Your George Mason Patriots have brought in a big one. 6’11 Riley Allenspach as committed to playing for Tony Skinn in Fairfax. The Samford transfer rising junior spent two seasons in Birmingham before hitting the portal.
Allenspach was a 3-star recruit in the class of 2023, getting himself a .8585 247 Composite rating and being ranked 246th nationally.
The Charlotte native’s background information is covered in his visit article, so you should give that a read.
Riley Allenspach Scouting Report (Full Games vs. Arizona, West Georgia)
Take a lot of this with a grain of salt, as 17 of the 27 minutes I watched came against Arizona, who ended up being ranked 13th.
Intangibles/Athleticism
I did not notice too much.
Offense
Allenpach tries to get active in the post, and can eventually get open. This is not his strong suit.
Riley is a bit clunky with the ball in his hands, but is coordinated enough to find the open man when doubled. The passing also allows him to get the offensive rebound and kick it out to a shooter. Also with passing, he can get deceptive with dribble-handoffs and fake out opponents.
Allenspach shooting allows him to play some five-out. If he gets open from three, he can attack the closeout and get an easy bucket
The 6’11 big can get in trouble when he gets tunnel vision and wastes a lot of time, or the whole possession in the post.
Riley doesn’t get the best angles for finishing, and misses shots that should be open. This is not what the numbers say.
The big man catches the ball fine, but struggles to track the ball if it is not going straight to him.
Allenspach can cut to open space on inbounds, that shows good instincts.
Riley is good at going back up with it on putbacks, but does not seem to be able to get and put the rebound in during the same jumping motion.
Defense
The big man has good positioning in help defense. He does a good job at cutting off drivers before they get close to the rim. Even when it is his man, the Samford transfer will cut off his man before he can get to the rim. He challenges them farther out, rather than challenging at the rim. Good idea.
When Allenspach get switched onto a guard, he does a decent job at mirroring their movement.
Riley got postered by future first round pick Carter Bryant, but I respect that he at least challenged it.
Allenspach can get caught in the air, and if he has to go out to the perimeter to close out on a shooter, the Samford transfer can get absolutely smoked if that guy drives. That is understandable for a 6’11 big in the A10.
With Bucky Ball, he will play center field/safety in the full-court press. The Charlotte native gets sealed off a decent bit. The weird part is you can tell he knows it is happening, there is just a struggle to get out of it.
A play I really liked was a good in-between game during a 2 on 1 fast break. He forced his opponent to make a difficult lob pass that sailed over the guy’s head.
Overall, it seems like Allenspach knows where he should be, he might just have trouble getting there.
Areas of Improvement
The numbers do not say it, but the sample I saw showed that Allenspach struggles a bit on shots near, but not at the rim. He needs to hit his close open shots consistently.
Riley in the post is kind of rough if he has to make any advanced moves beyond the first one.
I thought I would have to put some defense here, but I do not think I will.
This guy may be more of a project than most transfers, which makes sense since he came off the bench for Samford. The ceiling is there though, and Curran has a pretty decent track record of having guys move up and excel.
Joe time.
Riley Allenspach Scouting Report (Full Game vs. North Dakota State)
Mason Nation- we have a tall man.
Riley Allenspach, let me be the one to welcome to Funfax. A 6’11, 247 pound big man is exactly what Mason needed. Allenspach will bring that.
I watched Allenspach’s 10 minutes against North Dakota State. I know parts of the fanbase have already made big deals about Allenspach’s play time since he’s committed, but I’m not concerned. As you may remember from when we played Samford in the NIT, the system played under now Texas A&M coach Bucky McMillan (aptly named BuckyBall), saw lots of rotation and players coming in and out. This game went into OT and only three Samford players played over 24 minutes. That’s wild.
In Allenspach’s first minutes Samford was on defense. Immediately, I saw something that was very good news- Allenspach can clearly defend the three point line, even at his height. NDSU plays at a 5 out system, and Allenspach was agile enough to stay with his man and used his long arms (those Woody hands) to disrupt potential passes and discourage shots.
Then on their next offensive possession, Samford almost ran their offense through Allenspach. He got the ball down low, backed down his man a bit, passed out of a bad situation, set some screens, got switched onto a smaller player, had the ball at the top of the key and then beat the smaller and quicker defender to the basket to get the bucket. Just out physicaled his defender from the three point line. Again- this is a guy who’s 6’11 and nearly 250 pounds. They should not be able to do stuff like that but he does.
Allenspach would make one more two pointer in his 10 minutes, while missing another (the one he missed was a solid left handed hook shot that just went in and out). He had a great positioning block too on a NDSU player that looked like he wanted to dunk. It was fun.
Allenspach also stopped a couple of fast breaks when Samford’s press D was broken with his height and length where NDSU was forced to pass it back out.
He didn’t take a three this game, but NDSU very clearly respected his ability to- he was covered every time he was out on the perimeter, no one allowed him any room out there.
I think his low rebound numbers are much more a feature of the BuckyBall system rather than an issue with him physically.
Overall, I liked a lot of what I saw in sparse time from Allenspach. I think he fits the style of what Tony is putting together this year and will fit like a glove. I am very excited for this pickup and can’t wait to see what he does in a Mason uniform.
Back over to you Palmer.
Ratings
Shooting: 60 – I want to give this a higher rating, as he shot 48% from deep last season, but in his college career, he is 22/54 from three, which is six more threes than Justin Begg took last season. The volume is less than one per game. This is something that could be a 65 or a 70 within a week of the season.
Finishing: 50 – Since I saw bad but the numbers say good, we are going to split the difference.
Screen-setting: 45 – Not very impressive.
Post Offense: 45 – If the first move doesn’t work, it can get rough.
Post Defense: 50 – One post rep, stopped the guy but had help.
Help Defense: 55 – Does a good job at not just challenging at the rim, but making sure guys don’t get there. From the offense’s perspective, a contested shot eight feet out is bad. A contested shot at the rim is fine.
Perimeter Defense: 55 – This is in the context of being a 6’11 big. It is not an instant bucket, and he can sometimes cut off his guy and force a turnover/panic.
Rebounding: 50 – This can be either a 45 or a 55, depending on whether you value offensive or defensive rebounding more. He is a 60 or a 65 for offensive rebounding, and a 40 or 45 for defensive.
Where Does He Fit In?
It is odd that I feel much better about his defense, and a little bit worse about his offense than I did before watching a full game.
I would guess that Nick Ellington and Riley Allenspach would be battling for the starting center spot. I personally lean toward Ellington due to him having a more traditional center skillset, but whoever loses the job will still be getting decent playing time. I would imagine that the bench player between the two will still start a handful of games throughout the season.
I really like that the two main centers, along with wherever Kanga fits in, have very varying skillsets. It is not like Jalen Haynes and Gio Emejuru where Emejuru did not bring anything to the table that Haynes did not. Allenspach is bringing shooting, and Ellington is bringing traditional center stuff.
With Allenspach at the five, you would likely need a bigger four due to the below average defensive rebounding he brings.
The shooting gives Mason the ability to run a double big lineup without sacrificing any spacing. It seems like Skinn enjoyed running Haynes and Emejuru together last season, so I will expect to see some more jumbo lineups.
