Your first place (it’s real) George Mason Patriots, at 20-5 and 11-1, also currently on a 10-game winning streak, are taking on the Saint Joseph’s Hawks, at 15-9 and 6-5.
Right now, the Hawks are the 5 seed, but are half a game behind the 4 seed, and are half a game ahead of the 6 seed. They are in the mushy middle. Their talent should not have them outside of the double-bye.
Coaching
Billy Lange…I would like to preface this by saying that it seems like Lange is a pretty nice guy. But…man.
Lange has an overall record of 166-215, with his previous stop being at Navy. He’s 74-100 at Joe’s. In A10 play, his record is 33-62.
Last season, where they went 9-9, was his first season going .500 or better. They did end up going to the A10 semifinals. Last season was supposed to be the year. It wasn’t. This year was also supposed to be the year. So far, it isn’t.
I am not big on firing people, as that is not just a millionaire losing their job. It’s a family being uprooted, and kids having to go to new schools, and apply that to whatever happens with the assistants as well.
Lange’s biggest plus is that he is able to retain players in this one-year contract environment, and that is important. I think his time at Saint Joseph’s should be linked to his retention of Xzayvier Brown, until he either leaves, or Lange brings in another guy of a similar caliber. It is similar to before last season, when I thought his job should be linked to retaining Erik Reynolds, but Brown changed that.
There are murmurs. In year six, especially as a retread, you cannot be a projection. You have to actually get it done.
Saint Joseph’s By The Numbers
The Saint Joseph’s Hawks are the 85th ranked team on KenPom, with the 128th offense and 53rd defense. Of course, now that the defense is playing super well, the offense struggles. In conference play, they have the fourth offense and defense. That is well balanced, in theory.
The Hawks home and away splits have pretty massive differences, with them being 5-1 at home and 1-4 on the road in conference play. I really hope that trend continues. Yes, it is hard to win on the road, but not that hard. To be fair, their road losses are Saint Louis, Duquesne, Dayton, and Loyola Chicago. None of those teams are bad, even if Duquesne has been shaky.
Billy Lange has his team playing at a decent pace of 68.2 possessions per game, which is fourth. The pace has been more indicative of their defense, with their average defensive possession length being the second shortest at 17.2 seconds.
Offense
The offense is highly ranked because nothing really sticks out. 8th in eFG, 4th in turnover rate, 6th in offensive rebounding, and 7th in free throw rate.
The one thing that does stick out is that the Hawks are 10th in three-point make rate, but are taking the third most, with 45.3% of their shots coming from behind the arc. This has always stuck out with Joe’s with Billy Lange. The take and make rates never match.
Speaking of shooting, they have guys who take a tons of threes. Erik Reynolds has taken 102 threes and made 29.4% of them, Xzayvier Brown 51 and 33.3%, Derek Simpson 51 and 27.5%, Rasheer Fleming, a future top-40 NBA draft pick, 40 and 45%, Anthony Finkley 32 and 37.5%, and Dasear Haskins at 22 and 27.3%.
You cannot have Erik Reynolds going 3-10 from three every game. That is not conducive to winning basketball. Simpson was historically a bad shooter, and shot it well in non-con, but has fallen back to Earth. Xzayvier Brown has not been able to replicate the unreal efficiency he had as a freshman in his sophomore season.
Reynolds is taking 29.8% of the shots, 5th in the conference, with a 51% True Shooting. He only has an 8.8% assist rate, and a 7.6% turnover rate. The low turnover rate sounds good, but you cannot turn it over if you chuck it up every time you get it.
Turnover rates are lowered by shot chuckers, as it is a possession you did not turn it over, while assist rates are unaffected since assist rate is only based on your teammates’ makes.
X. Brown is the guy truly running the offense, with a 27.1% assist rate and a 15% turnover rate. He is also shooting with a 56.9% True Shooting, which is very good. You would really want some of the Reynolds shots to be transferred to him. Along with all of that, Brown is drawing 5.1 fouls per 40, eighth in the league, with the seventh highest free throw rate (free throws per shot attempt) at 47.8. Overall, the sophomore out of Philly is averaging 17.3 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 4.5 assists.
The offense is very Kim English-esque. Besides Brown, the guards don’t get to the foul line, and they are too reliant on the three ball.
Chart credit to CBBAnalytics
The paint has become smaller and less red as time goes on, which is how it seems to go every season. Billy Lange, please.
Defense
The Hawks are pretty balanced on defense, besides struggling to force turnovers, with opponents only turning it over 14.4% of the time, 13th. They have the fifth best eFG%, second best offensive rebound percentage given up, and 6th best free throw rate.
A stylistic choice is that opponents are shooting only 34.8% of their shots from deep, which is second lowest, and making only 31.5%, fifth. They do a good job running guys off the line, since it isn’t like there’s a turnstile at the rim.
Rasheer Fleming has the second highest defensive rebound percentage in the conference at 24.2%, along with the 13th highest block rate at 5.2%. Fleming commits only 3.5 fouls per 40, but fouled out in 11 minutes against La Salle.
Justice Ajogbor has the highest block rate at 12.7%. Outside of those two, they do not really have any defensive playmakers.
Chart credit to CBBAnalytics
The three-point defense was kind of lacking in January, but seems to have gotten a lot better in February, at the expense of the rim.
Saint Joseph’s Scouting Report (First Half vs. La Salle)
I wanted to pick a road game, but I could not get access to their February 1st game at Loyola Chicago, and anything earlier than that is too far away.
Offense
The offense has a lot of getting Xzayvier Brown the ball in the middle of the court, and making the defense do something. There was also a lot of Brown and Erik Reynolds driving and kicking to each other, pretty much taking turns.
A lot of possessions end with lightly contested threes; shots you are ok with when they happen with under ten seconds left in the shot clock, but they should not be what your offense is based on.
A play I noticed a couple times was that the inbounder will get the ball back and shoot when throwing it in from the half-court.
Reynolds will shoot when given an inch of space. The scoring guard will throw grenades to teammates (late, late shot clock passes) despite being a better self-creation option most likely. Erik will attempt some off-ball movement threes, usually with some screening action. He can turn some possessions into a fast break that probably shouldn’t.
Justice Ajogbar is very good at sealing off defenders, with Brown being very good at navigating the seal-offs. Ajogbar also sometimes just randomly chucks the ball out of bounds when trying to make a pass.
Defense
The half-court defense was man-based from what I saw. There was a bit of matchup zone here and there, but the base was man. The defense prefers not to switch, but will when needed.
In the full-court, there was a bit of soft man press, but there was a stretch where Lange pulled out a 2-2-1 full court zone press. La Salle had an open shot at the rim if their guy catches it. They ran it again and the Explorers had no clue what to do. It seemed like if La Salle got it past half-court, they won the possession.
The Hawks did a pretty good job at slowing down and stopping borderline fast break attempts in transition.
They can forget trailing bigs, but that will probably not matter with Mason, unless Haynes is bombing a straight-on three eight seconds into the shot clock.
Another thing Joe’s struggled with was guards going diagonally across the paint toward the rim. Too many things had to be picked up correctly for it to be consistent.
Brown can get beat off-ball. It was not uncommon for him to fall asleep and get beat backdoor.
Reynolds struggles to get around screens.
Anthony Finkley is a pretty switchable big wing/forward. They had him playing center for a short bit.
Ajogbar was a bit disappointing with contested rebounds, he jumps with pump fakes, but is a pretty good post defender. It doesn’t really matter, but the Harvard transfer broke the padding on the bottom of the backboard with a block attempt.
Shawn Simmons cannot handle guarding true bigs in the post.
What Does This Mean For Mason?
Joe’s cannot have any extended three-point explosions, as Mason is not really built to handle them, just to prevent them.
This could be a two-big game, as I am not sure if Woody Newton will be able to match up properly with Rasheer Fleming, as he is more of a forward to me. I think we will see a lot of Jalen Haynes at the four, since he has excelled on the perimeter more than you would expect from a 6’8 265 guy.
That would come at the expense of spacing on offense, as I do not think you can plop Haynes in the corner and expect him to occupy a defender.
Joe’s scored over a point per possession in both Mason games last season. I think that if they are held under that, the Patriots have it. If they go over, I think Mason loses. I cannot see this team outshooting the Hawks as the way to win.
With that being said, I predict a 68-60 Mason victory. I think the guards are held in check by KD Johnson and Jared Billups, along with Rasheer Fleming not being a problem.
