Mason Heads to NOLA to Play Tulane

December 22, 2023

1962

By Palmer Johnson

Mason looks to move to 10-2 against a fast 8-2 Tulane team in what should be a fun and tough road game.

The Green Wave are coached by Ron Hunter, who’s been there since the 2019-20 season. Hunter was the coach of those Georgia State teams that went to the tournament a couple times in the mid to late 2010s. His teams had a pretty unremarkable tempo until last season, where they ranked second.

At the moment, this is a Quad 2 game, with Tulane being 113 in the NET rankings.

Tulane By The Numbers

Tulane is the 102^nd ranked team on KenPom, having the 43^rd offense and the 237^th ranked defense.

The team out of New Orleans has a pretty high average height, being 86^th in the country, but they have a pretty narrow distribution.

Along with being tall, Tulane is an extremely old team, with the average player having 3.05 years of D1 experience.

Hunter likes to play his starters, as only 20.7% of their minutes are coming from the bench, which is 349^th in the country. Sion James, a wing, plays 91% of their minutes and is extremely efficient on the offensive end on decent volume.

The Green Wave have a lightning-fast tempo, having 75.8 possessions per game, which puts them at 4^th in the country.

The AAC member is second in the country in effective FG% at 59.6, first in free throw attempt rate at 57.7 per 100 FGAs, and first in 2-point make rate at 64%. Those are some high numbers. Their shots only get blocked 5.2% of the time, 6^th lowest in the country. That’s pretty interesting for a team that shoots so many free throws.

Most of Tulane’s points come from twos and free throws, with only 22.2% of their points coming from behind the arc.

The Green Wave are awful at offensive rebounding, grabbing only 18.2% of them, which puts them at 360^th in the country. There are 362 D1 teams. The answer could be the lack of a true big man in their lineups. It’s probably a choice, I believe I figured it out in the scouting section.

Hunter’s squad does very well in not throwing the ball away, with them having the 28^th lowest non-steal turnover rate.

Yep. That checks out. Work your magic, Amari.

Tulane’s opponents take a lot of threes, with 43.9% of their attempts being from behind the arc, making them at a rate of 34.1%, .9% over the average. They force a lot of steals as well, getting them at a 13.2% rate, 16^th in the country.

It seems like opponents are red from the spots where Keyshawn Hall and Darius Maddox could be, I like that.

Side note – I watched the end of the second half and both overtimes in their thriller against Furman as it happened. Tulane can get hot fast.

Tulane Scouting Report (Southern)

I picked Southern since it was Tulane’s most recent game, and the games that had a similar tempo to the one projected for Friday’s game were either too long ago or were not on ESPN+ to watch.

On offense, Tulane was shooting more threes than I expected. They also had lots and lots of cuts to the basket from the perimeter. Southern opened up in a zone and the Green Wave was able to break it instantly. Later, their SWAC opponent decided to run a 2-2-1 press, Tulane immediately took advantage and got multiple open looks from three.

Kevin Cross, a 6’8 forward, brings the ball up the floor a lot and plays point. He is the tallest guy on the court for a lot of their lineups. The point forward has a crazy smooth spin move that got him multiple buckets throughout the game. Cross is also a walking triple double.

Jaylen Forbes, a 6’5 wing, got hot from three during this game. He did this against Furman was well, which turns him into a scary player.

It’s also worth nothing that wing Sion James is built like a fullback.

Their offensive rebound struggles may be because their biggest guy, Cross, is on the perimeter a decent bit.

About their fast tempo, Tulane takes rebounds and attempts to turn them into fast breaks. They scored 29 points in the first 9 minutes, and ended up with 51 in the first half.

Although the Green Wave has a fast tempo, this doesn’t mean they are playing to get a shot up as fast as they can. The offense generally makes the extra pass, getting them lots of open looks.

Tulane loves to initiate contact, which gets them free throws, but also causes them to commit more offensive fouls than you’d expect.

It seemed like Southern was selling out to defend the three-ball, which was letting Tulane get a lot of quality twos, but near the end of the game, something changed and the Green Wave started getting whatever they wanted from three, which they were hitting, and erased Southern’s run that was making the game competitive.

On defense, Tulane’s 2-2-1 press was working very well. Southern was having trouble getting it across. In the half-court, they played a lot of switch-everything man. When there was dribble penetration, the defense tended to bring the other three or four guys inside to help.

A player for Southern was cold from the line, and Tulane started fouling him anytime he got past them.

How did the game go? Well, Tulane won by a lot. But, they had moments where they could have lost control, but didn’t. At the beginning of the second half, Southern went on a pretty decent run until the under-16 media timeout.

Here’s the part that some people may not like, and I agree. Both teams were in the bonus in the first six minutes of the second half. The second half of the game wasn’t really fun to watch. They had five minutes where both of them got in the bonus, ten minutes of meh basketball, and then another five minute stretch where both teams kept fouling each other. I really hope Mason’s game doesn’t turn out like that.

What does this mean for Mason?

Skinn will have to be able to sense when he needs to call a timeout to kill runs, Tulane can get you out of control fast.

Amari Kelly needs to stay out of foul trouble. This could be said for every game, but especially for this one.

They have a lot of guys between 6’5 and 6’8, which could create some matchup problems at the 1 and 5, mostly the 1.

You have to hope that either Jared Billups is big enough to guard Cross, or Keyshawn Hall is skilled enough to do it. Whoever does it is probably getting in foul trouble, I hope they’re at least forcing misses.

Mason will also need Ronald Polite and Baraka Okojie to play clean games and never go into autopilot. It’ll be another big test for the PG duo.

Prediction: Mason wins 85-78. Cross is held in check by a combination of Jared Billups and Keyshawn Hall, Maddox and Hall get the shots they’re looking for and both score 20 on plus efficiency. If Mason’s offense isn’t running like Mason Nation hopes, the defense may be able to keep them in it, but the lightning pace will surely be a test. It’s non-conference, you’re going to play some weird teams.

Get excited, this is a big game.