Your George Mason Patriots and Tony Skinn have gone portal hunting once again, this time grabbing 6’7 Florida Gulf Coast transfer forward Zach Anderson. He will have one season of eligibility.
With the departure of Mike Ekanem, Mason Nation needed some goods news. Here it is.
🔰 𝓟𝓪𝓽𝓻𝓲𝓸𝓽 𝓟𝓵𝓮𝓭𝓰𝓮 🔰
George Mason has earned the commitment of FGCU transfer Zach Anderson.
The 6’7 F averaged 12.8ppg & 5.1 last season while hitting at a 45.9% clip from 3pt. A native of Apopka, FL, Anderson has one year of eligibility remaining. pic.twitter.com/zVYXW0zcsy
— George Mason Recruiting (@GMURecruiting) May 2, 2024
The Apopka, Florida native visited Mason on March 25th.
NEWS: George Mason is expected to host FGCU transfer Zach Anderson for a visit beginning tomorrow. A 6’7 Forward out of Apopka, FL, Anderson avg’d 12.8ppg & 5.1rpg last season while hitting at a 𝟰𝟱.𝟵% from 3.
One year of eligibility remaining.
Highlights below. pic.twitter.com/9eeAeaWFVd— George Mason Recruiting (@GMURecruiting) March 24, 2024
The All-Atlantic Sun Third Team member chose Mason while also visiting Florida State, Indiana, and Clemson. Skinn beat out some big dogs.
Zach Anderson By The Numbers
Anderson has some numbers that should get you excited.
The FGCU transfer played four years for the Eagles, breaking out in his junior year. In that season, he averaged 11.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.1 assists, 1 steal, and 0.7 blocks per game while shooting 47.9% from the field, 37.3% from three, and 72.7% from the line. 37.3% is pretty good from three, right?
For Zach’s senior year, he took another jump, this time in efficiency. Anderson averaged 12.8 points, 5.1 boards, 1.9 assists, .7 steals, .5 blocks, while shooting 48.2% from the field, 45.9% from three, and 69% from the line. You read that right, 45.9% from three. He is averaging 1.377 points every time he takes a shot from beyond the arc. That is 11th in the country, and his 50% during conference play was second in the A-Sun.
The breakout seems to coincide with him taking more twos, as his 3-point rate went from 64.9% as a freshman, to 55.2% as a sophomore, to 31.3% as a junior.
You want some more numbers to get you excited about him? These are some from College Basketball Scouting via Synergy Sports.
Anderson hit 55% of his shots at the rim, 45% from the left wing, which funnily enough, is below average for him, and 59% from the right wing, which is just absolutely, absolutely nuts.
And my favorite stat of all, Zach has a 72% eFG on the catch and shoot, which is 99th percentile. Yes, 99th percentile. Also, an eFG% of 72 means that he was averaging 1.44 points per shot. That is unreal efficiency.
Anderson isn’t just a shooter, he can do some forward-y things too, being in the 68th percentile for points per possession on post ups.
What does he do that the numbers don’t show?
Zach Anderson Scouting Report (Full Game vs. FAU)
It is convenient that this was the latest game I could find, and he happened to win KenPom MVP during it.
On offense, Anderson thrives in a pick-and-pop role. He has somewhat of an odd jumpshot. The only way I can describe it is that it looks like a big man’s jumpshot. But odd doesn’t mean bad, as it feels very sudden, kind of like Darius Maddox’s. When Zach shoots it, the defender has a tough time getting his contest up before the ball is released.
The FGCU transfer doesn’t move off the ball too much, but he doesn’t really have to. His gravity is so immense that sometimes you just want him to sit on the perimeter.
Anderson started the game in more of a wing role on offense, but would play forward with smaller lineups. In his forward role, he broke his man down and hit a mid-range. Zach in this role also messed with FAU’s defense, forcing them to bring their big man out on the perimeter, which left the interior open.
The forward’s rebound numbers will look a bit low on offense since he plays on the perimeter a lot, but if an opportunity for a rebound comes, Anderson capitalizes. He had multiple plus rebounds that I would not have blamed him for if he had missed. Basically, Zach seems like a pretty good rebounder, but they asked him to do other things.
In the fast break, Anderson likes to do the slow down move, that causes the defender(s) to either fly past him, or foul him. This move makes a lot of sense since he doesn’t have elite start speed, but seems to have pretty good stop speed.
In the half-court, Zach loves the post fade, which goes in pretty often for him. Another thing I noticed is that he seems like a pretty talented passer, showing it off when he had the opportunity to take bad shots, but passed to someone else instead.
I said it earlier, but I need to say it again, Mason’s new stretch four is unreal in the pick-and-pop. His biggest strength is shooting, of course, but Anderson doesn’t have to be taking threes to affect the game. You can tell that when he is on the court, guys are super afraid to help off of him when they probably need to, opening up opportunities for everyone else on the court to beat their guy one on one.
According to the announcers, Anderson’s nickname is “The Problem.” That is elite. After they called him The Problem, he hit back-to-back threes. FAU even made the decision to leave him open for a third attempt, but luckily for them, he missed. The newest Patriot really took over this game at the end. In the last four minutes, he hit two threes, had multiple plus rebounds, and a nice closeout on a three that would have tied a game, forcing the shooter to hit the side of the backboard. All of this while limping. That’s winning basketball.
On defense, I noticed early on that Anderson has good anticipation and positioning when helping off his man. I think FGCU playing a lot of zone defense has helped his team defense. That will also help when Mason drops into their zones.
When guys are staying out on the perimeter, Anderson is a pretty good defender. NBA prospect guard Johnell Davis went into his zone, and our guy did a good job at forcing a contested fading mid-range. Every once in a while, in man, he would get switched onto Davis, and did a very good job each time. It was extremely odd, because most guys had somewhat of an easy time getting past Anderson, but Davis just kind of danced around on the perimeter, which was not working.
When Zach is guarding a guy in the corner, he’s good at closing out on threes, along with doing a good job of helping off his man without overextending.
Areas of Improvement:
Zach isn’t a very explosive athlete, and he will not be beating his man in a race to the basket very often.
Anderson moves kind of slowly in transition, and would probably struggle on a run and gun team. Luckily, Mason plays at a slow pace. There is also a chance that this is a strategy that hopes to get the defense to forget about him and get him an open trailing three, but I am not sure, since when he had the ball in transition, he still wasn’t moving fast.
Zach gets caught on screens a lot, to the point where sometimes you think it was supposed to be a switch, but then the guy is left open and he’s chasing to recover.
From what I saw, you don’t want the newest Patriot guarding guys who will drive to the basket a lot, as he will likely need help. A big caveat is that if they stay out on the perimeter, Zach does pretty well.
I would like to clarify that Anderson is not a revolving door, and he only really stuck out because I was watching him closely on every play. If I was watching the game normally, I would not have thought he was getting exposed on defense.
Where Does He Fit In?
Anderson will boost any lineup he’s in offensively, since he is such a shooting threat. The forward gives Mason a lot of lineup flexibility, since he is probably the closest thing to a four that Mason has on the roster. It is always nice to have your likely starting four be a shooter.
Since Mason has some big volume offensive guys, Maddox and Haynes, I think Anderson’s volume will go down, but efficiency will stay at a similar level, if not increase. A couple times a game, opposing coaches will be tearing their hair out as he takes and makes a wide open three.
Mason has gone defense with the last couple of commits, it was time to get some offense too. There is now one scholarship spot remaining.
Welcome your newest George Mason Patriot, Mason Nation.
