Mason Looks To Bounce Back vs. Hawks

Your 20-3 and 8-2 George Mason Patriots are taking on the 15-8 and 7-3 Saint Joseph’s Hawks. This game is very, very important. This is as much of a must-win game as you can have in early February. Mason can keep themselves at a comfortable distance in the double bye race, or put themselves as the last team in.

The Hawks are coached by Steve Donahue, who took over the team after Billy Lange, who was always doing exactly enough to keep him around for one more year, every year, after he jumped ship for the New York Knicks this offseason. Lange absolutely would have kept Deuce Jones on the team. Jones’ dismissal really jumpstarted Joe’s.

Anyways, Donahue coached at Cornell, making a Sweet 16, Boston College, and Penn before coming to Philly to be the top assistant. If you Joe’s heard rumblings that Lange was leaving, they should have fired him and gotten a serious candidate, but the second best option was hiring a longtime HC to be their top assistant. Donahue has an overall record of 346-252.

The only two players on the injury report last game were Owen Verna and Steven Solano, with Verna not playing yet this season, and likely redshirting, and Solano playing very limited minutes, and not entering a game since December 18^th, another possible redshirt.

Saint Joseph’s By The Numbers

The Saint Joseph’s Hawks are the 145^th ranked team on KenPom, with the 231^st offense and 81^st defense. They have the 9^th best offense and 5^th best defense by unadjusted efficiency metrics in conference play.

As mentioned earlier, the Hawks dismissed 2025 A10 ROTY and former La Salle guard Deuce Jones. On Torvik, the Joe’s was the 203^rd team from opening night to his last game, with the 228^th offense and 172^nd defense, and the 84^th team since their first game without him, with the 183^rd offense and 45^th defense. That defense ranks first in the conference in that span. This probably isn’t how it works, but I consider the Deuce Jones Hawks the Billy Lange team, and the post-Jones Hawks Donahue.

If you filter by when conference play started, Torvik has Joe’s as the 65^th best team, with the 133^rd offense and 49^th defense.

Having a great defense is really odd for Donahue, as the last time he had a better defense than offense was 2020.

Donahue has his guys playing pretty fast at 68.2 possessions per game, 4^th, with that more coming on the defense end, with an average possession length of only 16.9 seconds, 3^rd shortest.

Offense

The Hawks are fine on this end, with the fifth best eFG% at 52.5%, ninth best turnover rate at 17.4%, seventh best offensive rebound rate at 29.4%, and ninth best free throw rate at 29.3 free throws per 100 shots.

That eFG% comes from 34.4% from three, 8^th, and 53.8% from two, 4^th. 44.6% of their shots are coming from behind the arc.

Their biggest negative is a 10.3% steal rate, 11^th, which probably hurts the defense.

That is a kind of red paint, but that corner is pretty bad. The left wing is a super red. The deep paint isn’t too good.

The Hawks have a 1A and 1B in Jaiden Glover-Toscano and Derek Simpson, both averaging over 16 points per game, with Dasear Haskins being the third guy at 13.3.

JCT is averaging 16.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 1.2 assists. He’s taking 27% of the shots, and has a 58.7% true shooting. You absolutely take that from your number one scoring option. The St. John’s transfer makes 37.2% of his threes and 56.2% of his twos.

Simpson is averaging 16.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, and 6.3 assists. That is a lot for college. Derek takes 23.9% of shots and has a 56.2% true shooting, which comes from 33.3% from three, 50.7% from two, and 88.1% from the line, fifth. His biggest asset is his playmaking, with an assist rate of 34.6%, second, and a turnover rate of 15.7%. Generally plus 20 and sub 15 is considered a good playmaker, so you take 34.6 and slightly over 15.

It is pretty crazy that he was on a team with Xzayvier Brown and Erik Reynolds, Simpson is playing more meaningful and productive basketball now than either of those ever did, and both of them will get NBA looks.

Haskins is averaging 13.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game. He’s been on fire lately, scoring double digits in his last four games, all of which were efficient. The redshirt sophomore went 6 for 7 from deep against La Salle. The long-term NBA prospect is shooting 45.7% from deep on his 35 attempts, sixth best. 56.5% from two is great too. Put that together and you get a 61.4% true shooting, which is 10^th in the conference. That is incredible for a guy who isn’t a rim-only guy. And of course, he has the 17^th best offensive rebound rate at 7.6%.

Anthony Finkley was a popular breakout pick due to his efficiency in a small-ish role last season, but an increase in shot percentage by 5.1 percentage points has caused his true shooting to go down from 59.2% to 44.4% on the season. On the bright side, conference play has brought him back up to 55.6%, so I guess he is just a low volume guy. The biggest problem has been his two-point percentage dropping from 54.1% in A10 play last season to 30.8% this season. He is pretty much a three-only guy, making a respectable 36.1% of his 36 attempts, but I am not sure that shooting 2.2 percentage points is good enough for it to be your main thing.

Freshman Austin Williford has become the starting two recently, but has not been a great shooter, hitting only 28.6% of his 35 threes. He will probably make an all-rookie team due to his minutes and fine efficiency.

Justice Ajogbor is known more for his defense, but has a 64.2% true shooting on this end, making 65.9% of his twos, third, and has the 10^th best offensive rebound rate at 9.9%. That shooting is on only 10% of shots, so he’s not really a threat, the former Harvard big just doesn’t mess things up.

Defense

This is the great end. Joe’s is 3^rd in eFG% at 49.5%, 9^th in turnover percentage at 15.8%, 11^th in rebound rate at 32.8%, and 1^st in free throw rate at 21.5 per 100 shots. I am going to assume that the low rebound rate is due to Ajogbor helping a lot and defending the shot well, but getting himself out of position for a rebound.

The eFG% comes from 35.1% from three, ninth, and 47% from two, second. 43.5% of shots come from deep, the fifth most. They give up the highest percentage of points from deep at 40.2%. That is more a product of their lack of fouling and great two-point defense than an indictment on their three-point defense.

That rim is so blue. Along with the corners. I guess the corner wings don’t have to help too much, trusting their rim protection. Joe’s has the highest average two-point distance in the conference at 6.7 feet. Rim deterrence and rim protection at the same time, both very important.

When Justice Ajogbor is on the court, teams shoot 52% at the rim, compared to 65% without him, per cbbshotcharts.com. That is a huge difference. I also recommend that website, the on/off stuff is very cool. It’s all public, but they compile it for free.

Ajogbor has an 11.4% block rate, which is the highest. Along with that, he only commits 2.5 fouls per 40, which is crazy low for his activity level. His only weakness is a 13.1% defensive rebound rate, but I think that’s a scheme thing due to his help defense, since he is a great offensive rebounder.

Jaden Smith has a 9.8% block rate, but also commits 7 fouls per 40. Derek Simpson has a 2.8% steal rate, and Austin Williford has a 3% one. Simpsons somehow commits 1 foul per 40, which is first. I don’t know.

Joe’s best rebounder is Dasear Haskins, with an 18.4% defensive rebound rate, 12^th best. That is pretty good for a wing/forward hybrid.

Saint Joseph’s Scouting Report (First 10 Minutes vs. George Washington)

Offense

The offense is built around looking for threes and getting good twos off of the challenge. All of the ballhandlers will let it fly if you go under a screen, especially Simpson and Glover-Toscano. And right when you are defending the three well, there’s a backdoor cut. They push in transition and don’t let you get set up.

Derek Simpson will take pull-up threes, but kind of gets spooked by blitzing doubles. JCT can get hot and has a lightning-quick release. Haskins can be a PnR ballhandler. Ajogbor is a passing threat from the short roll.

You will see everything from Williford. He will make some amazing move and throw the ball away on back to back possessions. If the freshman can cut the unforced errors then he will be a good player for years to come. The light is very green for him when considering he is a freshman on a competitive team.

Defense

Donahue runs a mix of matchup zone, 1-3-1 zone, and 2-3 zone. They will sometimes switch mid possession, which gives the offense a hard time figuring out what to look for. Generally they run the matchup zone more when their backup center, Jaden Smith, is in, and run the 1-3-1 and 2-3 when Ajogbor is holding it down in the paint. Haskins generally covers the guy in the dunker spot while Ajogbor does the helping.

The Hawks funnel ballhandlers baseline, letting Ajogbor deal with them at the rim. It is a no-middle defense.

Williford can get caught ballwatching.

In the 1-3-1 and 2-3, generally they will leave big men open from three until they make one.

What Does This Mean For Mason?

This is so important, even if you ignore the fact that this is Mason’s homecoming game. I care a lot more about protecting the double-bye lead than winning in front of a homecoming crowd.

With that being said, 75-70, Mason. Book it. This Joe’s team was supposed to get Donahue fired and be an easy pillow fight pick, and they were until Deuce Jones got the boot. Good on semi-interim Donahue for doing what was best for his team.