Mason needed over time to get the win last night against Cal State Northridge with Jaire Grayer injuring his knee in the first half and two other starters struggling. Freshmen Goanar Mar (22 points, 11 rebounds) and AJ Wilson (12 points, 8 blocks) helped fuel Mason’s come from behind victory. Otis Livingston II finished with 20 points and five assists but Ian Boyd and Justin Kier struggled to get going. Mason needed it’s younger players to step up and they answered the call. I think they proved in this game that despite their depth being limited, they have eight guys who all can play and play well together as a unit.
Dave Paulsen said in the post game presser that he did not believe Grayer’s knee injury to be serious but we’ll certainly know more in the next few days with the Cancun games getting underway. However it was great to see this team overcome a bad start and get a lift from the bench in AJ Wilson.
Wilson’s coming out party showed the promise we all saw in this kid over the summer at Kenner League. He was blocking shots like the crazy and was even hitting three pointers:
Another AJ three pic.twitter.com/fDL0RjENB2
— Ryan Kish (@gmuhoops) November 19, 2017
And oh yes, giving us a two-handed dunk as well:
AJ Wilson with the two-handed dunk! pic.twitter.com/MpKHbbNgN6
— Ryan Kish (@gmuhoops) November 19, 2017
Wilson eight blocks (2 away from school single-game record) are crazy given that he only played 22 minutes. It would be a huge lift for this team to establish a rim protector on the back end going forward this season.
More on the @Justdewit12 block party:
8 swats from AJ ranks t-2nd most in the country this year in a single game #GetPatriotic pic.twitter.com/ar3BJZhWG4
— Mark LaFrance (@GoMasonSID) November 19, 2017
Goanar Mar continues to get better each game and last night he showed us he can be a go-to scorer for this team. Mason needs it’s five starters to all be on their games but it was encouraging to see the younger guys be the driving force behind this comeback win.
It worries me that they had trouble making stops at multiple points during this game. CSUN is a pretty bad team and somehow they were able to shoot the ball extremely well for a large portion of this game. Mason gave the ball the away a lot with 15 turnovers and fouled much more than they had in other games this year.
However it was great to see them finally re-establish themselves at the free-line. They went 19-for-20 from there and Mar was 7-7. This will be a big factor this week in Cancun, especially and Grayer and Kier are limited with injuries.
Highlights:
Video
Post game presser:
