George Mason was in position to win this one against Old Dominion and had their chances despite having to deal with a hot Shooting Monarchs squad. Free-throw shooting, which has been downright awful to date this season, didn’t do them any favors in the closing moments. Patriots might have sealed the game if they could have went to the line and hit two free-throws. Of all the players on the court the last one you’d want at the line in this situation was Josh Oduro, and yep that’s who ended up there. Then on the final possession for Mason couldn’t make the stop and ODU hit the game winner with about 2 seconds remaining.
Not the best end of the game management we’ve seen from Kim English. Obviously he trusts his starters but you have to scratch your head a bit seeing how the end of that game unfolded and be left wondering if an adjustment could have easily gone the Patriots’ way. For all the praising done to describe how well this team has been on defense they came up short when it counted and allowed an opposing player to drop 30 points on them. Cooper is not a lock down defender and him being on ODU’s Chance Jenkins for the final shot with so little time remaining left many fans confused.
With all the grad players and guys who have played more than four years on the roster, you wouldn’t expect these type of breakdowns late in a game. Speaking of grad transfers though, Victor Bailey Jr. had another great game and looks to be finding some consistency shooting the ball. We also saw a season-high 21 minutes from Ginika Ojiako and scored 13 points. I do like seeing him more on the court as it seems like Oduro is still trying to find his form this year.
With the offense continuing to look better I think we will need to see this team take down some of the better A-10 teams with hot three-point shooting. It’s probably their biggest strength unless Oduro can assert himself more in the front court. I don’t particularly love watching this team live and die by their three-point shooting. When they’re hot they can look unbeatable, but we haven’t see much of that this year. The offense from Bailey, Cooper, and Gaines will need to be consistent for them to survive the A-10 slate. Cooper being held scoreless in 37 minutes just can’t continue to happen.
Mason has one more non-conference game at home against Coppin St. before opening A-10 play against Richmond. The conference as a whole doesn’t have many accolades through the first two months of the season so things still look fairly wide-open.
