Your George Mason Patriots were not able to get back on track, getting sunk by the East Carolina Pirates 78-77 in double overtime, the first overtime game of the Tony Skinn.
KD Johnson seemingly benched, playing only four minutes. He made a three!
Darius Maddox was once again Darius Maddox, scoring 20 on 17 shots. That’s volume scorer production, but still better than the rest of the team, which put up under 1 point per possession. He also had two three-and-ones, which was really funny. Also, 44 minutes is a lot.
Shoutout to Jared Billups. I don’t care that RJ Felton had 27. He shot 8-25, had two turnovers, and had four non-and-one trips to the line, bringing his total to 27 points on 31 possessions. You can live with that easily.
Mason tried a double-big lineup with Emejuru and Haynes, and ECU really had no answer for it. Somehow, that lineup struggled with rebounding, but on the offensive end, the Pirates could just try to deny the ball. Jalen Haynes only played 17 minutes, missing most of the second half due to foul trouble, along with Gio Emejuru having an “on” game with 12 and 9 on 5-7. Haynes eventually fouled out in overtime.
The Patriots lost the turnover battle 19 to 14. This has to get fixed.
East Carolina won the game on the boards, with them grabbing 24 offensive boards compared to Mason’s 11. ECU was held to an eFG of 38.7%, which is incredible defense, but if they take 11 more shots and take seven more free throws, it is possible for them to win.
On the bright side, we saw Brayden O’Connor thrive in a slashing role, driving to the rim over and over again later in the game, ending up with 14 on 6-12. You can see the vision with him, and I think that his game will be put together cohesively by the time conference play starts.
At this point, out-of-conference play is preseason for conference play. Looking at the numbers move around will be interesting as always, but the sliver of hope of an at-large bid is as non-existent as ever. I honestly thought they were going to win every OOC game except the ones against Duke and Marquette, maybe lose one of ECU, JMU, or Tulane, but that hope is gone. The only way to get back into at-large possibilities would be beating Duke. At that point, winning the A10 tourney might be easier.
This is the first game where we saw extended Jeremiah Quigley minutes, with him playing a lot of point in the second half. Unfortunately, based on the sample size I’ve seen, his defense has not been the strength I thought it was. I thought Quigley was an insane press defender, and a great on-ball guy, but the former Iona PG has been getting somewhat targeted due to his size. I would like to see him run some press, as I believe him being a defensive playmaker in the full-court is his best attribute.
I think Quigley will get better as the season goes on, like he did with Iona, becoming one of their top options on offense in the second half of conference play. I think we have seen the floor of the point guard position, and the local PG can get it closer to the ceiling.
Mason has two games to get this back on track, Coppin St. and Ferrum, before heading to Harrisonburg to play JMU. The Royal Rivalry probably means more to Skinn, and I imagine he will not be using it as a preseason game to test out lineups.
