Mason Looks to Keep The Momentum Going Against Central Michigan

Your George Mason Patriots are looking to keep the momentum going against the Central Michigan Chippewas, who are 1-2, and barely lost to Stony Brook.

The Chippewas are coached by Tony Barbee, dominated the C-USA with UTEP in the early 2010s. Then he struggled with Auburn for a bit, and ended up at Central Michigan before the 2021-22 season. Barbee has a record of 167-187, and a record of 36-60 at CMU.

Central Michigan by the Numbers

Central Michigan is ranked 228^th, with the 279^th offense, and the 160^th defense.

Barbee has them playing at a pretty similar pace to Mason, with them also getting sped up by Marquette.

This is a very big team, them having a seven-footer, a 6’10 guy, and a 6’9 forward. That is honestly Power 5 size. CMU is 51^st in average height, and 113^th in effective height, which I think only takes into account the 4 and 5 spot.

On offense, the Chippewas turn the ball over an insane amount. 27.1%. That is 353^rd in the country, which is 12^th worst. On the bright side, they get a lot of offensive boards, 35.7%, which is 72^nd.

CMU takes a lot of threes, with 49.4% of their shots being from beyond the arc, which is 51^st in the country. The problem is, they are hitting only 27.5%. Maybe cut down on those. They take so many threes, yet more of their points come from twos. 51% from two, 31.7% from three, and 17.3% from the line. That explains why their offense is ranked so low.

On the bright side, Central Michigan is making 64.6% of their twos, which is 22^nd best. They are also having 61.3% of their makes assisted, which is 64^th in the country.

There’s a lot of red in the paint and blue outside, I bet a lot of those paint shots are offensive rebound putbacks.

Anthony Pritchard, Jakobi Heady, Cayden Vasko, and Kyle Vanderjagt all seem to be the ones taking threes. The problem is that they are shooting 8.3%, 26.1%, 38.5%, and 46.2% respectively. As you may have guessed, the 26.1% is near double the volume of everyone else.

On defense, the Chippewas are also good at rebounding, only giving up a 23.6% offensive rebound rate, which is 60^th best. This makes sense for such a big team.

Opponents take a lot of threes against them, 49.4% of their shots, which is exactly how much their offense takes. Teams are making 31.7% of their threes, which is decent defense, but are surprisingly making 53.6% of their twos, which is 213^th best.

CMU gets a decent amount of steals, 11.9%, which is 91^st.

It looks like they give up a lot of corner threes, while also not really defending the paint too well.

Central Michigan Scouting Report (First 10 Minutes vs. South Alabama)

For starters, Jakobi Heady, #0, seems to be their best all-around athlete.

On offense, CMU was trying to run up and down the court.

They did a lot of driving and kicking. The problem was that the threes were missing. The MAC opponent was even taking threes in transition.

South Alabama went into a zone-ish defense and Central Michigan turned it over. If you throw anything besides half-court man defense, they explode.

The Chippewas throw the ball away a lot. Anthony Pritchard, #30, was the main culprit of this. They did have one awesome lob that showed that Bryan Ndjonga, #13, is a lob threat. When their passes get to where they should go, the offense goes well.

This is a scary offense since they do generally get good looks from three, just a lot of misses.

Defense is a bit of a similar, but different story. They are as aggressive on defense as they are on offense.

Central Michigan tries to press and they jump passing lanes, which can lead to wide open shots when it is not executed well. It at least works better than their chucking of threes on offense.

I noticed that the Chippewas get beat by off-ball movement a lot.

The biggest bright spot to me was that Cayden Vasko seemed to be a pretty good help rim protector at 6’6.

What Does This Mean For Mason?

Mason is going to be tested from three, and we are going to have to hope that this is not the night that the positive regression to the mean happens. It will happen for them at some point, and you just have to hope it is not against your team.

I think Mason wins 75-60, but I could see the margin being similar to Stony Brook if they show up ice cold from three.