Your 4-3 George Mason Patriots are taking on the 4-3 James Madison Dukes in a rivalry game that looks to be renewed, at least for this season and next. Tony Skinn is 5-1 against the Dukes as a Patriot. Make it 6-1.
JMU is a former CAA foe, but is now in the Sun Belt.
The Dukes are coached by Preston Spradlin. Spradlin was the coach at Morehead St., where he had Devon Cooper and Auburn center Johni Broome. In his career, the two-time OVC coach of the year has a record of 144-112 overall, and a 87-57 record in conference play.
JMU By The Numbers
James Madison is the 144th ranked team, with the 119th offense and 203rd defense.
JMU plays at an average-ish pace, but I see that they have performed much better in faster games than slow ones. Taking out their non-D1 games, they are 2-0 when they play over 70 possessions, and 1-3 when the game has less than 70. Even their one win was unconvincing.
It is odd that their coach has a history of slow-pace teams, yet the team has played better the faster they go this season.
Spradlin has been playing his team pretty deep, with it seeming like ten guys are in the rotation.
Justin Taylor started the first five games, but randomly fell out of the rotation. By out, I don’t mean he is getting DNPs. Taylor has 9, 1, and 3 minutes played in his last three games. I don’t know what is up with that.
On offense, the Dukes have been chucking up threes, and they have been going in. JMU is shooting 38.1% from three, 45th in the country, and has 47.7% of their shots coming from beyond the arc, 39th highest in the country.
JMU’s scoring seems to be coming from their guards, as Xavier Brown, Mark Freeman, and Bryce Linsday have shot percentages of 26.1%, 24.6%, and 27.3%. It seems like those guys play on the court together a lot.
It seems like their main shooters are Brown at 39.1%, Freeman at 38.9%, and Bryce Lindsay at 51.2% (41 attempts!).
Lindsay has been insanely efficient this season as a redshirt (kinda?) freshman transfer from Texas A&M. The former high three-star has an eFG and TS od 70.8% and 72.3%. Assuming he is available, this is probably who you have Jared Billups chasing around.
That right wing three looks nasty. Nothing else really sticks out, except that they do shoot much better on the right side of the court than the left.
The Dukes get a lot of their points from threes, 42%, which is 15th in the country.
On the other end, teams are shooting pretty well against the Dukes. They’re giving up an eFG of 56.4%, 326th in the country, with opponents making 36.3% of their threes and 57.3% of their twos, both well below average for a defense.
On the bright side, JMU is rebounding very well defensively. The Dukes are only giving up 19.7% of possible offensive rebounds, which is 5th lowest in the nation.
They take a lot of threes, but opponents do not. James Madison opponents are only shooting 31.7% of their shots from behind the arc, which is 21st lowest.
Teams are getting a lot of their points from two, with the Dukes’ defensive point distribution having twos as 56.4% of scoring, which is 36th highest.
Nothing sticks out except for how big and red those hexagons are near the rim. That is some seriously bad interior defense. Judging by the corners being so low volume, I guess those two guys don’t really help over.
James Madison Scouting Report (First Half vs. Ohio)
I had to pick their opening game, since I could not find any others on demand.
The Dukes seem like a super streaky team, as they went on big offensive and defensive runs.
On offense, JMU feels very fast paced. I mean that more like everyone moves fast, there is not any wasted time. If they speed up because they want to, the offense goes well. If the defense speeds them up by doubling, then the offense gets sloppy.
Speaking of doubles, James Madison really does struggle when the ball-handler is doubled, getting a bit turnover happy.
The Dukes like to shoot the first moderately ok three they can get.
When Ohio went into a press, JMU broke through it pretty fast.
JMU throws cross-court passes when the guy in the passing lane is going around a screen, since he will have tunnel vision on getting around the screen to his man.
James Madison likes to pass it back to the inbounder for a three when inbounding from under their hoop.
AJ Smith got a crazy rebound and made a crazy pass to a guy wide open under the rim. He seems like a glue guy, being active off the ball on both ends. Smith hustles hard and has good passing decision making, but bad accuracy. A lot of his passes are a good idea, they just miss their target.
Elijah Hutchins-Everett can telegraph his passes and can get in trouble.
Xavier Brown will shoot a three if given any opportunity and has a nasty spin move.
On defense, the Dukes switch a lot, and sometimes have problems with guys getting more separation than they can afford to give up.
JMU really struggles covering the ball-handler on ball screens.
Ebenezer Dowuona seems like a good help rim defender.
Mark Freeman will try to draw a charge if Brayden O’Connor posts him up.
Brown is very aggressive in passing lanes.
Hutchins-Everett seems like a solid 1-on-1 defender.
What Does This Mean for Mason?
JMU struggles on ball-screens, and I saw a lot of curls working. If Brayden O’Connor can do that move he did against ECU, it should work very often. An Emejuru-BOC screen around into a curl should work wonders.
My prediction is that Mason wins 71-66. I think that the Dukes will be able to speed up on offense on their own, but the Patriot offense will be able to keep up to a certain extent. I think whoever controls the tempo of the game wins.
This will be a big game, and will probably heavily influence how I feel about the team until the Duke game or conference play.
Also, completely unrelated, if Mason wins this game handily, they could move ahead of a certain Big East school on KenPom.
Hopefully some Mason fans will be in attendance, as I will. Keep the momentum going against a worthy opponent.
