Mason Looks to Sink Pirates’ Undefeated Start

Your George Mason Patriots are looking to get back on track against the East Carolina Pirates, who are 1-0 against D1 teams.

ECU is coached by Mike Schwartz, who was the defensive coordinator on the same bench as Kim English at Tennessee. This is his first HC stop. Schwartz has a record of 34-35 overall, and a 13-23 record in the American. Their perimeter defense was horrendous last season, and we will find out if it is better this year.

Yann Farell, a former St. Bonaventure player that went by the same name as a freshman, and Assa Essamvous as a sophomore, is back to his original name. Farrell seems to have a lesser role in Greenville than he did in Olean, which is surprising. Steve Curran should be able to counteract him, as he coached Farell for a season, and may have been the one that brought him in.

East Carolina by the Numbers

East Carolina is the 135^th ranked team per KenPom, with the 135^th offense and 163^rd defense.

ECU’s only D1 victory is against 267 ranked Coastal Carolina, which they played at home and only beat by four. Similar to last season, I think that East Carolina is incredibly over-ranked and will go down as the season progresses.

East Carolina is a pretty small team, with their average height being 6’4.2, 314^th in the country. Their main center, #14 CJ Walker, is only 6’8. Their backup center, Cyr Malonga, is 6’11, but only played 10 minutes in their first game.

The Pirates played extremely slow against Coastal, 59 possessions, and very fast against their two non-D1 opponents, 74 and 86 possessions. I looked at Coastal Carolina’s page and this game is their slowest as well. I have no clue which of the two teams caused the game to be incredibly slow.

In that game, ECU did a very good job of protecting the basketball, with the lowest turnover rate in the country at 6.8%. Keep in mind that KenPom only counts stats from D1 games, so it is as small of a sample size as you can get, especially if you consider that there were only 59 possessions.

East Carolina drew a lot of fouls, with them being 3^rd in the country in free throw rate at 78.4 per 100 shots.

Pretty much, ECU got the maximum amount of shots possible, the problem is that their eFG was only 37.3%. That is not good. 350^th.

The Pirates shot 21.1% from three, 351^st, and 40.6% from two, 324^th. Coastal’s defense is ranked 219^th.

37.3% of their shots were threes, which is 229^th. Funnily enough, their defensive three point attempts given up lines up exactly with that.

It is only one game, but it looks like East Carolina was taking and missing a lot of midranges.

On defense, Coastal shot 36.4% from three, which is 266^th (bad) for ECU, but only 32.4% from two, which is 2^nd in the country. As mentioned earlier, they took 37.3% of their shots from behind the arc.

This is actually pretty balanced. There are no glaring weaknesses.

East Carolina Scouting Report (First Half vs. Coastal Carolina)

On offense, there is generally lots of ball movement, unless CJ Walker gets the ball in the post. He’s willing to try to go through double teams, and generally has some tunnel vision.

RJ Felton also has some tunnel vision, as I watched him take a double-teamed fading mid-range with a guy wide open from three near him.

ECU loves the mid-range coming off the screen, which is similar to what Ronald Polite did last season.

On some possessions, the offense kind of reminds me of Davidson; lots of ball movement, off-ball movement, quick trigger if they get an inch of space from three. On others, the ball stops and a bad mid-range is taken.

The Pirate guards go hard on the boards, which gets them an extra couple of shots. The pace was so slow because they kept getting offensive rebounds and kicked it back out for another normal shot that would take more time off the clock. It wasn’t uncommon for them to have a 40-45 second possession.

East Carolina has a low turnover rate since guys just take bad shots instead of throwing risky passes.

ECU went on a scoring drought, and it was totally deserved for taking so many bad shots. They ended up scoring seven points in the first ten minutes.

On defense, the Pirates will run a little bit of full-court press. They like to switch a lot on the perimeter, and overall play pretty aggressively.

For example, ECU nearly forced a five-second violation, but the guy just threw the ball out of bounds. They hedge on screens a lot, and attack dribble handoffs.

CJ Walker can get sealed off pretty easily, and he isn’t a particularly active help defender. Cyr Balonga seems like a much better player on this side of the court.

The Pirates are ok with allowing cross-court passes if it means the strong side is defended well. They’re willing to let you have open threes if it means the paint is protected. The Pirates go down with the ship. ECU did end up forcing a long scoring drought since Coastal was indecisive from three.

It seems like anyone on the floor can block shots for the Pirates.

Trevion LaBeaux is feisty.

What Does This Mean for Mason?

Mason is going to have to hit some open threes.

ECU didn’t run any true zone from what I saw, but I wouldn’t doubt the Pirates throwing that out there after what we saw against Central Michigan.

I think Zach Anderson hits a couple threes early that forces ECU to help inside less, which will open up the inside for KD Johnson, Emejuru, and Haynes.

My prediction is Mason wins 70-61.

The Patriots really need this win to get back on track.