Dick Weiss on College Basketball
St, Bonaventure grabbed most of the pre-season hype in the Atlantic 10 when the Bonnies, who swept the Atlantic 10 regular season and tournament titles and returned to the NCAA tournament for the second time in four years, landed in most Top 25 polls.
The small Catholic school in out of the way Olean, N.Y., which is coached by Mark Schmidt and returns all five starters, may well win again.
But there is a surprise team in the Atlantic 10.
George Mason, which had changed coaches from Dave Paulsen to 32-year old Tennessee assistant Kim English the off season and was picked in the bottom four of the 14 team conference, is suddenly 4-0 after pulling off a stunning 71-66 upset over nationally ranked Maryland at College Park.
Paulsen did not do a bad job during his six years at Mason. The Patriots were above .500 for four of the last five years. But they never made post-season.
English has reinvigorated this program with transfers– bringing in 6-7 fifth year forward D’ Shawn Schwartz, three-year starter and a 1,000 point scorer from Colorado; 6-7 forward Davonte Gaines, a talented, but seldom used sophomore forward from English’s last stop in Tennessee and 6-4 fifth year guard De Von Cooper, an All Ohio Valley Conference choice from Morehead State. All three had played in the NCAA tournament.
Schwartz averaged 15 points, shot 64.7 percent from three-point game range in two 2021 NCAA games. That included an 18-point performance in a win over Georgetown when he made 5 of 7 three pointers. Cooper scored a team high 21 points in a game against West Virginia when he knocked down 5 of 8 threes.
Both stepped up in Mason’s first ever victory over the Big 10 Terps after nine straight losses.
Schwartz scored a career high 24 points and Cooper added 16 as Mason withstood a frantic comeback bid that cut a 10 point lead to 58-56 before Cooper scored on a layup and Schwartz made a three point shot to push the margin back to eight with 3:06 to play.
“They are playing with incredible confidence right now and we’re not,” Terps coach Mark Turgeon. “We think we’re supposed to beat everybody. It’s not that way. It’s too hard. We didn’t vote ourselves 20th. And so you take everybody’s best shot. We don’t know how to handle it yet. As soon as we figure out how to handle it, we’re going to be a better team.”
Mason has been in fire to date, winning its first three games by at least 20 points and beating Morgan State by 37.
But this was a signature win.
The talented Terps pulled within 67-66 on a pair of threes by guard Eric Ayala in the final minute before 6-9 junior Josh Oduro, a pre-season All A-10 third team selection who was a star at Paul VI High’s national ranked high school team, scored inside and Ayala missed a game tying three.
Forward Donta Scott, a 6-8 sophomore forward from Imhotep in Philadelphia, had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Terps (3-1), who should be a contender in the Big 10 but had struggled against Vermont and GW., Against Mason, they shot just 9 for 28 from beyond the three point arc. could not score inside against Mason’s defense and couldn’t stop the Patriots’ balanced offense.
Schwartz, who shot 6 of 10 from the three, is a true believer in English, who spent last season as an assistant to Rick Barnes at UT. “That’s what he came here to do, to build this program up and win games like this,” Schwartz said. “Our standard is our standard, and that’s what we play to.”
