for the Charnwood product pic.twitter.com/aj8jFTTSBS

— CBB Europe (@CBB_Europe) March 2, 2024

Highlights are one thing, but how does he perform throughout an entire game?

Giovanni Emejuru Scouting Report (Full Game vs. Manhattan, 3/1/2024)

Since I can’t watch his A10 games, I watched what seems to be his best game of the season, where he dropped 30 points, 9 rebounds, and 3 assists on 11/18 shooting.

Emejuru played 36 minutes in this game. While I don’t think Mason will have him playing nearly that much, it is good to see that he can do it if needed.

On offense, Emejuru LOVES the drop step move. That got him multiple buckets in this game. If he is one-on-one with someone and he is straight-on with the basket, he is probably scoring. The 6’11 forward is ambidextrous in the post. He hit a post hook with his left hand from pretty far away. I enjoy watching his post spin, it’s fast and smooth. If you blink, he’ll be open.

Giovanni is pretty good at finding soft spots in the defense to get himself an open shot under the rim if his man is doing something else. He’s smart enough to move into the open space and get away from everyone else.

Emejuru was dominating so hard early on that he forced the opposing 5 to not be able to help on the perimeter. Their new gameplan was the 5 following Giovanni or sitting under the rim, not helping on ball screens outside. Siena and Mason’s new guy noticed this, so since his defender was following him blindly, he started to move away from the basket when a teammate was about to drive, effectively sealing off his defender, without having to get good positioning.

When the Siena big was doubled, his first look was to find the open shooter. Manhattan doubled him a bunch, and I believe he made the correct choice every time. At the very least, he did not force any bad shots, nor did he lose the ball. With that being said, Emejuru doesn’t have to be doubled to pass to an open guy out of the post, as he has pretty good vision.

As I mentioned earlier, Giovanni draws A LOT of fouls. Most of them are either guys playing too aggressively when denying the ball, or when the defender gets absolutely destroyed and decides to yank his arm.

On top of all that post work, your newest Patriot looks like a decent lob threat.

On defense, when Emejuru is covering ball screens, he does a good job playing either aggressive and doubling the handler or playing drop coverage, I didn’t see him get caught in between. Doubling the ball handler can get him out of position, but he has the length and speed to recover back into the play.

Since the former Siena big is so long, he is sometimes able to use his length to deny post entry from behind. That’s a nice thing to be able to do.

If Giovanni is switched onto a wing or guard on the perimeter, he is not doomed. You wouldn’t want it to happen for the whole game, but if it happens for a possession or two, the guard is going to have to make a pretty good play to score.

When Emejuru is defending pure one-on-one in the post, he uses his length to make it really tough for his guy to get the look he wants.

Areas of Improvement

Giovanni is a very strong dude, which means he doesn’t have the soft touch like you have seen from a guy like Josh Oduro. Something that is similar to Josh Oduro is that he gets travelling calls in the post occasionally when trying to get open.

Another thing that comes along with being such a strong player is that he will get some offensive fouls trying to get in position in the post.

This kind of goes without saying, but it would really help his game if he developed a jump shot. His range extends to about halfway between the restricted area and free throw line on post hooks. If he could get good enough from the free throw line that guys have to guard him there, it would be awesome.

I was somewhat disappointed with his screen-setting since he is so wide, but he wasn’t making solid contact on the defender too often. I am not sure if that is his fault, or if the ball-handlers are going too wide around the screen. Something that makes me think it isn’t really his fault is that he is very good at sealing his defender off when a teammate is driving to the rim.

He isn’t a bad rebounder, but he did not wow me with his ability to grab boards. He seems to do it better offensively than defensively. It looks a lot more like less-than-ideal positioning rather than subpar effort.

All of these improvement areas, especially the last two, could definitely be solved with some coaching and hard work. The tools are definitely there, let’s see what him and Steve Curran can improve on in the offseason.

Where Does He Fit In?

Emejuru will be moving from the 25^th conference to the 8^th ranked conference, based on KenPom’s rankings for the 2023-24 season. This would normally be kind of a huge wild card, but as I mentioned earlier, he played against some great A10 teams with some good bigs and played well.

Giovanni will probably exclusively be a 5 when he plays, as it seems he has no outside shot, and that generally does not play at the 4 in today’s game. Unless Jalen Haynes unveils a consistent three-point shot next season, Emejuru will probably be coming off the bench. With that being said, he is an awesome piece to be able to bring in when you need him.

I predict that his role will be similar to the one that Ginika Ojiako played in the 2022-23 season, but more consistent. In some games, he will be unstoppable in the post, but in some games, where there is a great post defender, they could decide to go another direction.

Mason Nation, welcome your newest member of the team, Giovanni Emejuru.