By Palmer Johnson
Mason played their first exhibition game on Monday, October 23rd against St. Thomas, an NAIA school in Miami Gardens, Florida, and won 64-52. The most impressive player during the exhibition was Baraka Okojie, the freshman PG out of Brampton (Toronto), Ontario.
The Canadian guard showed he could do a little bit of everything. One of his earlier standout plays was a tough move to get to the basket, followed by a contested layup that went just above and past the hands of a St. Thomas big man.
The Canadian Kiss 🇨🇦💋@baraka_okojie | #PatriotPressure pic.twitter.com/xBwY9VZiYJ
— George Mason Men's Basketball (@MasonMBB) October 23, 2023
A couple minutes later, Okojie had a beautiful alley-oop to Malik Henry where he froze everyone in the paint and then threw a beauty right to Malik.
✈️✈️✈️@baraka_okojie ➡️ @malikhenry_35#PatriotPressure pic.twitter.com/S8NbQrVa0a
— George Mason Men's Basketball (@MasonMBB) October 23, 2023
Mason Nation will hopefully get to watch those two do this all year long.
The freshman ended the game with 12 points on 5-6 shooting. That’s efficient. In addition to his scoring, he added 2 assists. Unfortunately, along with those assists came 5 turnovers, but those come with a freshman point guard.
Baraka was a +19 in only 24 minutes, the highest of any player in the entire game. Not only does he do awesome stuff that shows up in the box score, he also makes winning plays that you have to watch to see.
Okojie proved that he would not need a year to get ready after reclassifying from the class of 2024 to 2023. He will be a significant piece of this team from the jump. Mason Nation will get to watch his development in the coming years. Get excited!
