Mason Finishes Non-Con Play With Penn

Your 11-1 George Mason Patriots are taking on the 6-5 Penn Quakers of the Ivy League, in year one under Fran McCaffery.

Fran got his head coaching start in 1985 with Lehigh, and has been at the helm of UNC Greensboro, Siena, and Iowa since, with him being at Iowa from 2010 to last season. He has an overall record of 554-389.

The Quakers have missed Ethan Roberts, their number one option, for the last two games. Those two games came on December 8^th and 20^th, so you really do not know based on that. Per Walker Carnathan, McCaffrey did not say anything about the injury timeline after their game on the 20^th against Rutgers.

Penn By The Numbers

The Penn Quakers are the 227^th ranked team on KenPom, with the 194^th offense and 281^st defense.

Fran has his guys playing pretty fast, with the 80^th fastest pace overall, being 100^th on offense.

Offense

The offense is pretty boring, not being great or awful at any overarching stats. 229^th eFG%, 176^th turnover rate, 166^th offensive rebound rate, 147^th free throw rate, pretty boring. That free throw rate is not as good when you consider they take a lot more twos than the average team.

The Quakers’ specialty is the three-point shot, as they make 38.8% of them, 20^th best. The problem is that they take the 293^rd most threes at 34%. Another problem is that Penn only makes 45.3% of their twos, 331^st. I think you would want to chuck up more threes since the twos are not working.

As you would expect based on the stats, a lot of red outside, and a lot of blue inside. I cannot imagine they will beat Mason with twos. Hopefully the three-point defense can hold up.

Since he is their number one option, I will be acting like Ethan Roberts is playing, even though I would guess he doesn’t. Roberts is a 6’5 wing averaging 18 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 2.4 assists on 51.3% true shooting, taking 29.6% of the shots when he’s on the floor. Ethan draws 6.5 fouls per 40, makes 38.2% of his threes, but only makes 36.6% of his twos, which is super, super rough, and explains the inefficient true shooting.

TJ Power may be familiar to some, being a five-star and going to Duke, getting very limited playing time, transferring to UVA, also getting very limited playing time, and then landing at Penn, where he’s carved out a major role, as their number one with Roberts out.

Power has averaged 15.4 points, 8.1 rebounds, 2.5 assists, and 1.4 steals per game on 54.4% true shooting. The former five-star has made 41.5% of his threes, but only 46.1% of his twos and 61.4% of his free throws, which explains the good, not great, true shooting.

It looks like Penn has two guys running point, AJ Levine and Dylan Williams, who have somewhat empty playmaking numbers, with them having 32.9% and 34.1% assist rates. Very high! They also both have 28.7% turnover rates, which won’t cut it.

Freshman Dalton Scantlebury has a 14.4% offensive rebound rate, which is 63^rd in the country.

6’4 freshman Jay Jones doesn’t play too much, but draws 7 fouls per 40 and has a free throw rate of 146.2 per 100 shots.

This team has some shooters. Besides the two I’ve already mentioned, Cam Thrower has made 50% of his 24 attempts, and Michael Zanoni 39.6% of his 48.

Defense

The defense is pretty bad. 211^th eFG% given up, 288^th in forcing turnovers, 213rd in giving up offensive rebounds. Their bright spot is only giving up 28 free throws per 100 shots, 40^th best. That does come with 54.3% of twos going in, 254^th, but that is still fine for the amount of average amount of twos that come from opponents. Maybe foul a bit more.

Fran has not let a guy play after getting his second foul all season. They are one of five teams to have not done that.

That paint looks bad, but not like a revolving door. The three point defense is fine, but it does not make up for how red the paint is.

Scantlebury has a 6% block rate, along with Lucas Leth at 5.8%.

AJ Levine, Augustus Gerhart, and Lucas Leth seem to be the foulers, at 5.1, 5.9, and 4.8 per 40.

Penn Scouting Report (First Half vs. Lafayette)

Offense

There was a lot of Power distributing around the perimeter, along with off-ball movement, guys relocating, cutting, putting pressure on the perimeter defenders to chase them.

The Quakers will look for transition threes. Williams will take some dribble threes.

A zone slowed down their offense for multiple minutes until they started taking and making midranges.

TJ Power is good at relocating after a miss to get himself open for a pass off a rebound.

Defense

Penn will double in the post sometimes, and will struggle against cutters, especially if it comes from the man who helped. It is a pretty man-heavy defense, a lot of trying not to switch.

Gerhart is very, very slow on the perimeter.

Lucas Leth has a lot of hustle and will play hard.

What Does This Mean For Mason?

I predict an 80-65 Mason victory, where Mason is getting a lot of offense, and Penn is kind of scoring, but still below a point per possession.

This is the last game before conference play.