It was a struggle from start to finish, as George Mason (11-10, 3-5) fell 64-55 on the road at St. Bonaventure (7-14, 4-4). The indisputable stat of the night was that the Patriots made 21 field goals and committed 18 turnovers. That right there tells you a hell of a lot about this game.
The Bonnies absolutely blitzed Mason out of the gates, jumping to a 17-8 lead after just 10 minutes of play. By this point already, Mason had committed 8 turnovers. By the 6:13 mark of the second quarter, Bona’s lead had ballooned to 28-8, and Nicole Cardoño-Hillary still hadn’t recorded a point. In fact, it took 14:43 of game time before she finally was able to break through, on an and-1 that was apart of an 13-2 George Mason run. They closed the deficit to as low as 10, but a little 5-0 Bona spurt at the end of the half brought the lead back to 15.
That seemed to be a theme all afternoon. Mason would crawl back to within striking distance, but then instead of cashing in on those opportunities, they would turn the ball over and St. Bonaventure would drill a three. Over the course of the entire game, St. Bonaventure hit 23 field goals: 12 were twos and 11 were threes. That is an astounding statistic. While the Bonnies went off for those 11 threes, the Patriots were only able to connect on 4-20 shooting from outside, and shot 38% overall.
Still, in the second half, the story continued, and after 3 quarters, George Mason only trailed by 9, well within striking distance. But every time, a turnover will kill their momentum and turn into points the other way. St. Bonaventure cashed in for 19 points off turnovers.
Additionally, the Bonnies got significant amounts of depth scoring, as well as their usual stars playing well-above their season averages. Mckenna Maycock went off for 19 points, and went 5-10 from three, well above her season average of 11.8 points per game. Four other Bonnies scored at least 9 points, and as a team, they produced 23 bench points compared to Mason’s 7. That is particularly telling as this was the first game since New Years that all nine players dressed for Mason saw action in the 1st quarter of a game. To have 5 bench players play significant amounts of minutes and produce just 7 points is not a good sign.
Where Mason was able to keep themselves afloat, particularly in the second half, was in the post. Camarie Gatling posted 17 points and 3 boards, accounting for over half of the Patriots’ 32 points in the paint.
The one bright spot for the Patriots, besides Gatling, was the re-emergence of Livijia Kaktaite:
One thing that has been abundantly clear today has been @LivijaKaktaite has been great at facilitating on offense and has been a strong defensive presence today as well. Great to see her getting more minutes. #GetPatriotic
— Daniel Frank (@n1a2v3y4) February 3, 2019
Still, despite everything, Mason cut the deficit to just 6 points with less than 3 minutes left, but in the blink of an eye, that inflated back to 12 points. At the end of the day, 38% shootings and 18 turnovers simply isn’t going to get the job done, especially on the road in the Atlantic 10.
It isn’t going to get any easier from here either. Three of Mason’s next four opponents (GW, Fordham and VCU) are in the top 6 teams in the A-10 standings, with a combined record of 18-7. On the bright side, two of those three games are at home, as are three of the next four overall. We’ve got a big one coming up Wednesday at EBA against George Washington. Mason defeated the Colonials at the Smith Center back in January, and you know they’ll be out for revenge. Show up, show out, let’s #FillEBA.
