Category: Featured

Hello Mason Nation! All the chalk talk this week is from the VCU game. I’m always up for arguing basketball so leave a comment below or follow me on twitter (@peteybuckets) and we can have words. Due to the disjointed viewing experience (thanks, MASN) there’s some stuff I wanted to highlight but don’t have on tape. Before we get to the good stuff there are a few things I want to talk about:

– Otis Livingston II has an outside shot at 2,000 career points. He’s already at 825 career points, which means he likely hits 1,000 in the OOC portion of next season. I did the math, and if we conservatively assume he has 65 games left in his career, here’s what he needs to average to hit different point thresholds:

o 14 points per game: 1,735 career points
o 16 points per game: 1,865 career points
o 18 points per game: 1,995 career points

So he gets to 2,000 by averaging a little over 18 points per game for the rest of his career. It’s a long shot, since the system Paulsen wants to play spreads out the scoring load, and he can’t really miss any time, but it’s fun to think about.

– Mason has a turnover problem, and it’s on both sides of the ball. We’ve lost the turnover battle badly in four of the past five games, turning the ball over 67 times vs just 36 turnovers for our opponents. That’s about six extra possessions per game the opponent gets a chance to get a shot up, which really reduces the margin for error in other aspects of the game. This problem is twofold – we’ve been turning the ball over a little bit more (60 turnovers combined against VCU, GW, Dayton, and Rhode Island), but we’re also not forcing enough turnovers. Mason is now the 6th worst team in the country at turning over the opponent. All but one team in the bottom 20 gives up an average of less than one point per possession, and that’s UCF, who has a 7’6” center anchoring their defense. Dave Paulsen teams have never generated a lot of turnovers, as he prefers to play a very conservative and conventional defensive style, but this is extreme even for him.

– Ian Boyd is coming on at the right time. Since being held scoreless in the Richmond game, he’s averaging 9.2 points on 54% shooting. Moreover, he looked very comfortable against VCU’s bruising style of play, which bodes well for the future. Mason will need a big lift from him off the bench if we’re going to make a run in Pittsburgh.

Alright, now on to the gifs that you came for.

One thing I took away from reviewing this game is that there was a lot more positive than I initially thought. The turnovers were mostly halfcourt mental mistakes, which is good because those are correctable. VCU’s press actually doesn’t bother our guards that much (it didn’t in the first game either). The bigger issue on offense was that we didn’t get many, if any, good looks with Mo Alie-Cox on the floor. He’s a tremendous paint protector and the guards looked hesitant to drive with him near the paint. On defense, you already know the story – we can’t stop Justin Tillman with a guard playing the 4.

Let’s get all the bad stuff out of the way first.

Early in the game Kier offers up almost no resistance to a Samir Doughty drive. Kier is usually a solid defender but this is an uncharacteristically poor effort. It looks like Doughty’s fake to the left puts Kier on his heels and he’s off balance for the rest of the drive:

I promise I won’t beat you over the head with Justin Tillman gifs but here’s a good illustration of how he bends our defense in bad ways. Kier comes down from the wing to help Grayer by doubling Tillman. Tillman kicks out to Doughty. Kier runs out and bites on Doughty’s shot fake, taking himself out of the play. Doughty drives and Grayer has to leave Tillman to contest. Even though Grayer’s contest is successful, he’s now out of rebounding position and Tillman gets an easy putback:

Here’s a really simple pick and roll action between Jequan Lewis and Mo Alie-Cox. First, every Mason player looks tired in this play. Each rotation is late. Second, this shows the dangers of Jalen hedging screens against VCU – when Alie-Cox shoots, Jalen is behind both him and Tillman. Even if Alie-Cox misses this shot (he doesn’t) VCU still probably gets an easy putback bucket.

One thing that stood out from rewatching the game was that Marquise Moore and Ian Boyd looked like the only guys who wanted to drive while Alie-Cox was on the floor. It’s tough to beat a team with a good shot blocker like that without penetrating, but a lot of possessions went like this – lots of dribbling, lots of swinging the ball around the perimeter, and a bad shot forced at the end of the shot clock:

Last Tillman gif: here’s another illustration of how easy his looks were all night. Credit Will Wade for drawing these up. Here he inbounds to above the key, gets a simple baseline screen from Ahmed Hamdy, and has all the space he needs to hit a turnaround over Boyd. I only gif’d two plays because I don’t want to torture you or myself, but most of Tillman’s buckets were this easy.

Okay, we’re done with the bad stuff now. As promised earlier, there was some encouraging stuff from this game. Really!

VCU’s full court pressure can work against them. Marquise is very well-suited to take advantage of a stretched-out defense that’s not set yet. He does so here and gets to the rim easily. Note that Hamdy is on the floor instead of Alie-Cox – that’s a recurring theme any time Mason hits a layup.

Marquise does the same thing here. Doug Brooks attempts to pressure him well above the arc, but that’s a bad idea. Marquise’s first step is too quick. He goes around Brooks, around Doughty, and over Tillman for the layup. Note: Alie-Cox is on the floor, but he’s guarding the wing on this possession. I have no idea why Wade would have Tillman anchor the 2-3 instead of Alie-Cox, particularly since Alie-Cox wasn’t in foul trouble, but maybe he’s keeping that in his back pocket for a potential rematch.

Again, there was a lack of penetration from Mason’s offense all night. Here’s a play from Ian Boyd that shows how important dribble penetration is. Boyd gets around Tillman, Brooks steps up off Jalen, and Boyd hits Jalen for an easy layup:

Jaire was quiet in this game (5 points on 2-5 shooting) but I really liked seeing this from him. He splits the seam in the 2-3 zone and hits a pretty floater over Tillman. He doesn’t do this often enough, and he can become a really dangerous player if he adds these drives to his arsenal:

These next two gifs are a celebration of Slim Otis. Mason lets VCU’s defense stretch out across the halfcourt. Jalen screens VCU’s Jonathan Williams out of the play. Otis takes the ballscreen and has Doughty and Hamdy in front of him. He goes to his left around Doughty (longer defenders like Doughty usually bother Otis) then takes the ball right at Hamdy, who can’t stop him from finishing with his right. This is a good way to take advantage of Alie-Cox being off the floor.

A very similar play happens here with Relvao on the floor. Again Williams is roadkill on the ballscreen, and Otis goes right at Hamdy, who fouls him while giving up the layup. Hamdy simply can’t defend the paint like Alie-Cox can.

Relvao gave us some good minutes, which is always encouraging to see. Here he comes through with a help side block of Williams that starts a fast break. Otis leaves the ball for a trailing Boyd, who finishes over Tillman. One sneaky surprising thing about this game is that it looked like transition favored Mason.

This was my favorite play of the night. It’s a simple pick and roll with Kier and Jalen. It doesn’t really create any space, but it gets Alie-Cox on his heels. Jalen goes right up into him and completes the play while drawing a foul.

People call Kier a point guard but he hasn’t really played a point guard role at all this year. Otis and Marquise take turns initiating the offense, and Kier does most of his work off the ball. Here, however, he initiates a great drive and dish, using the ballscreen to get into the paint and set up Karmari for an easy layup. Kier still has some freshman mistakes to work out but plays like this make him easy to love:

Finally, here’s Ian Boyd once again driving into the teeth of VCU’s defense. Against the toughest, most physical opponent we’ll play all year, Boyd looked totally comfortable.

If Mason sees VCU again, Dave Paulsen absolutely has to come up with a different way to guard Tillman or else he’ll eat us alive again. Assuming Dave has something in his bag of tricks for Tillman, there’s a lot to suggest Mason could make it a competitive game in Pittsburgh.

That’s all for this week’s breakdown. Until next week – go Mason!

Happy Friday! There was no post last week due to me being out of town. Click here to see what it looked like two weeks ago. Yes, I’m reusing the Marquise gif as the header because it’s awesome. Let’s get to it right now:

THE FAVORITE: Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure

19.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 6.5 assists, 2.1 steals, 0.1 blocks

22.5 PER, 27.2% USG, 1.52 PPFGA

I’ve spoken my peace on Jaylen in previous posts, so I want to point out something interesting – his shooting percentage is really bad (38.6% from the floor, 47.4% eFG) but he gets to the free throw line so much it doesn’t matter. He’s shooting 9.1 free throws per game in conference and hitting about 80% of them, so he still scores at a very efficient rate compared to the number of shots he takes.

SO CLOSE: Marquise Moore, George Mason

16.9 points, 9.9 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.7 blocks

23.5 PER, 26.2% USG, 1.34 PPFGA

Mason has played four games since the last A10POY post and Marquise had sub-par scoring outings in two of them (12 points on 12 shots against Dayton, 8 points on 11 shots against Duquesne). He also has only 11 assists in the past four games, so a couple things are trending in the wrong direction for him. He’s still in the two spot on the strength of his incredibly unique season, the colossal load he’s asked to carry for the young Patriots, and his ability to defend the opponent’s best perimeter player night in and night out. He has an opportunity to finish the season with an exclamation point on the road against VCU tomorrow.

THE ‘T’ IS FOR ‘TURNSTILE’: TJ Cline, Richmond

18.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, 0.1 blocks

25.5 PER, 28.3% USG, 1.45 PPFGA

“Turnstile J Cline” might be a little harsh but I can’t put TJ Cline ahead of Moore or Adams knowing how well both of them contribute on defense. Cline’s dad played for the Washington Generals, which explains a lot about TJ’s game – spin the box score on offense, offer no resistance on defense. I’ll offer this all with the caveat that if I were betting money, I’d bet on Cline to win it since an 18/8/6 line is insane – according to college basketball reference, Cline would be the first to ever post such a line in conference play in college basketball history.

DARK HORSE: Kendall Pollard, Dayton

14.7 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.8 blocks

23.8 PER, 27.7% USG, 1.65 PPFGA

Pollard has a higher usage rate and scores much more efficiently than his teammates, Charles Cooke and Scoochie Smith. I’ve written about this before. I still think he’s Dayton’s best POY candidate.

STILL IN CONTENTION

Peyton Aldridge, Davidson

20.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.9 blocks

25.1 PER, 25.7% USG, 1.33 PPFGA

Aldridge’s efficiency numbers have suffered recently (his early season production was probably unsustainable to a degree) but he’s still putting up 20 points and 8 boards while contributing a lot defensively. The first four are the guys I think have a shot to win – Aldridge leads the best of the rest, for now.

Charles Cooke, Dayton

14.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 3.5 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.9 blocks

20.7 PER, 24.7% USG, 1.36 PPFGA

Cooke is either the best or second best player on the best team in the A10, and his ability to use his length is a big part of Dayton’s suffocating defense. For the purposes of these rankings, he just hasn’t been an efficient enough scorer to warrant a grade over the guys ahead of him.

Tyler Cavanaugh, George Washington

18.1 points, 8.6 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 0.6 steals, 0.2 blocks

24.7 PER, 29.4% USG, 1.44 PPFGA

About three weeks ago I said Cavanaugh was basically 80% of Peyton Aldridge. He might have read that and used it as motivation (or toilet paper) as he’s been rampaging through the league since then. He’s averaging 21.6 points and 9.3 rebounds per game over his past six. He’s rocketing up the leaderboard, but what hurts him is his lack of contribution outside of points and rebounds, and the token resistance he offers on defense.

SECOND OR THIRD TEAM CANDIDATES

Jack Gibbs, Davidson

20.9 points, 4.4 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.5 steals, 0 blocks

21.4 PER, 29.5% USG, 1.27 PPFGA

Gibbs is moving up the board, but he’s still been much less efficient than the guys ahead of him.

JeQuan Lewis, VCU

14.9 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.6 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.2 blocks

20.3 PER, 23.6% USG, 1.33 FFPGA

Matt Mobley, St. Bonaventure

18.7 points, 5.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 2 steals, 0.2 blocks

20.7 PER, 23.4% USG, 1.43 PPFGA

Justin Tillman, VCU

13.9 points, 9.5 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.5 blocks

26 PER, 23.3% USG, 1.38 PPFGA

Most of Tillman’s important numbers have dipped in the past two weeks. His arrow is pointing down.

Hassan Martin, Rhode Island

12.5 points, 6 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.4 steals, 2.1 blocks

25.2 PER, 24.7% USG, 1.44 PPFGA

Hassan Martin is still kind of a trendy first team pick but I’m not buying. I guess he makes sense if you feel obligated to put a traditional center on the first team, but no way I’m making room for him over the likes of Pollard, Aldridge, or a number of other guys.

EC Matthews, Rhode Island

14 points, 3.8 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.3 blocks

16.5 PER, 26.3% USG, 1.28 PPFGA

Matthews is also a guy that’s going to get a lot of first and second team votes, but that’s a byproduct of Rhode Island being good in the standings. He simply hasn’t been as good as the guys ahead of him.

KEEP AN EYE ON:

Scoochie Smith, Dayton

Jordan Price, La Salle

ShawnDre’ Jones, Richmond

Multiple games with multiple gifs in the breakdown for the first time this week! I’m going to jump around between games and try to stay coherent so buckle up.

The story of the Fordham game, in the first half anyway, was that the team did a great job of taking advantage of Fordham’s gimmicky trap-heavy defense. Fordham leads the A10 in steals, but that doesn’t mean they’re good defensively. They gamble hard, trapping and sometimes even triple-teaming in an attempt to force turnovers. This can be effective under the right circumstances, but when it doesn’t work it looks really ugly.

Here on the first bucket of the game, Marquise turns the corner and is chased by two defenders into the paint. A third defender tries to slide in for the charge, while the other two reach in to try to help. Freeze the gif while Marquise is in the paint and you’ll see he literally has all five defenders within arms’ reach. He dishes to a cutting Jaire for an easy basket:

On the next play Otis spins away from the pressure. 32 on Fordham takes a step toward him to trap, but then backs off. He doesn’t realize that Marquise is cutting toward a wide open lane, and he’s already been beaten badly. Sengfelder (#43 on Fordham) is late with the help, giving Marquise the and-one layup.

On this play, Marquise catches a piece of the paint and dishes to Otis. Otis heads into the lane, drawing the post help away from Jaire and leaving no defenders on the weakside. Otis dishes to Jaire for a nice assist and an easy layup.

Here’s yet another extreme example of Fordham’s defensive style. Jaire gets the ball in the corner and gives it to Jalen to avoid the trap. Jalen is then triple-teamed. Fordham has four defenders on the strong side between the arc and the paint when Jalen has the ball. Jalen finds Marquise at the top of the key, who swings to Kier for a wide-open three.

Even by Fordham’s standards this looks like a broken defensive play. Three defenders are above the arc, in an apparent attempt to trap the ballscreen Jalen is trying to set, and the other two defenders are occupied on the wings. Marquise goes left opposite the ballscreen, burns his defender, and finds little resistance on his way to the rim.

Fordham mixed it up a little in the second half and had a lot more success with trapping and forcing turnovers. They also went zone for a few possessions, which didn’t work out well for them. Here they’re in a 2-3 zone. The spacing on the wings is poor and leaves a big hole for Marquise. Marquise charges to the rim, and Sengfelder, who is not a rim protector, is powerless to do anything to stop him.

The biggest story of the week for those wondering about the future of Mason basketball was Karmari Newman. He was an animal against Richmond, and a few plays demonstrate why I think he has the highest ceiling of any of the first year players. Here he uses a shot fake to get his defender up in the air, blows past him, then pulls up for a long two. Everything about this play is silky smooth.

Now here’s a reverse angle of a spinning drive he had. He catches a pass from Jalen at the top of the key, spins away from the help defender, and gets raked across the arm to go to the line. Karmari’s shooting is one thing, but his ability to get to the rim opens up a whole other dimension for his game. Guards who can shoot are a dime a dozen in college basketball; guards who can score at the rim are worth their weight in gold. He’s still seeing limited minutes, but he makes one or two of these drives each game.

Once again, Jalen’s post play was pivotal in beating Richmond. They sent a few screaming doubles at him and he made them pay each time. Here, the weakside post defender abandons the wing to double Jalen. Jalen gets a hockey assist for hitting Marquise, who swings it to a wide open Jaire in the corner:

On this early possession he’s patient enough to realize that Richmond’s rotation is busted and no one is marking Karmari. He skips this pass to Mason’s sharpshooter for another open three:

“Jalen’s torture chamber” might become a weekly entry. This week, Jalen welcomed Cline to the Thunderdome once again. Here Richmond leaves Cline, a very poor defender, isolated on Jalen. Jalen takes him to the woodshed and draws Cline’s fourth foul while he’s at it:

“Otis’s impossible layup” is another contender for a weekly entry. Feels like he does this once or twice a game. How does he even get this shot off, much less in?

Now let’s check in on the other freshmen. Troy was a mixed bag this week. He got flustered against a Fordham triple team and turned it over here:

But then he caught a nice pass from Marquise, pivoted, reversed, and scored. We don’t need Troy to be anything special on offense at this point, but it’s a tremendous help if he can avoid turnovers and convert the easy opportunities our guards are going to generate for him.

Ian Boyd has been quiet since coming back from his suspension (6 points, 2-7 shooting against Richmond and Rhode Island), but he’s still doing a lot of things you love to see out of him. Here he is boxing ShawnDre’ Jones into oblivion. He gets the rebound and misses the layup, probably because there should have been a foul called, but Temara’s there to clean up the mess:

Another weekly entry idea: Your Justin Kier moment of zen. There’s always plenty of material. This week: Kier is sneaky awesome at leading the fast break. Here are two plays where he sets up his teammates with beautiful passes. The pass to Otis was particularly great – he had almost no angle to thread this past Buckingham. Mason got to the line on both of these:

Let’s wrap this up with a couple more Marquise plays worth highlighting: first, his pass off the backboard to Jalen. Marquise recognizes he doesn’t have much of an angle for a shot himself, but he sees Jalen in prime offensive rebound position, so he chucks it off the backboard. This was awesome:

Here Marquise hits an absurd shot at the end of the half off a nifty drive. Three Richmond defenders try to stop him but they’re all powerless. This play is a good illustration of what really sets Marquise apart – his tremendous ability to create separation out of nothing and finish in traffic defines his game.

Now you’ve probably noticed there are no gifs from the Rhode Island game. That’s because these take time and when I have to choose, I’d rather gif the wins than the losses. I will say that at halftime, I thought Rhode Island was the physically superior team, and that with Hassan Martin coming back (he sat most of the first half with two fouls) we were going to get blown out on our home court. I’m rarely so happy to be wrong. I can’t remember the last time that I felt better about a team after a loss, but that’s how I came away from the Rhode Island game. Rhode Island had a tremendous size advantage all over the court. They start 6’7” Hassan Martin and 6’9” Kuran Iverson, whom Jaire had to guard, and a 6’7” and 6’8” player both got big minutes off the bench. Otis was guarded by the lanky 6’3” Jeff Dowtin, and Dowtin’s length on defense was a big part of Otis’s off night. I didn’t see any reason to think we’d be able to close the gap, but the team showed tremendous poise to come all the way back from down 18 in the second half. They didn’t finish the job, but they showed us that they’re tough as nails and they can scrap with anyone.

That’s it for this week. The breakdown will be taking a week off next week for a snowboarding trip. Until then – go Mason!

Happy Friday! Click here for last week’s watch and a quick introduction to the rankings. Since the race is tightening up and there aren’t many surprises, we’ll get right to it today.

Last week, it went 1) Jaylen Adams, 2) TJ Cline, and 3) Marquise Moore. This week I’ll make it easier and say they’re all in a tie for first. You can make arguments for each of them, but ultimately the separation is miniscule and each of these guys is a strong finish away from claiming the award. Player of the Year ultimately comes down to one of these guys and everyone else is vying for a spot on the first team.

TIED FOR FIRST: Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure

18.9 points, 3.5 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 2.4 steals, 0.1 blocks

23.4 PER, 27.7% USG, 1.47 PPFGA

Last week I said Jaylen’s place at the top was shaky. Well, he went 7 of 22 shooting against GW and La Salle but posted twenty three assists combined in those two games. It also helped that he went 18 of 19 at the line, so his scoring efficiency actually increased. Jaylen has been in a brutal shooting slump since the Duquesne game, shooting 21 of 70 over that five game stretch, but he’s making up for it by getting to the line and dishing dimes. If his shot starts falling, watch out.

ALSO TIED FOR FIRST: TJ Cline, Richmond

19.9 points, 8.8 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, 0.2 blocks

27.7 PER, 29.9% USG, 1.47 PPFGA

I’ve given TJ plenty of grief in this column because he can’t play defense, so now I’ll argue the other side. TJ’s offensive game is so good that it dramatically outweighs his defensive shortcomings. This isn’t the NBA where teams can isolate a scorer on him over and over until the defense breaks. It’s easy enough to hide TJ on defense and feature him on offense, which is exactly what Richmond does. Cline’s defense sticks out like a sore thumb because Richmond plays so much four guard and he can’t protect the paint, but that still doesn’t come close to offsetting what he can do with the ball in his hands. As a Mason fan who was at the most recent Mason-Richmond game, I can tell you I was hoping we’d get chances to expose him on defense, but was terrified every time he had the ball. Still, despite his tremendous box score, it’ll be tough to put him ahead of the other two knowing how well they defend.

ALSO ALSO TIED FOR FIRST: Marquise Moore, George Mason

17.5 points, 10 rebounds, 4 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.8 blocks

24.7 PER, 27.4% USG, 1.37 PPFGA

Marquise Moore moves into the tie for first this week as he continues to lead our upstart Patriots through a season that has exceeded all expectations. After collecting 23 rebounds last week Moore is now one of two players averaging a double-double in conference, and he does it while carrying a tremendous workload for a Mason roster that’s ultimately limited. He’s the primary initiator and scorer, and he has the responsibility of guarding the other team’s best perimeter player every night. He also recently started shooting threes and making teams pay for the tendency to leave him open by eight feet when he’s outside the arc. His shot still isn’t pretty but he’s 8 of 15 from three in the past five games because he’s only shooting when teams don’t bother to contest.

DARK HORSE: Kendall Pollard, Dayton

15 points, 5 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.9 blocks

25 PER, 27.1% USG, 1.72 PPFGA

Check out my post from last week arguing why Kendall Pollard is Dayton’s best Player of the Year candidate. Long story short – Charles Cooke has been quietly inefficient all year, and Pollard has Dayton’s highest usage rating. He’s scoring more points in conference than his teammates, and he’s doing it more efficiently on a larger workload.

STILL IN CONTENTION

Justin Tillman, VCU

14.8 points, 10.3 rebounds, 0.5 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.5 blocks

26.9 PER, 22.9% USG, 1.41 PPFGA

Tillman is the other player averaging a double-double in conference. The problem is he averages one steal, one assist, and one block every other game. That means in a game where he gets one from one category, the next game he’ll get one from the other two categories. In all seriousness, his lack of a box score contribution outside of points and rebounds is ultimately going to cap his POY potential in what’s been a great season.

Tyler Cavanaugh, George Washington

17.3 points, 8.4 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.2 blocks

23.3 PER, 30.7% USG, 1.34 PPFGA

Last week I said Cavanaugh was basically 80% of Peyton Aldridge. That’s less true this week after Cavanaugh closed the gap in a huge way with a 33 point, 10 rebound game against St. Bonaventure. His rebounding is also trending up (11.5 rebounds per game in the past four games, after grabbing only 6.3 per game in the previous eight games) so he could continue gaining ground on the guys ahead of him. Cavanaugh’s usage rating is the highest of anyone in contention, and that works in his favor.

Peyton Aldridge, Davidson

20.6 points, 8.2 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.7 blocks

25.5 PER, 26.1% USG, 1.34 PPFGA

For the second week in a row Aldridge’s numbers declined across the board. He’s playing a ton of minutes for a team that has no other scoring options aside from Gibbs, but these rankings are serious business and I don’t plan on making room for excuses. Aldridge is also no longer the Wildcat with the highest usage rating (that would be Gibbs) so he’s this week’s biggest freefaller.

SECOND OR THIRD TEAM CANDIDATES

Charles Cooke, Dayton

14 points, 5.2 rebounds, 3 assists, 1.2 steals, 0.7 blocks

20.6 PER, 25.8% USG, 1.32 PPFGA

Cooke has been a quietly inefficient scorer, but his arrow is pointing up. He defends like hell, rebounds well for a guard, and many would argue he’s the best player on Dayton.

JeQuan Lewis, VCU

15.8 points, 3.2 rebounds, 4.9 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.2 blocks

21.2 PER, 24.4% USG, 1.39 FFPGA

After scoring 61 points on 17 of 29 shooting last week, JeQuan Lewis makes his first appearance on the watch. He’s not crushing the box score like some of the guys on this list, but he’s putting together a very solid line, and he’s a tough defender who plays a big role in VCU’s top 2 in-conference defense. He’ll keep moving up if he doesn’t cool down soon.

Matt Mobley, St. Bonaventure

18.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.2 assists, 1.9 steals, 0.3 blocks

20.6 PER, 23.2% USG, 1.40 PPFGA

Jack Gibbs, Davidson

19.7 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.3 steals, 0 blocks

21.4 PER, 29.3% USG, 1.25 PPFGA

Hassan Martin, Rhode Island

12.9 points, 5.3 rebounds, 0.9 assists, 0.5 steals, 2.3 blocks

24.2 PER, 24.7% USG, 1.43 PPFGA

A lot of people have Hassan Martin on the first team, but I can’t and here’s why: the dude can’t rebound. According to College Basketball Reference, Martin is grabbing only 11.4% of available rebounds when he’s on the floor. That’s more along the lines of a guard who rebounds well (like De’Monte Buckingham from Richmond, or Jaire Grayer from George Mason) than it is an all-conference first team big man.

EC Matthews, Rhode Island

14.5 points, 4.1 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.4 blocks

16.8 PER, 27% USG, 1.29 PPFGA

Matthews is also a guy that’s going to get a lot of first and second team votes, but his poor efficiency and low assist rate scares me away.

KEEP AN EYE ON:

Scoochie Smith, Dayton

Jordan Price, La Salle

ShawnDre’ Jones, Richmond

Hello Mason Nation! All the chalk talk this week is from the Davidson game. If I can find a recording of homecoming, that game might find its way onto next week’s breakdown. Let’s get to some stats and notes first.

• The bench scored 14 points combined in the St. Louis, La Salle, and Davidson games, in which Karmari Newman was suspended and Ian Boyd was suspended for two of the three. The starters scored 231 points in that stretch, or about 94% of our total scoring.

• The bench was good for 9 points between Karmari and Troy Temara against Fordham. This will hopefully get a little better now that Boyd’s suspension is over and we’re back to full strength, but the lack of bench production really lowers this team’s ceiling. We’ll need more productive and consistent bench contributions if we’re going to make a run in the A10 tournament.

• Consistent with the theme of the starters carrying a huge load, Otis Livingston and Jaire Grayer averaged 39 minutes per game in the four games between St. Louis and Fordham.

• Last week I asked if the three point defense was slipping. This week, we combined to allow 16-55 from deep, or 29.1%. Davidson and Fordham aren’t great three point shooting teams, but we still held both of them below their season averages.

• Mason gave up 5, 5, and 6 offensive rebounds against La Salle, Davidson, and Fordham, while corralling 28 offensive rebounds themselves in those three games. That’s a welcome trend, and one that might not hold up against the bigger teams in the A10, but it’s positive progress nonetheless.

• VCU shot 50% from the field against Mason to open A10 play. In the 11 games since, no team has shot better than 46.6%. Mason is holding opponents to 43.1% shooting in conference, which isn’t bad, but is only good for 8^th in the A10.

• The schedule is about to get a whole lot harder. Richmond, Rhode Island, and Dayton are a combined 27-9 in conference. Mason then gets to go to George Washington, who proved a bad matchup in the first game, before getting A10 bottom-feeder Duquesne, before ending the season against 1^st place VCU. A 1-5 ending to the conference season isn’t out of the question.

Chalk Talk

Davidson had an interesting strategy for defending Marquise, and it was effective. On most possessions one of their bigs was assigned to him, but when Marquise was off the ball, that big would stay in the paint to clog spacing. Teams have done that with Marquise’s defender before, but usually that means an extra guard playing rover, not a big. Davidson’s Peyton Aldridge and Will Magarity, 6’8” and 6’11” respectively, took turns guarding Marquise but playing well off him. In this clip you can see Aldridge is assigned to Marquise. Marquise gets the ball above the arc. Aldridge, planted in the paint, flashes out to guard him, but still doesn’t come out past the elbow. Marquise shoots and hits the three.

Here’s a play from the second half where Magarity (22) is assigned to Marquise. Magarity totally leaves him alone at the top of the key and doubles Jalen instead. Marquise spends most of this play with his defender at least 15 feet off him, and the double team causes Jalen to turn the ball over. Remember this because it will be important later.

Before we get much further let’s check in on Temara and Relvao. Here, Temara hedges a ball screen set by Davidson’s Magarity. Jaire is supposed to check Magarity when he slips to the post. However, Jaire drifts off to guard Aldridge (a very good three point shooter), Kier is supposed to slide over but is late, and Temara doesn’t get back in time. The result is an easy dunk for Magarity and everyone looking at each other wondering what happened. It’s tough to assign blame here since our scheme leaves this sort of thing open if the rotations aren’t tight.

Relvao gave us some very solid minutes off the bench after Jalen got his second foul. This play is very similar to the one above, but it’s a little slower developing for Davidson, in part because Relvao forces Gibbs so high off the arc, and that allows Relvao to recover and block the shot. Relvao defending like this makes the minutes Jalen is on the bench a lot less scary.

Here’s a play that shows how teams are starting to attack our very predictable defensive rotations. Magarity sets a ball screen for Gibbs. Relvao hedges, as is tradition. Otis leaves his man to check Magarity, who slips to the post. With Kam and Relvao occupied on Gibbs and Otis in the post, Pritchett (#20) gets a wide open three from the wing. Luckily, he clanks it.

This is worth mentioning because it’s illustrative of how good teams can take advantage of our constant hedging on ball screens. Gibbs has two good options here – Magarity is a foot taller than Otis, who’s guarding him in the post, and Pritchett is about as open as he can be in a halfcourt set. This play works out in Mason’s favor, but there will be plenty more like it where it burns us.

Jalen was Mason’s best player in this game. We’ll get to the good Jalen stuff in a minute but first I feel obligated to mention a tendency of his that I’ve noticed. He anticipates ball screens and teams take advantage of him for it. Here, he steps away from the basket to hedge on Gibbs, anticipating a ball screen that never happens. Magarity zooms to the basket for an easy layup. The same thing happened on Mount St. Mary’s game-winning dunk earlier this season.

Alright, now we’ll get to the fun stuff. One of the smart things about Davidson guarding Marquise with a big was that it left Jack Gibbs to guard Otis. Otis struggled (5-14 shooting), which is no shame. Gibbs is a senior and a very good defender. That’s why I loved this play from Jaire and Otis. Jaire motions Otis over, gives him a quick pass, and sets a hard screen on Gibbs to create separation. Otis gets as much daylight as he’s seen all day and hits the long pullup two. This play looks like it might have been improvised, which makes it that much cooler:

Marquise and Jalen ran a really pretty low ball screen just before that. Jalen screens for Marquise, Jalen’s defender hedges, Jalen pins both of them above him, turns, and catches a great entry pass from Marquise. Caught out of position, Magarity commits the foul while giving up the basket.

One play that kind of flew under the radar in this game was Jaire’s steal and layup that tied the game after Davidson went on a run to take a lead. The camera cut away during the steal so you can’t see it, but let me assure you that gigantic stones are required to pull this off:

Jalen had 23 points on 13 shots, mostly because he would get isolated on the baseline, and Davidson didn’t have anyone who can cover him 1 on 1. Marquise’s defender was watching for cutters and would only slide over when Jalen got into the paint, at which point it was already too late on several occasions. I’m going to take a few gifs off from explaining and just let you guys enjoy Jalen taking Magarity and Aldridge to the torture chamber:

Finally, here’s where Mason really made Davidson pay for their strategy to defend Marquise. Up a bucket with just over a minute left, Davidson sticks to the game plan and doubles Jalen in the paint, taking the risk of leaving Marquise open. Jalen finds Marquise, no defenders try hard to contest, and Marquise drills a three. There’s your ballgame:

Davidson’s strategy largely worked. Marquise was 2 of 4 from three and 3 of 11 inside the arc, where he couldn’t find much space. Gibbs held Otis to 5-14 shooting. Mason needed Jenkins to be a monster in this game, and he came through. Along with Jaire’s quietly efficient 12 points on 7 shots, it was enough to get past a solid Davidson team on the road.

Until next week, Mason fans. Go Patriots!

Happy Friday! It’s time to check back in on the A10 Player of the Year race. To read my primer on these rankings, click here. If you’re not going to take the bait and give me a click, here’s what we’re trying to do:

– Rank A10 POY candidates in the order I currently have them, not to predict who wins what
– I heavily favor usage, workload, and efficiency
– I’m looking at conference only stats. Why? No reason. My rankings, my rules.
– I use PPFGA (points per field goal attempt) instead of TS% of eFG%. PPFGA answers the question you really want to ask, i.e. how many points does a guy score every time he uses a shot attempt?
– I’m not trying to be contrarian, but the numbers I’m using will sometimes yield different results than what some other people have. That’s a good thing! There’s a fair amount of groupthink among the name brand players.

Before we get to the rankings, I want to show you something:

Player A: 13.3 points, 2.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.5 steals, 0.1 blocks, 20.2 PER, 21.8% USG, 1.43 PPFGA

Player B: 13.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.9 blocks, 18.9 PER, 26.7% USG, 1.27 PPFGA

Player C: 15.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.3 steals, 1 block, 24.6 PER, 27.6% USG, 1.69 PPFGA

Player C clearly has the most well-rounded resume, right? More points and rebounds, similar combined steals and blocks to Player A, and his efficiency and usage numbers blow the other two out of the water. The only thing he doesn’t have is assists, but he more than makes up for that everywhere else.
In case you’ve tried to guess, I don’t think anyone is going to get this.

Player A: Scoochie Smith

Player B: Charles Cooke

Player C: Kendall fucking Pollard!

Pollard was my dark horse for A10 POY last week and I see no reason to come off that now. He’s such a dark horse that Dayton people don’t even talk about him as a player of the year candidate. You hear Cooke thrown around a lot, Scoochie thrown around a bit less, but I don’t think either of them has a resume that holds up to Pollard’s. He’s scoring more points on a larger workload, and he’s crazy efficient while doing it. He’s also just as valuable defensively, if not more so, than his teammates, and he’s got a better offensive rating and a better defensive rating. Stats aren’t the end all be all – one of the shortcomings of doing it my way is that it kind of hurts players on good teams who cut into each other’s production – but Scoochie and Charles don’t have great efficiency ratings, and Pollard is doing it all on both ends of the court.

Now, some Dayton fans may say this is crazy. I’ve watched a couple Dayton games and Pollard doesn’t really jump off the screen the same way Cooke does. But I’ve got a very scientific system where I plug these arbitrarily chosen statistics into a spreadsheet, sprinkle in a defensive evaluation that you can’t see, then use my brain to decide which resume looks better. As far as the Dayton guys go, that’s Pollard at the moment.

Let’s get to the rankings:

IN THE LEAD: Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure

19.2 points, 3.7 rebounds, 5.7 assists, 2.3 steals, 0.1 blocks
23.2 PER, 28.6% USG, 1.44 PPFGA

Jaylen Adams had a rough shooting game in the VCU debacle last week, but he made 14 of 15 free throws, which actually kept his production quite viable. His box score stats aren’t as impressive as some of the others on this list, but around these parts we take those 2.3 steals per game very seriously. Jaylen is part of a scheme that loves to jump passing lanes (teammate Matt Mobley is second amongst the contenders in steals), and he can act like more of a free safety when the man he’s defending moves to the weak side, which helps his steals total. But he’s also a very capable on-ball defender. He might not be the consensus favorite, but he’s leading here for now. He missed a chance to really solidify his claim here against VCU, so this ranking isn’t terribly confident.

JUUUUUST BEHIND: TJ Cline, Richmond

19.7 points, 9.1 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 steal, 0.2 blocks
27.5 PER, 28.9% USG, 1.46 PPFGA

Eye-popping numbers! He’s spinning the box score! How is he not in the lead?

TJ Cline cannot play a lick of defense. He gives the Spiders next to nothing for paint protection. He’s the consensus number one, because Player of the Year is an award for people who fill up the box score, but here he stays in second. I do think he’s the odds on favorite to win it, and if I were betting today, I’d bet on him – look at those numbers again – 2nd in points, 3rd in rebounds, and 1st in assists among people on the list. But if those numbers come back to the field a little bit, his rank at the two spot is tenuous.

GETTING WARMER: Marquise Moore, George Mason

17.4 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.8 assists, 1.4 steals, 0.6 blocks
24.3 PER, 28.1% USG, 1.33 PPFGA

We have our first mover! Marquise is up to third this week, stealing this spot from Peyton Aldridge. Like Adams, Marquise is the primary creator and best on-ball defender on his team. He spent most of Mason’s game with Davidson matched up on Jack Gibbs and did an admirable job, holding Gibbs to 12 points on 5-12 shooting. Marquise’s lacking efficiency holds him back, as he does it all for a surprising Mason team – he’s a great defender, he’s the A10’s leading rebounder, and he’s carrying a tremendous workload for a team that has a short bench.

DARK HORSE: Kendall Pollard, Dayton

15.4 points, 5.1 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1.3 steals, 1 block
24.6 PER, 27.6% USG, 1.69 PPFGA
As discussed above, Kendall Pollard is arguably the best player on the conference’s best team.

COMING BACK TO EARTH: Peyton Aldridge, Davidson

21.4 points, 8.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.8 blocks
27.1 PER, 25.9% USG, 1.44 PPFGA

Aldridge is still right in the thick of this thing, but he decreased slightly since last week in every single number I’m listing here. He’s fighting an uphill battle because he’s not the highest usage guy on his own team (that would be Gibbs) but his numbers are impressive enough to keep him in this conversation.

STILL IN CONTENTION
Justin Tillman, VCU

15 points, 9.5 rebounds, 0.4 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.5 blocks
27.7 PER, 23.8% USG, 1.42 PPFGA

The VCU guys are all kind of cannibalizing each other. Tillman has the best resume from a top-2 team, and that counts for something.

Matt Mobley, St. Bonaventure

19.4 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.4 blocks
21.1 PER, 24.4% USG, 1.44 PPFGA

Mobley is a very good player who had the game of his life against VCU, but he’s still second fiddle to Jaylen Adams, which makes it hard to put him too high here.

Jack Gibbs, Davidson

18.9 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.4 steals, 0 blocks
20.9 PER, 28.5% USG, 1.25 PPFGA

SECOND OR THIRD TEAM CANDIDATES

Tyler Cavanaugh, George Washington

16.1 points, 8.2 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 0.5 steals, 0.3 blocks
22.5 PER, 29.6% USG, 1.31 PPFGA

Cavanaugh’s box score contributions are limited outside of points and rebounds, and he’s not very efficient. He’s basically 80% of Peyton Aldridge this season.

Charles Cooke, Dayton

13.7 points, 4.7 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.9 blocks
18.9 PER, 26.7% USG, 1.27 PPFGA

The Dayton guys are killing me. Cooke is a fan favorite, and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him on the first team, but he’s been terribly inefficient, especially compared to the guys ahead of him.

Hassan Martin, Rhode Island

12.5 points, 5.2 rebounds, 1 assist, 0.6 steals, 2.2 blocks
24.7 PER, 25.1% USG, 1.39 PPFGA

Martin is something of a trendy first team pick. 2.2 blocks per game is great, but there’s nothing sexy about 12 points and 5 rebounds per game. He’s a very nice player, but the hype is a little overstated given his other contributions. Injuries have also limited him to only 23 minutes per game in conference.

EC Matthews, Rhode Island

15.5 points, 4 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.5 blocks
18.3 PER, 26.3% USG, 1.35 PPFGA

Like VCU, Rhode Island guys are cannibalizing each other. There’s not really a standout resume amongst them.

KEEP AN EYE ON:

Scoochie Smith, Dayton
Jordan Price, La Salle
ShawnDre’ Jones, Richmond

Check back next Friday for an update.

Stats first today, then chalk talk afterward. Here we go!

Stats

Congratulations to my man Otis Livingston II for his A10 Player of the Week award. Here’s his combined stat line against St. Louis and La Salle:

48 points on 20 FGA (that’s crazy), 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 1 steal

Otis shot 8/10 from three combined in both games as well. He very nearly carried the team to victory in his career game against St. Louis – here’s a depressing split from the game:

Otis – 29 points on 15 shots

Rest of team – 45 points on 42 shots

Some other notes:

• Marquise, Otis, Jaire, and Jalen combined for 85 of the team’s 95 points against La Salle. We can’t count on that every night, which is why I’m very worried about missing Karmari for one more game and Boyd for two. The contributions from the bench are already slim, and we’re already riding our starters for heavy minutes. Otis and Jaire played over 80 minutes apiece in the past two games and Jalen played 75. Being short-handed against two very beatable teams in Davidson and Fordham is not ideal.

• Mason combined for five total steals this week. Dave’s defense doesn’t try to force turnovers (never has, even at Bucknell) but this is extreme. St Louis only turned the ball over nine times, and they were a bottom-50 team in turning the ball over before entering the Mason game. La Salle also turned the ball over nine times, but they’re much better at protecting the ball.

• Mason shot 10/18 from behind the arc and 21/31 inside it against La Salle. That 63.3% shooting performance is the best of the season by a country mile – we shot 52.2% against Lebanon Valley, and if you want to throw that out because they’re a D3 school, we shot 51.8% against Penn. The La Salle game was fun, but it’s well outside of what we should expect each game.

• Since recording a season low 5 assists against George Washington, Mason responded with 17 assists, 16 assists, and 15 assists in the three games since.

• Mason is shooting 26/51 (51%) from three in the last three games.

• Is the perimeter defense slipping? Mason allowed opponents to hit just 39/124 (29.1%) through the first six games of conference play. In the last four games, that number has ballooned to 40/101 (39.6%). Mason has faced two of the better three-point shooting teams in conference in George Washington and La Salle, but this is still something to keep an eye on.

Chalk Talk

All chalk talk today is from the La Salle game. I ain’t here to talk about Saint Louis. La Salle was a lot of fun, but we should keep things in perspective. They were even more short-handed than we were, missing BJ Johnson and Pookie Powell, two 30 minute per game players. But winning is still fun so we’re going to celebrate anyway.

La Salle’s threes to start the game were the kind of shots that our scheme encourages opponents to take. They came when we doubled the post and the post kicks out to the man who’s now open. The rotations were a little slow and they shouldn’t have been as open as they were, but that’ll happen. The rotations got tighter throughout the game and La Salle ended up taking a lot of contested threes in the second half. Here, Jaire leaves his man to double, Otis is slow to rotate, and Jaire is slow to recover, leading to an open three on the first play of the game. These ultimately aren’t a big deal, but they feel really bad when the opponent hits a few in a row like La Salle did:

I’ve given Relvao some grief in this space so it’s time to give him some credit. He was a big part of the 15-0 first half run where Mason went from down 11 to up 4. Here are a couple nice plays of his. First, he catches a nice entry pass from Kam and does a nice job of spinning, ducking under the weakside help, and laying in the bunny. This is an easy play, since his defender leaves him for some reason, but earlier in the season this was the sort of play he wasn’t converting, so this is progress:

Next, he leaves his man to block a shot in the paint that starts a fast break for Marquise. He actually runs the floor very well and is in position for a tip-in that’s not necessary because Marquise finishes:

I think that for freshman bigs, it’s more important to pay attention to what sort of potential they flash than dwelling on what they don’t do well. Relvao and Temara both have a long way to go, but they’ve shown flashes of potential on both ends of the court. Writing them off at this point would be a mistake.

Let’s take a moment to pay homage to Justin Kier, king of the back cut. This first one comes against a 3-2 zone from La Salle, and the fun thing about this one is that it looks like improvisation. Justin sees Phiri (13) take a step toward Jalen and boom, he attacks the space in the zone and gets to the rim for the and-one:

Here’s a beauty in the second half. La Salle’s defense gets stretched out when they try to trap Jaire on the baseline. Kier realizes no one is marking him and cuts hard to the basket again:

Otis had an absurdly efficient 19 points on 5/5 shooting. Nights like that don’t happen often. In this clip, Jalen sets a good screen, and Otis uses the space to hit a step-back, shades of Tony Skinn:

This was a great game for bench reactions. We’ll get to some more in a moment, but right now watch A) Kam break the ankles of Phiri, and B) Troy’s reaction on the bench, pointing to the spot where Phiri’s soul left his body:

You don’t need me to tell you La Salle’s defense was atrocious all night, but here’s one of the more fun examples of a total team brainfart. Shot goes up and no one boxes out the weak side:

Alright, now we’ll get to Marquise’s career-high 28 points. Short-handed La Salle didn’t have anyone who could hope to stay with him. Here’s a simple rub play he runs with Jalen to get himself in the post against a smaller defender. Gonna miss these two next year:

Marquise is so lethal because you can’t keep him out of the paint by single-covering him. If you send help, here’s what happens when your whole defense bends to keep Marquise from getting to the rim. Jaire has time for a nap between catching the pass and shooting:

This is also a good example of why Jaire getting hot from three is so important – the offense looks U-G-L-Y when teams collapse on Marquise in the paint and the shooters can’t hit the kickouts.

Here, the help is weak and Marquise is too fast. He hits a scoop shot and the bench goes nuts:

Marquise hits a three, one of three on the night. Look to the bench at Karmari’s disbelief as the ball is in the air. He can’t believe this shit:

And I love Marquise to death. Putting your guns in the holster after hitting three of your eleven career threes in the same game is laugh-out-loud funny:

One last tribute to Mason’s bench mob. There’s so much going on here:

Until next week, Mason fans. Go Patriots!

Welcome! We’re going to keep tabs on the A10 Player of the Year race every Friday here through the rest of the season. Per usual, this entry will have a bunch of numbers and random stuff. A couple other things you should know:

• I’m looking at conference play numbers only.
• The criteria for rankings is mostly in my head, but I’ll heavily favor a combination of efficiency, workload, and defensive production.
• I’ve got some stat quirks. I like points per field goal attempt (PPFGA) better than true shooting % or effective field goal %. It’s much easier to understand and cuts right to the heart of the matter – how many points does the guy produce every time he uses a shot attempt? You can argue this is more important than any other measure of shooting. I’ll mention other shooting percentages if they’re interesting or illustrative, but PPFGA is a great way to roll everything you want to know into one number.
• The purpose here isn’t to monitor who I think will win. It’s to monitor who I think should If it looks different than consensus, that’s good!

As usual, thanks to college basketball reference for the data. Here we go. Remember, numbers and analysis based off conference games only:

IN THE LEAD: Jaylen Adams, St. Bonaventure

18.9 points, 3.7 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 2.4 steals, 0 blocks

23.7 PER, 28% USG, 1.49 PPFGA

Jaylen Adams checks a lot of traditional player of the year boxes – he’s the best two-way player on a good team, he’s a point guard who’s getting NBA looks, and he’s a very legitimate defender. He’s only shooting 41.2% from the field in conference, but he’s getting to the line almost 8 times per game and hitting about 75%, which greatly boosts his PPFGA number. He actually takes more threes per game (7.1) than shots inside the arc (5.6), which makes his ability to get to the line even more impressive. For as well as he’s playing on offense, it’s his contributions on defense that have him at the top of the rankings. His 2.4 steals per game lead the rest of the POY candidate field by a wide margin.

NIPPING AT HIS HEELS: TJ Cline, Richmond

19.1 points, 8.7 rebounds, 6.3 assists, 1.1 steals, 0.2 blocks per game

26.2 PER, 29.2% USG, 1.39 PPFGA

TJ Cline is a fantastically skilled offensive player, and the numbers he’s putting up are huge. As a point of reference, Deandre Bembry won A10 POY last year with 17.5 points, 7.8 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.3 steals per game, and a PER of 22.6. Now, these numbers are boosted by Cline’s massive triple-double outing against Duquesne, so it’s likely that he comes back to earth a little bit. But Player of the Year is an award for stat accumulators, and no one in the conversation is filling up the box score like Cline right now. His efficiency numbers are also excellent, which shows he’s not just piling up numbers on volume. He’s relegated to the second spot because he gives the Spiders next to nothing for paint protection – he’s a big traffic cone on defense, and his inability to block shots reflects that. Yes, I’m basing that off nothing but his block numbers and the one game I watched him play against Mason. My rankings, my rules.

ALSO NIPPING AT HIS HEELS: Peyton Aldridge, Davidson

22.7 points, 8.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists, 1.6 steals, 0.9 blocks

29.5 PER, 26% USG, 1.49 PPFGA

Aldridge over Gibbs might be a surprise but look at those numbers again. It’s weird to think that those numbers aren’t even top two, but that’s how good the A10 POY race is right now. Peyton has been absolutely bananas in conference, and he’s making big contributions on both ends of the floor. He’s also playing 38 minutes per game (highest of anyone on the list) and hitting an insane 46% from three on 5.6 attempts per game. What’s holding him back is the fact that Gibbs has higher usage – it’s tough to call someone the A10 Player of the Year when they’re not the most prolific offensive player on their own team. However, his total box score and crazy high efficiency have more than earned him the third spot at this point.

STILL IN THE RACE: Marquise Moore, George Mason

16.3 points, 9.7 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.3 steals, 0.7 blocks per game

22.1 PER, 28.1% USG, 1.29 PPFGA

Marquise Moore is one of the more intriguing stories in the country, and he might be one of the most unique college basketball players in decades. As a 6’2” guard, he’s 17^th in the nation in rebounding. There are no other guards in the top 30. He doesn’t shoot threes – 1 for 3 in conference – due to a totally broken jump shot that has never been adequately explained. But his bread and butter is getting into the paint, and teams have trouble stopping him. Like Cline, he has a triple-double to his credit this season, but it was against Penn in the Palestra and thus doesn’t count for these rankings. Marquise is up here because of his defensive ability and the workload he’s shouldering for a Mason team that struggles to score when he goes to the bench. He’s slowed offensively in the last three games, which is reflected in his declining efficiency numbers. But if he strings a few big games together he could move up the rankings easily. His rebounding ability is more than cosmetic – Mason runs a small four-guard lineup and needs every one of those boards.

DARK HORSE: Kendall Pollard, Dayton

14.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.3 steals, 1.2 blocks

23.6 PER, 27.6% USG, 1.6 PPFGA

Pollard’s numbers aren’t eye-popping but he’s been very efficient, and his 2.5 steals + blocks per game are no joke. Dayton is 15^th in the country and first in the A10 in defensive rating, allowing 91.9 points per 100 possessions. Pollard’s contributions on that end need to be considered. He doesn’t have the raw box score contributions you expect to see in a player of the year winner, but he’s worked his way into the conversation.

NOT DEAD YET (not necessarily in order):

Jack Gibbs, Davidson

20.4 points, 3.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.2 steals, 0 blocks

22.9 PER, 28.8% USG, 1.3 PPFGA

Jack Gibbs is putting together another great season in a great career, but for the purposes of POY evaluation, he’s not contributing quite as much as the guys ahead of him.

Justin Tillman, VCU

15.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, 0.3 assists, 0.4 steals, 0.6 blocks

28 PER, 24.1% USG, 1.4 PPFGA

Tillman’s progress this year has been a pleasant surprise for VCU. His box score contributions are limited to points and rebounds, but he’s a player to watch.

Charles Cooke, Dayton

14 points, 4.4 rebounds, 3.1 assists, 1.7 steals, 0.9 blocks per game

18.1 PER, 28.5% USG, 1.27 PPFGA

Tyler Cavanaugh, George Washington

15.7 points, 7 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 0.3 steals, 0.3 blocks

19.8 PER, 29.1 USG%, 1.34 PPFGA

ON THE WATCH LIST:

Matt Mobley, St. Bonaventure

Hassan Martin, Rhode Island

Jordan Price, La Salle

Shawn’Dre Jones, Richmond

 

Check back next Friday for an update.