Game 16: GMU (9-6 / 1-1) vs Loyola Chicago (6-8 / 0-2) on Saturday, January 7, at 2:00 PM.

[DRK331]

Mason wins 86-75.

Malik Henry was amazing today. Glad he got lots of playing time.

 

[mkaufman1]

9-0 at home!

I loved that we tried some new lineups today. It’s obvious that the guys have been working hard and today Malik especially showed his hard work. I loved his effort on both sides of the ball.

Also thought Josh had a good game even though he went quiet in the second half for the most part.

Loved seeing Justyn getting extended run as well, thought he contributed and didn’t look lost on defense. I loved his breakaway dunk.

Loy chi sucks and right now would be in the pillow fight round, but any league win should be celebrated. That said, SLU on the road Wednesday is another tough game before coming home for Davidson and Gw which will also be tough ones. Really hope mason can grab a road win going into the small homestand.

 

[DRK331]

Post game:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1611836541885902849

 

[Patriotsince81]

Happy as H&ll with the result! Especially happy for Malik Henry. A good win on all counts. Sorry for @tblack33 though. Had a great time talking with him before the game and at halftime. Tied at the half he told me that Mason would win by 10 and that if we didn't drinks would be on him for the rest of my life. At least that's the way I remember it. Well, we won by 11 so I look forward to collecting for the foreseeable future.

 

[tblack33]

George Mason Mens Basketball

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Lots of guys with great games today to keep us undefeated at home, quick reminder the best way to support them is to buy things that go directly to their pocket, would love to see more player Ts during games at EBA

 

[gmubrian]

George Mason Mens Basketball

In partnership with Patriot Nation Collective.

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Lots of guys with great games today to keep us undefeated at home, quick reminder the best way to support them is to buy things that go directly to their pocket, would love to see more player Ts during games at EBA

I am going to take credit for Malik’s performance since I ordered one of his shirts yesterday. As was stated earlier in the thread, correlation has to mean causation…

 

[thebiasedannouncer]

Good game for multiple reasons

1: Just nice to see a relatively comfortable second half leading into a win.
2: Beat Kempom spread- always good
3: Bench shows up again, this time through Malik and JF. Good stuff.

 

[tblack33]

A lot of good to take from todays game, Oduro was wildly efficient in limited minutes, that was an absolute ninja 19 points. As stated elsewhere Henry had the best game of his career and I really like the way our offense moved with him out there. Fernandez had a good game with some real solid minutes off the bench, I’d like to see us start him or another wing over going two bigs while Ticket is out. Really liked the minutes out of Nnaji today, there were def some freshman mistakes in there but I saw him make some plays away from the action that won’t show up in the stat line, great boxing out and just very athletic for how big he is. Dude is built like a brick shit house, it seems like he took Blake Jones minutes off the bench for this one. Real solid win in a very questionably called game.

 

[psyclone]

........ Really liked the minutes out of Nnaji today, there were def some freshman mistakes in there but I saw him make some plays away from the action that won’t show up in the stat line, great boxing out and just very athletic for how big he is. Dude is built like a brick shit house, it seems like he took Blake Jones minutes off the bench for this one. Real solid win in a very questionably called game.

In looking at Elvis' line in the box score, I'm seeing lots of zeroes in 2 1/2 minutes, other than 2 fouls (although one was a terrible call for blocking on a made basket). And a -2 +/-. Are you sure you were watching the right guy? You did say his play won't show in the box score, so credit to you for noticing the less noticeable finer points of his game.

 

[tblack33]

In looking at Elvis' line in the box score, I'm seeing lots of zeroes in 2 1/2 minutes, other than 2 fouls (although one was a terrible call for blocking on a made basket). And a -2 +/-. Are you sure you were watching the right guy? You did say his play won't show in the box score, so credit to you for noticing the less noticeable finer points of his game.

Yeah just some little stuff I saw him doing that I didn’t expect, elbows in the chest of cutters, boxing out hard, setting hard screens when he didn’t know where to go in the offense. It wasn’t like he was earth shattering or anything but I was pleasantly surprised by what he showed defensively compared to what we normally get out of those few minutes. He also had a really nice seal and just got a little too excited and dribbled off his knee on the drop step. Again not earth shattering but was just a lot more than I expected for a dude who hadn’t seen a lot of meaningful minutes this season.

 

[GMUSSTN]

I've been doing a lot of work on my house so as far as league games go I've had the games on in the background while I take care of stuff. Here's the rundown so far:

Richmond: Win. Was painting my staircase during the whole game.
Bonnies: Loss. I was sanding and caulking the entire time.
Loychee: Win. Was painting the hallway and landing around the staircase.

Pretty safe to say that, while early, painting is the way to go. I should be done with most of the work by the next game so I'm planning on sitting and watching it, but I'll keep the brushes and rollers handy in case we start sucking and need some...points in the paint.

 

[Patriotsince81]

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMZkQFh4us4

 

[gmubrian]

I am so excited for Malik having such a great game. It couldn’t happen for a nicer guy and someone who is the epitome of a team player. Coach has frequently said he is the most accepting of his role in the team. Glad he got an opportunity to shine yesterday.

I don’t think it was mentioned yet, so, in addition to the absolutely amazing game Malik had on offense, I thought he played stellar defense. He is so fast in all regards and can stay in front of his man. He also hustles his a$$ off getting down court. He doesn’t look fast because of the height thing, but he repeatedly passed most of the other players getting down court. He is deceptively fast!

I would like to also point out that Malik’s numbers, notching career bests in points (15) and blocks (3) while grabbing five rebounds, he did all of that in just 17 minutes of playing time. That is being an impact player.

 

[gmujim92]

I am so excited for Malik having such a great game. It couldn’t happen for a nicer guy and someone who is the epitome of a team player. Coach has frequently said he is the most accepting of his role in the team. Glad he got an opportunity to shine yesterday.

I don’t think it was mentioned yet, so, in addition to the absolutely amazing game Malik had on offense, I thought he played stellar defense. He is so fast in all regards and can stay in front of his man. He also hustles his a$$ off getting down court. He doesn’t look fast because of the height thing, but he repeatedly passed most of the other players getting down court. He is deceptively fast!

I would like to also point out that Malik’s numbers, notching career bests in points (15) and blocks (3) while grabbing five rebounds, he did all of that in just 17 minutes of playing time. That is being an impact player.

Malik has shown flashes over his 2-plus seasons of the athleticism and explosiveness that earned him a scholarship to Mason in the first place. The next step is doing it with more consistency, which admittedly is difficult because his playing time tends to go up and down depending on Ojiako’s performance.

Big men at our level tend to take until their junior year for things to start clicking and that obviously has happened for Malik. The great thing is he’s a hard worker and because of COVID still has 2 more years of eligibility after this one … could certainly see a scenario where he’s the starting 5 after Josh is gone because his skills and awareness are improving by leaps and bounds, he doesn’t mind doing the dirty work and he brings an energy you don’t always see from that position in the A-10.

Purely from an athleticism perspective, Malik/Ronnie/Elvis/Justyn is something to build on for the next couple years.

 

[GMUSSTN]

Malik has shown flashes over his 2-plus seasons of the athleticism and explosiveness that earned him a scholarship to Mason in the first place. The next step is doing it with more consistency, which admittedly is difficult because his playing time tends to go up and down depending on Ojiako’s performance.

Big men at our level tend to take until their junior year for things to start clicking and that obviously has happened for Malik. The great thing is he’s a hard worker and because of COVID still has 2 more years of eligibility after this one … could certainly see a scenario where he’s the starting 5 after Josh is gone because his skills and awareness are improving by leaps and bounds, he doesn’t mind doing the dirty work and he brings an energy you don’t always see from that position in the A-10.

Purely from an athleticism perspective, Malik/Ronnie/Elvis/Justyn is something to build on for the next couple years.

Casual observation but we seem to play "different" when Josh is out and Ojiako/Malik are given a chance to stay on the floor. Obviously Josh's ability to draw attention and distribute make him the bigger threat even he's not scoring at his usual clip, but I was talking with my brother yesterday (VT fan, liked Ojiakio a lot) and it seemed to us like CKE's system has more to offer with athletic big men who are perhaps less skilled but have more speed/strength. Josh's breakout last year might have had us warp our strategy a bit around his game, which is fine, but Malik yesterday and Ojiako's performance overall has given me some hope that we won't be losing as much as we think when Josh moves on.

 

[Irish44j]

I don’t think it was mentioned yet, so, in addition to the absolutely amazing game Malik had on offense, I thought he played stellar defense. He is so fast in all regards and can stay in front of his man. He also hustles his a$$ off getting down court. He doesn’t look fast because of the height thing, but he repeatedly passed most of the other players getting down court. He is deceptively fast!

This is what I was thinking the whole time too. It seems to me that the other team's players seem to be more "scared" of his defense (not the word, but you know what I mean), compared to JO. I get the feeling a lot of the time that JO plays pretty soft defense in order to avoid getting fouls, and other big men (and guards) take some advantage of that. Malik seemed to play tougher down-low D than JO, it seems. Or could just be a perception.

 

[GMUSSTN]

I get the feeling a lot of the time that JO plays pretty soft defense in order to avoid getting fouls

Might have gotten in his head from last year, when if he was in foul trouble we didn't have the depth to stay in the game. I noticed in our first few games this year we were barely fouling anyone, which is technically 'good' but doesn't exactly threaten on defense.

 

[sleeperpick]

Might have gotten in his head from last year, when if he was in foul trouble we didn't have the depth to stay in the game. I noticed in our first few games this year we were barely fouling anyone, which is technically 'good' but doesn't exactly threaten on defense.

He gets into the same foul trouble this year as he has since he got minutes. For how quick his feet are offensively they have glue on them defensively. He has been this soft throughout his career. Having AJ covered that. Nothing has changed other than Josh has also stopped boxing out the majority of the season and is getting killed on the glass (not last game) last game he has one bad call and one questionable to get him his 4 fouls. Team also was much better without him in which seems to be a recurring theme for most of the year as well

 

[psyclone]

..... Team also was much better without him in which seems to be a recurring theme for most of the year as well

I know it may have seemed to be that we played better when he was on the bench, but Josh was +8 in 23 minutes while Malik was +2 in 17 min. Maybe we were holding our breath, thinking that Josh's absence would be more of a disadvantage than it was, and when Malik held his own and actually contributed offensively, it seemed like we were doing better without Josh on the floor.

 

[sleeperpick]

I know it may have seemed to be that we played better when he was on the bench, but Josh was +8 in 23 minutes while Malik was +2 in 17 min. Maybe we were holding our breath, thinking that Josh's absence would be more of a disadvantage than it was, and when Malik held his own and actually contributed offensively, it seemed like we were doing better without Josh on the floor.

Good point. I wonder if how bad we were in the first half brought Malik down. Eye test in the second half showed team taking a big lead with malik not josh in there