George Mason takes on Loyola (MD), looking to finish homestand strong

Mason looks to improve to 6-0 at home this season as they play their 5th consecutive home game tonight.  The Patriots were lights out shooting against UNCW in their last game and they will again be facing a poor shooting team in Loyola of Maryland.  Unlike UNCW however, the Greyhounds have a much better front court and are a better rebounding team. No one expects the Patriots to recreate what happened Saturday night as I can't imagine an opposing coach wouldn't make it a point to cover the perimeter.  It will be interesting to see if Mason can get more good play from their bench players who have been inconsistent in their efforts on defense thus far. I expect another balanced shooting night on offense with maybe not as many three-pointers taken this time but still a far amount.

If Loyola makes it a point to prevent Mason from reigning threes, I'm curious to see if they will run some plays for Mike Morrison and Ryan Pearson, something we haven't seen much of this season.  The reserve forwards still seem to be uncertain for Larranaga and his staff so I wouldn't be surprised to see Paris Bennett, Johnny Williams, and Jonathan Arledge get a few more minutes here and there tonight.  Larranaga will experiment with lineups and different "Green teams" in non-conference games like this as he and staff need to find who they can trust on defense form the bench during road games.

Recently Mason has been doing a lot of things well, shooting, making assists, and getting to the free-throw line. All of these areas are improvements for the team when you compare them to last year's squad at this point.  Although their shooting percentage numbers might go down as they start to play some better teams, you'd their ability to keep dishing out assists and get to the free-throw line doesn't.  Another area that needs to stay strong is on defense where the Patriots have held their last four opponents to under 38% shooting from the field. That's an impressive stat, but it remains to be seen if they can keep this up away from the Patriot Center and during the CAA schedule.