Your 21-7 and 9-6 George Mason Patriots are taking on the 15-13 and 4-11 St. Bonaventure Bonnies. St. Bonaventure will have one less day of rest than Mason.
Mason has not lost to the Bonnies since Steve Curran joined the staff. The last time these two teams played, the Patriots roared back from down 13 in the second half to steal it.
I wrote an article covering the first matchup between these two teams, so I will try not to repeat myself.
Ilia Ermakov, Amar’e Marshall, and Xander Wedlow were listed as out for St. Bonaventure in their last game, as they have been for a while.
St. Bonaventure By The Numbers
The St. Bonaventure Bonnies are the 140th ranked team on KenPom, with the 87th offense and 254th defense. In A10 play, the Bonnies have the 4th ranked offense and last ranked defense.
Since the start of conference play, St. Bonaventure is the 192nd ranked team on Torvik, with the 77th offense and 312th defense. Since the last time Mason played them, they are the 146th ranked team, with the 66th offense and 275th defense.
Schmidt has his guys playing at a decently fast pace of 68.1 possessions per game, fifth, with it coming more on the offensive end, as their average possession lasts 17.2 seconds, 4th lowest.
Offense
The problem is not on this side of the court. They have the 3rd best eFG%, turnover rate, 4th offensive rebound rate, and 12th free throw rate.
The Bonnies make 38.3% of their threes, 3rd, but only take 32.3% of their shots from behind the arc. The offense isn’t the problem, but I would like to see the balance moved a little bit. They also make 51.9% of their twos, 6th.
The offense relies on getting open cuts to the rim and midranges, which is cool when it works. The problem is that they have the 13th shortest two-point attempt distance, which isn’t great. Move those midranges forward or backwards.
St. Bonaventure gets 54.8% of their points from two, which is the highest in the conference.
The top options are still Buddy Simmons and Frank Mitchell, averaging 18.6 and 15.4 points per game.
St. Bonaventure still has a lot of guys who can really shoot, with Buddy Simmons at 46.2% on 104 attempts, fifth best, Daniel Egbuniwe at 38.1% on 63, Cayden Charles at 36.7% on 49, Joe Grahovac at 33.3% on 24 attempts, and Dasante Bowen at 45% on 20 attempts.
Defense
This is the problem end. The eFG% given up is last at 56.7%, which comes from 39.1% from three, last, and 55.2% from two, 13th, along with opponents making 78.5% of their free throws, also last.
I think I mentioned it last time, but I assume the free throw make rate is more about guards not being able to stay in front of their man rather than guys magically shooting better against the Bonnies.
The other three of the four factors, turnover rate, rebounding, and free throw rate, are eighth, fourth, and seventh, so if they can just fix that whole shot-defense stuff, they are golden.
On the bright side, the Bonnies do have the highest block rate of 13.7%, which comes from a 20% block rate from Andrew Osasuyi and 10.6% from Grahovac. Frank Mitchell is at .8%, which is still absurd for a guy playing the five.
Andrew Osasuyi is the only guy that somewhat gets in foul trouble, at 5.1 per 40. The thing about St. Bonaventure is that the per 40 number can actually end up being how many a guy gets per game. Darryl Simmons has played 40 minutes in eight of their 15 conference games.
What Does This Mean For Mason?
Once again, I wanted to do a scouting section and realized I had nothing more to add from the last time.
Their next two games after this are at VCU and home against SLU. If they lose this, the season will end with a seven-game losing streak. Then we look at the tournament.
No game prediction until they win. I’m sticking to that.
