George Mason fell to Washington 77-74 in their first game of the Crossover Classic last night. Despite a poor night shooting the ball and not getting many stops on defense Mason was still in it within the final seconds thanks to some heroics by DeVon Cooper. Live ball turnovers and foul trouble were big issues in this game and stalled them in the first half. D’Shawn Schwartz again had an off night and Xavier Johnson was also held scoreless. Also due to early foul trouble we saw a lot of Jamal Hartwell, who is a fine player but doesn’t need to be taking as many shots as he did. Mason has shown these last two games that they are not great outside of their top six guys.

They need their starters to click early or it’s an uphill struggle to get going on offense. They were 3-for-14 on three-pointers in the first half and only had Josh Oduro getting buckets. As good as Josh has been this year they can’t soley rely on him for their offensive production. Couple that with poor defense and Mason will continue to find themselves in these early holes. Washington’s zone defense should not have been that successful but it appeared to really stifle Mason and forced them into some bad shot selections.

This was another game in which Mason didn’t particularly play well and was still in it in the final seconds. Depth is probably going to be an issue this season as it’s pretty clear the top six guys are going to have to continue to play heavy minutes. I think they will eventually fix their issues on turnovers and offense, we’ve seen that they definitely have the talent. The point guard spot is still a bit of a weak point. When XJ struggles it really slows things down for the entire team. I think when Cooper starts bringing up the ball more we tend to see more turnovers.

Mason will now face Nevada tonight who were bludgeoned by South Dakota St. 102-75 yesterday.