Mason Beats Rhody in the Homecoming Game

By
Joseph Szymanski
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34
1499

By Palmer Johnson

Your George Mason Patriots defeated the Rhode Island Rams to the tune of 92-84. Mason moves on to 15-5 overall and 4-3 in conference play.

92 is the second most Mason has scored all season but is the highest by a decent margin in conference play. This was Mason’s most efficient game of the season, scoring 1.372 points per possession, barely edging out the ECU game where they had 1.371 per possession.

Mason actually shot pretty average compared to the rest of the season, only getting an eFG% of 56.8, but they took such good care of the ball, only turning it over twice, that it made up for it. It also doesn’t hurt that the team took and made a lot of free throws.

This game was a bit scary because the three-point defense reared its ugly head again, as Rhody shot 13-27, 48.1%, from three, with Cam Estevez and David Green combining for 10-14 from beyond the arc. Although some of those makes felt like Mason did all they could do, the majority came from poorly-defended looks.

Keyshawn Hall had a very quiet first half but went off in the second, accumulating 22 points on 7-11 from the field and 7-8 from the stripe while grabbing four boards and dishing out four assists.

Baraka Okojie ended up with 18 points, a career high, on 5-6 shooting from the field and 8-10 from the line. Okojie was 5-5 on shots taken with his right hand. This makes back-to-back games where Okojie took the reins of the offense and changed the way everyone was playing after Mason stagnated on both ends. The freshman also created opportunities for others, even though he only had 2 assists, his driving led to a lot of guys getting better looks. The Canadian also applied a ton more pressure when guarding people and turned some defense into offense. Keyshawn Hall may have had a better stat line, but Okojie was my Player of the Game.

Based on these last two games, there is a chance that we could be seeing starter minutes for the freshman point guard.

Okojie ended up winning co-A10 Rookie of the Week alongside La Salle’s Tunde Vahlberg Fasasi.

Darius Maddox was the only guy who could really get anything going from three, accounting for four of Mason’s seven made threes. The Virginia Tech transfer ended the game with 24 points on 8-13 shooting from the field and 4-8 from three. I just know that Rhody fans were not having a good time whenever he got the ball. Maddox showed off his off-ball movement this game, something that has been somewhat lacking recently. If he can do more without the ball in his hands, that would be awesome.

Amari Kelly dominated inside, scoring 17 on 7-10 shooting while grabbing nine boards and blocking four shots.

If Keyshawn Hall can consistently run the pick-and-roll, he will be unstoppable.

Jared Billups did his best Dennis Rodman impression, grabbing 12 boards while scoring 6 points on 1-5 from the field. A sign of a great player is making an impact when the shot isn’t going in.

Overall, this was a pretty good win. You’d like to put Rhody away a lot earlier, but you can’t complain about an eight-point win in conference play.

This game was a great showing from the crowd, with reportedly 6756 people attending the game, with 2345 of those being students. Both of those are season highs.

According to some NIT bracketology sites, Mason is on the bubble. If they finish the season strong, we should be seeing some postseason basketball.

Next up, Saint Joe’s on the road.

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