With the all the recent Atlantic 10 game postponements George Mason made an aggressive move to play at Kansas on Saturday night. You can see why Kim English was confident in his team after they put up an excellent showing nearly pushing Kansas to the brink before falling 76-67. Only having nine players available due to COVID protocols, Mason relied heavily on Cooper, Schwartz and Gaines. Josh Oduro had two early fouls that limited his minutes in the first half but the Patriots showed toughness up front on the boards despite not having any real back up big men available.
Mason came out aggressively shooting three-pointers and it kept them close all night long as they went 11-for-27 from there. They also had success getting to the free-throw line, something we haven’t seen all that much from them this season. It helped slow down the pace and prevent the Jayhawks from building a large lead at any point. Overall it was a good shooting night for the Patriots, as they were a three-pointer or two away late in the game from really making things interesting at Allen Fieldhouse.
However, turnovers continue to be an issue for Mason. In the first half Kansas had 14 points off turnovers and it prevented Mason from going on any type of run throughout the game. Ronny Polite, who recently made his season debut not too long ago, had four turnovers in less than 16 minutes of action.
The game is reminder that Mason will continue to rely mostly on their starters and while maybe having Otis Frazier and Malik Henry could have helped some last night it probably wouldn’t have made the difference. Oduro getting into foul trouble is always going to be a concern going forward in A-10 play as it seems English doesn’t trust him to play with two fouls in the first half. If they rebound like they did in this one it should be less of an issue against most teams in the conference however.
Hopefully Mason can develop some better options off the bench before we are midway through the A-10 schedule. Polite is erratic and they need some depth in the front court.
