Know the Foe: Davidson at George Mason

Davidson (10-3) at George Mason (9-4)

Dec. 31st, 2 PM, ESPN+

KenPom: Mason -6 (70%)

Torvik: Mason -5.5 (71%)

The last time we gathered for a preview, Davidson was going on the road with the opportunity to make a statement win. It didn't pan out, but the 'Cats did meet expectations against Temple, and they finished out the non-conference slate well enough to pass the Pillow Fight Bubble line to get into Torvik's Top 6 Contender territory:

That's right, Sports Fans: Davidson has the second best offense in the league once again, and the 'Cats are (at last) the best 3PT shooting team in the Mighty Atlantic Ten at 37.2%. That's more than good enough to be a Quality Team in this league -- provided it can be maintained against the assorted top 50 defenses in the conference.

The opener in conference play sees us facing one of those teams on the road in George Mason. The last two meetings with the Patriots have ended in heartbreak for the 'Cats, with an unfortunate 67-65 setback in Fairfax in 2023 and a gnarly 57-55 loss in Belk in 2024. Hopefully, the trend is reversed this year, and we don't see something along the lines of 47-45. However, I cannot make any promises.

GMU's Profile

Mason hopes to make the leap to Contender status in year 2 under Tony Skinn, and they've looked like a beefier version of last year's team on the defensive end. On offense, they play like a team who lost their best player and hasn't fully meshed yet, which they did in the form of Keyshawn Hall's transfer to UCF. However, they kept his an heir apparent one of the A10's best wing scorers, and one hell of a Old School big man rotation to complement their smash-mouth defense. They're going to play a halfcourt game, so expect another low possession rock fight like the last couple of meetings in the series.

Can they find consistency on offense and gel their array of talent to compete in the A10? Are they a true dark horse? Can Davidson compete with a double bye hopeful on the road? It's time to find out.

Offense

The two Dudes who should scare you more than anyone else are C Jalen Haynes (12.8 / 7.2 / 0.8) and G Darius Maddox (14.1 / 2.8 / 1.5). The former is the most bruising interior player Davidson will have seen since Gonzaga's Graham Ike or Zona's Tobe Awaka. He checks in at 265, though he's 3 inches shorter than Davidson's two centers at 6'8". He gets 30% of possessions and takes 29% of Mason's FGs while on the court. Mason wants him to get the ball early in the shot clock and in transition to start things off with a backdown in the post. He also does a lot of work getting the ball to the guards with dribble hand offs on the perimeter, and he's mobile enough to quickly slip into the post off this action. Once there, he can finish with both hands, but he especially loves his natural lefty hook. Davidson has to be prepared to deny him the ball early in the shot clock, and Joe Hurlburt needs to lace up and be ready to play 20+ minutes: he's the beefiest option the 'Cats have at a solid 6'11 and 240. Haynes is very much a Traditional Big, though; he's not an electric playmaker, doesn't want to attempt threes (0-6 on the year), and is a quite poor FT shooter at 57%. Hack-a-Haynes might be the move for Davidson if he gets the ball late in a close game. If there's any other deficiency in his game, it's the same deficiency that's plagued Mason all year: turnovers. He gives it up on 21.7% of possessions, which is not ideal for a big man. He can kick the ball out to shooters just fine, so Davidson will have to get creative with traps and doubles if they want to keep rolling with the 4 guard lineup we've seen recently.

The perimeter threat is Maddox, who is one of the best shooters in the A10 despite not shooting that well so far this year. He shot 41% out there last year, but is 18-57 this year. That's one way of saying he's kinda due for a nuclear stretch from deep. He shoots far more from outside the paint, but I would still say he's a legit three level scorer, as he's at about 45% from midrange (16-36) and a very solid 17-29 on Close Twos. He's the only major contributor on the team who almost never turns the ball over: he's at an 8% turnover rate while everyone else in the rotation is at about 15% or higher. However, he's not an especially gifted playmaker, as the assist numbers would suggest.

If I told you there was a guy shooting 32% on twos and 43% on threes, you'd probably assume it was the product of small sample size noise. Well, those are K.D. Johnson's shooting splits so far this year on a fair number of attempts, and if you know anything about him, those numbers are actually quite unsurprising. Johnson is in his 5th year of CBB, and it's a shame this is his last, because he may have been the most interesting player in the sport during that time. During his freshman year at Georgia he looked like a future All-SEC type player, shooting 39% from three and averaging 13.5 a game off the bench. He transferred to Auburn for 3 eventful years, where he went from the Alpha on the 2022 2 seed to a bench piece who didn't crack 50% of minutes played last year. Johnson is now the sixth man for Mason, but he runs point more than anyone else. He can be completely brilliant or utterly mystifying from one possession to the next, as he's been his entire career. Case in point: here are the players with a 25% assist rate or better in the A10 this year (shoutout to Reed):

No one else in the top 12 has a turnover rate above even 20%. Johnson's sits at a ghastly 33%, which leads the entire conference. However, when he's on the floor, he gets the most possessions (24.5%) outside of Haynes for a reason; he gets to the rim with absolutely reckless abandon, generating a lot of looks for teammates or free throws for himself. I don't mean to slight him -- I devote plenty of words to him because he's had an incredibly unique career -- but whenever he shoots, you should probably celebrate. He's shot the three well at 43% so far this year, but that's on low volume (he's more like a 32% career shooter). He's a relentless driver, but not so much a relentless finisher, as his 10-31 line on 2PT FGs would suggest. TL;DR: if a possession ends with him shooting, it's usually a good thing. I say usually because he can get On One and randomly give you 20, though that hasn't occurred yet this season.

The other big presence for Mason is Giovanni Emejuru (9.5 PPG / 5.2 REB), who also comes in at a healthy 265, but is the taller option at 6'11. He doesn't have the same face up skills as Haynes, but he's got a gaudy offensive rating at 123.7, which is borderline top 10 in the league. He's at a ridiculous 70% on 2PT FGs this year. Since they're both non-shooters (Emejuru hasn't even attempted a three), the two of them are rarely on the floor at the same time, with Haynes getting a shade over half the minutes at center. They're also both ridiculously good offensive rebounders, as you'd expect a massive human being to be: Emejuru is 14th nationally (!) at 17.0%, and Haynes is 61st at 14.1%.

If someone other than Haynes, Emejuru, or Maddox attempts the shot, that's probably a good outcome for Davidson. Combo G Brayden O'Connor (9.2 PPG, 2.8 AST) and W Zach Anderson (6.0 PPG) are real threats at 38% and 48% from deep, respectively. O'Connor is the PG sans Johnson, but his turnover numbers are Not Good (24.5%). F Woody Newton has been brutal at 19% from deep on the year, while G Jared Billups is another non-shooter (2-11 on 3PTs) who plays big minutes without a lot of possessions. They're both threats as slashers, though.

Squint and you can see a similar blueprint as the Temple game for Davidson, as Mason is another athletic, physical team that doesn't take too many threes (35.5% attempt rate) and lacks electric playmaking (aside from Johnson). The difference is that Mashburn is more of a pure isolation scorer than Maddox, and Haynes/Emejuru are more traditional bigs. Davidson has got to mix up the 1-3-1 and man-to-man to generate pressure, and they have be solid when trapping Mason's bigs (they got some good practice against EMU doing exactly this). The good news is that Davidson controlled 90% of the game against that Temple team on the road. The bad news is that while Davidson's zone will generate turnovers, it will also provide ample opportunities for 2 elite offensive rebounders. And, of course, that they lost to Temple because of pressure. Speaking of pressure...

Defense

#PatriotPressure has been a very real phenomenon this season. Mason has a very good defensive scheme, which takes away the easy buckets that traditionally open up Davidson's outside shooting. When it comes to drives, you'll see Mason happily help off the corner, which is a big reason their opponents take 45% of shots from deep. Getting into the lane is nasty work, as Mason has no fear about putting pressure on whoever has the rock. The result of this is that opponents are shooting an absolutely disgusting 41.3% on twos, which is 4th best in the entire nation and in freaking Houston territory. GMU won't necessarily press full court (though I would probably press Davidson the entire game), but their guards are all very athletic and solid defensively. They're quite disciplined when it comes to stunting and recovering, and they have no fear of helping off one pass away.

If I had to pick out the best point-of-attack defender in the A10, I'd probably go with K.D. Johnson. The pure aggression that makes him erratic on offense enables him to be an absolute pest on defense. He's not Zakai Zeigler or anything, but he's Damn Good and puts serious pressure on opposing guards; he did it for 94' against Penn. If I had to guess, he's going to be on Connor Kochera for a lot of this one, which will inhibit Davidson's best slasher.

Haynes and Emejuru aren't particularly elite defenders if you're going off BPM, and their rim protection isn't anything special. When it comes to ball screens, the bigs will want to be in drop coverage to entice long twos. Tulane was able to draw the Mason bigs out to the perimeter by playing 5 out, and they at least covered against the Patriots by shooting 37% from deep. Penn also played 5 out offense...they did NOT hit the open threes they needed to stay competitive, but at least they generated them.

Off the top of my head, Davidson probably needs to make a dozen threes or more to win this game, considering they're very likely to take 25 or more. That's good, since Davidson has shot 41% from three in December. Mason also should be due for regression from their opponents' ungodly 28% 3P% so far -- you can only help one pass away so often before you're burned. Their opponents last year shot 35% from outside, but these things don't always shake out the way you expect. It's college basketball.

Keys to the Game

Everyone's Mother now knows that Mason struggles with pressure, and almost everyone they've played has shown them a different version of it. Mount St. Mary's pressed Mason and held them to 64 points with a 24% turnover rate. Penn pressed Mason, then shifted to a more of a matchup zone in the half court. They played the Patriots close for most of the first half, but couldn't hit shots and didn't have the athleticism to do it for a full 40. Tulane pressed Mason some and also ran a bit of matchup zone. Haynes was 4-11, but Mason still put up 76 and 1.15 PPP.

Davidson doesn't have the chops to get into the mud with Mason like last year's 57-55 game in Belk. The 'Cats defense may not quick enough to press, but they've forced a turnover on about 18% of opponent possessions since mixing in the 1-3-1, which is notably up from the roughly 15% on the year from beforehand. Mason is 6-0 with a TOV% below 20% on the year, so Davidson needs to get creative and be disciplined when they pressure the ball.

For Davidson, sometimes it really is as simple as hitting shots: the 'Cats are 10-0 with an eFG% better than 50% and 0-3 otherwise. Mason has the versatility to neutralize Davidson's Big Three, at least in part. That means someone else has to take an expanded role in this increasingly five out offense -- it might be Mike Loughnane taking more threes like he did against EMU, it might be Roberts Blums getting a couple of tough buckets against the drop or spotting up in the corner. Reed Bailey must once again flash his skilled distribution. He'll get one on ones in the post and can exploit them with his height advantage, but Haynes's phsyicality and the aggressive scheme will necessitate smart decision making. I think he'll also have to take a couple of threes -- and hopefully make them. Anything inside is going to be tough sledding for the other 'Cats.

Finally, Joe Hurlburt has to build on his solid performance. It's a lot to ask for Reed to play center all night against two very phsyical big men, and Hurlburt can help him out. On offense, I suspect he'll also get an open look for three at some point, and he needs to make his presence felt on the offensive glass to prevent Mason from building a big Shot Volume advantage -- their defensive rebounding is nothing to write home about, in part because opponents attempt so many threes.

If Davidson hits threes, this will be close the whole way. This is going to be a great one if you love big man offense, and it's going to be a great barometer for Davidson's ability to challenge for the top 6.

Predictions:

1. Davidson attempts north of 30 threes for the fourth time this season, and someone not named Blums or Buckets will set a season high in made threes.

2. The 'Cats keep Haynes and Emejuru below 15 by mixing up coverages, but one of them has at least 5 offensive rebounds.

3. First to 60 wins.