By George
Welcome home, Tony. This episode is awesome. We deep dive into the roster, Tony’s offensive and defensive strategies, we learn a little about the coaches and just talk hoops. Mason Basketball is BACK!
Talk with Tony
Talk With Us EP3
#TalkWithUs EP2
Bryan and Chris featuring Kim English
In the second episode of Talk With Us, we ask coach English about his recent trip to the Peach Jam, deep dive into Oduro’s offseason, chat about some returning players and try to nail down the out of conference schedule. What would be considered a succesful season for Coach English? Listen and find out!
Talk With Us
Talk With Us featuring Bryan Chris and Coach English
We’re starting off Talk With Us with a slam dunk. Coach English takes us through the portal and breaks down every new addition to join Mason Nation. Where is Saquan gonna play? Will we see Ojiako and Oduro play at the same time? Which coaches recruited which players? This first episode is LOADED. Enjoy! #TalkWithUs
Erik Reynolds Will be at Mason Madness
By: Bryan
Photo Cred: Adam Ayalew
6’2 combo guard, Erik Reynolds, will be in Fairfax Friday night for Mason Madness. Most of you know how important this is. Typically, a lot of these Midnight Madness events fall on the same night or around the same days and if he’s choosing Mason and coming on his official visit, that’s pretty massive.
Hop over to his 247 sports page and get giddy real quick. It is a bit of a head-scratcher, a kid that borders the top 100 nationally, one of the best combo guards in the country, 5th best player in Maryland but his best offers are from A10 teams. This screams DP and a couple of other A10 coaches found a little gem. Expect him to receive better offers than he has currently, we’ve already heard rumblings of Syracuse sniffing around. One thing is for sure, the Giant Killer staff needs to get out there and see this kid play. Luckily he plays for Bullis School in Potomac Maryland so there will be plenty of opportunities.
He has offers from St. Joes, ODU, La Salle, East Carolina, Mt. St. Mary’s and George Mason. The hype will only build and here’s some evidence why –
Check out his athleticism – chase down block
Quick interview with Capitol Hoops – player of the game
Prep Hoops Spotlight – Erik Reynolds
I caught up with our guy, Adam Ayalew of Prephoops.com, and he had this to say about Erik, “He’s a crafty guard with a long and slender frame that will fill out over time. Has a knack for scoring from anywhere on the court. Gets downhill aggressively and has nice touch. Becoming a really good perimeter shooter and has always been very good defensively. He’s got about 10 D1 offers. Nothing higher than A10 yet.”
You should be excited about this kid, follow him on twitter and tell this man how much we’d love to have him in the Fax!
GW-UR-Dayton Quick Takes
-GW and Richmond were both a step in the right direction. Both fans and players showed up for the Revolutionary Rivalry, and both fed off of each others energy.
-Beating Richmond in Richmond is no easy task. Quality win.
-Top 25 team + Freshmen – our leading scorer = expected loss
-Green out…ehh, green-ish out.
-Jay Gruden in attendance for the Dayton game? He may want to keep an eye on Ian Boyd next year, future Redskin?
-The experience our freshmen are gaining this year will put them near that of a traditional junior at any other school.
-Who else felt chills after the Otis behind the back pass to Abram dunk?
-Scary to think how good this team can be in 2 seasons. If our team were a video game, our freshmen would be leveling up every game.
-Not televising an A10 matchup versus schools 100 miles a part…not good. Our win sounded great doe.
-Probably had more fun at the GW game than any win we’ve had at EBA/PC in the last 2 years.
-Kudos to Edwards, Cabrera and company for finalizing the long awaited practice facility. Please don’t half ass this facility upgrade. I’d love something similar to VCU’s but anything at this point would be a win.
-Practice Facility + Edwards + Quality team in 2 seasons + Quality coach = recruiting just got a whole lot easier.
-Practice facility won’t bring a Ben Simmons but will hopefully bring someone on the fence like a Tim Quarterman.
Mid-Season Report Card
As we approach the mid way point of the season, we are grading the performance of our team (thus far) in major categories using grade school metrics. Yes, I know, it’s unfair to grade a young team with a first year head coach but the grade won’t be dependent squarely on the national ranking but also taking in account progress through the season and the ol’ eye test.
Defense (122nd): B-
Have we held our opponents to just 69 points a game? Yes and thats pretty damn good. Games like Wright St. and Penn showed Mason Nation that the Patriots can play some legitimate defense. Holding opponents to some ridiculously low shooting percentages (see Wright St. box score) but has at times been a liability. When Mason needs a big stop or turnover, it’s been difficult to get.
Offense: (325th): C-
New scheme, young players, tough opponents will all play factors in a struggling offense. The National ranking puts us at 325th out of 351 teams. This number is deceiving, due to the slower style of play we typically have lower scoring games but either way, you traditional don’t want to be ranked near the bottom of any category. Have we looked bad offensively? Yes, look at our JMU, VCU, Colgate box scores. The proof is in the pudding, we shot terribly in those games but inconsistency is a trademark of a young team. Look at Mason’s most recent game, we scored 92 points. When a combination of; Moore, Otis, Grayer, Shevon, Abram get hot, watch out.
Rebound (30th): A
Shevon Thompson is ranked 12th in the nation in rebounds…Nuff said. There’s Moore to our rebounding than just Shevon. Our 6′2 PG Marquise Moore is averaging nearly 6 rebounds per game. That’s good for third on the team.
Turnovers (rather not): F
We don’t force many turnovers and we commit way too many. Definitely needs improvement.
3 point % (335th): D
We aren’t shooting the deep ball well, the statistics will prove that but one thing that I’ve noticed is that there are open looks. The shots will eventually fall as our team matures.
Freshmen: B+
Hope. There’s plenty of hope for the future of this program. Otis, Grayer and Abram have already made a name for themselves earning A10 Freshman weekly honors four times already. At times, they’ve been the only source of offense and have stepped up defensively in big games. Outside of few scoring slumps and turnovers (very common with freshmen) you have to think the future is pretty bright with this freshmen class.
Upperclassmen: C+
Moore makes this grade a “C” and Shevon adds the “+.” They have been great but cannot do it on their own. Many were looking to Jenkins, Royal, Holloway to bounce back this year but either due to inconsistency, health or just giving up, our upperclassmen haven’t stepped up like we need them to. Marko could’ve brought the grade up but Patrick Holloway dragged it down.
MVP: Moore