Mason Looks To Continue Success Vs. Loyola Maryland

Your 10-1 George Mason Patriots are taking on the 4-8 Loyola Maryland Greyhounds of the Patriot League.

Josh Loeffler is in his second season at the helm of the Greyhounds, with this being his first stint as a D1 head coach. Loeffler ran the show at Stevens Tech and Johns Hopkins, with Hopkins being in the same area as Loyola Maryland. His most recent stop before getting the HC job was being an assistant with Cincinnati. Side note, when Loeffler was at his first coaching stop at D3 Hamilton, while being an assistant, he was also the football team’s defensive line coach. The Greyhounds’ head coach has a D1 record of 16-27, and a 6-12 record in Patriot League play.

The Greyhounds only have two D1 wins, a neutral site game against 345^th ranked Stonehill, and a home win against 364^th Coppin State.

Loyola Maryland By The Numbers

Loyola Maryland is the 337^th ranked team in the nation on KenPom, with the 276^th offense and 350^th defense. Their pace is pretty average at 163^rd, with their offense being in line. Defense is a little faster, but I imagine that is giving up some open looks early.

The Greyhounds have the 8^th best minute continuity at 56.6%. Barely over half being 8^th is such a sad stat.

All of the below stats are against the 351^st strength of schedule.

Offense

Loyola Maryland is decently below average at everything except two-point percentage, but unfortunately that is not as impactful, as even though they make 55.3% of their twos, 87^th, they take the 60^th most shots from behind the arc at 45.9%.

The team out of Baltimore’s eFG% is 202^nd, turnover rate at 228^th, offensive rebound percentage at 276^th, free throw rate at 225^th, and most importantly, three-point percentage at 298^th with a 29.7% make rate. That is pretty bad for a team taking so many threes.

That is ice cold from three. And the rim isn’t too red. If you can guard the rim, it will be pretty tough for them to make you pay.

The two top options are Jacoh Theodosiou and Emmett Adair, at 26.4% and 33.6% shot rates, with Adair only playing very major minutes in the second half of their season so far.

Theodosiou is their 6’4 point guard, with a 25.5% assist rate, 21.1% turnover rate, a 49.5% true shooting, and a 53.3 free throw rate. 6.2 fouls per 40 is a lot. Unfortunately, he is shooting 15% from deep on 40 attempts, and is only making 70.3% of his free throws. There’s a shooting history of 33.1% on similar volume last season. The 6’4 guard is averaging 15.3 points, 4.8 rebounds, 3.6 assists.

Adair has a 53.9% true shooting, making 57.5% of his twos, and 27.6% of his threes. The 6’9 forward has a 17.1% assist rate compared to a 12.6% turnover rate. 5.6 fouls per 40 is probably the reason the minutes are so low. The big man is averaging 13.3 points, 5 rebounds, and 1.8 assists.

Their two main shooting threats are Jordan Stiemke at 38.3% on 60 attempts, and Troy Ciero at 39.4% on 33 shots.

Tyson Commander has an absurd 34.4% turnover rate, compared to a 9.4% assist rate. I am not sure I have ever seen anything like that, especially from a 6’4 wing. On the bright side, Commander has a 56.4% true shooting and is kind of maybe a shooter.

Jonas Sirtautas is making 85.2% of his twos, but has missed their last two games.

Defense

This is the bad end. Loyola Maryland gives up 55.6% eFG, 316^th, and allows a lot of offensive rebounds at 35%, 299^th.

The two-point defense is really bad at 58%, 329^th. And it’s a lot of twos, with teams only taking 36.3% of shots from deep, which is 85^th least.

They are getting smoked from everywhere inside, that is so much red. Mason might feast.

Emmett Adair commits 5.6 fouls per 40, Jonas Sirtautas commits 4.9, and Everett Barnes commits 7.8. I expected there to be more guys consistently in foul trouble with their lack of two-point defense.

Jacob Theodosiou has a 4.4% steal rate, Carter Berg-McLean is at 5.3% for block rate, and Jonas Sirtautas is at 10.8% for block rate, which is 30^th in the nation. As I mentioned earlier, I am not sure whether Jonas will be playing.

Nobody really sticks out for a rebound rate on this end, which is not good.

Loyola Maryland Scouting Report (First Half vs. Mount St. Mary’s)

Offense

There were lots of failed plays that end with an ok three. Adair might take a million of these during the game. Speaking of threes, the Greyhounds will look for outside shots in transition.

Jacob Theodosiou might take deeep threes.

Braeden Speed got destroyed by a full-court press double team. None of his teammates made themselves available.

Carter Berg-McLean is pretty raw but has some flashes as an advantage creator as a driver and in the post.

Defense

Loyola Maryland has to help a ton on dribble drives, which causes open threes. . If they don’t help, someone is getting an open shot at the rim.

The Greyhounds dropped into a 2-3 zone and got a turnover. I imagine they will be running a lot of this against Mason, the couple of possessions I saw gave you more confidence than their straight-up matchup zone.

Later in the half, they started jumping passing lanes, and it worked a decent bit. I did not see them get punished for it.

The rim and post defense is pretty bad. They switch a lot on screens, but will try to reswitch if they can. The whole team can get caught sleeping on inbound plays.

Theodosiou is a pretty good transition defender.

They pulled out a zone press, but the frontcourt didn’t play up at all so the opponent just passed it to a wide open guy at half-court.

What Does This Mean For Mason?

I predict a 90-65 victory for the Patriots. This should be a get-right game for Kory Mincy, as this is probably the worst defense Mason will play all season. Teams are shooting at the rim effectively and often, and so far, it has been bad teams doing that.

The 67^th ranked Patriots will be the second best team they play all season, barring a crazy Patriot League tourney run, and then a victory against another 16 seed in Dayton.