George Mason faced a Dayton team yesterday that had only seven scholarship players available and despite erasing an 18-point deficit, fell short of the win late in the game. A very winnable game for the Patriots that was also thwarted by some questionable officiating that ultimately led to Dave Paulsen being ejected. Although Mason had plenty of chances to control their own destiny down the stretch and just couldn’t get the final points they needed.
We saw Javon Greene and AJ Wilson come up big late in the game but it didn’t seem like Mason was aggressive enough when they needed it. They again relied a lot on freshman Tyler Kolek who led them in scoring (16) and went 4-for-9 on three-pointers. Too often we’ve seen Paulsen teams settling for outside jumpers and it plagued them again yesterday. Despite a depleted roster and Mason having success inside the paint they seem to get too cocky with their outside shooting. Paulsen seems committed to living and dying by three-pointers and I just don’t get it.
Let’s talk more about Javon Greene, he really showed up in the second half of this one after being benched against UMass just three days prior. His game here shows how important he is to the Mason to be a scoring threat each night. He can score in a variety of different ways and really fueled Mason’s run that gave them the lead in the second half. The question now is how do they keep him going at this rate as it seems to run hot and cold far too much.
It’s frustrating to watch Paulsen get ejected when the game wasn’t completely out of hand, no matter how bad he thought some of the late calls were. There’s a lot of mistakes and miscues we are seeing for him and the squad which is mostly veteran. Between this and the recent player suspensions you have to hope he’s managing everything and that this doesn’t spiral into a worse situation.
The next game against VCU could very well be postponed due to their program currently being on pause. They would face Richmond after that and then have a much more relaxed schedule that includes La Salle, Rhode Island and Saint Joe’s twice.
