George Mason heads to Towson to take on a surprising Tigers team

The Towson Tigers are currently in second place in the CAA standings. I'm sure they'd be more excited if they were actually eligible to win the CAA's autobid to the NCAA tournament. They are a far cry from last year's squad that won only one game and went a calendar year without a victory. Georgetown transfer Jerrelle Benimon is a big reason for this year's turn around and he's playing like a conference player of the year. He's been all over the court this year, averaging 17 PPG, 11.7 RPG and shooting around 55% from the field. Early foul trouble is an obvious worry for George Mason in this one and they won't win without discipline on defense.

The Tigers are not a strong perimeter shooting team, something that goes in the Patriots' favor. Patrick Stevens, who has covered multiple George Mason and Towson games this season, says it would be in the Patriots' best interest to play zone defense:

If I'm George Mason on Wednesday, I come out in a zone and stay there until forced to change schemes. Towson doesn't deal with it well.
— Patrick Stevens (@D1scourse) January 22, 2013

Zone can be effective against a team that doesn't consistently hit outside shots and Towson doesn't have many three-point shooting threats. Georgia State beat them the other night playing zone and it can work for Mason if they cut down on the fouls inside. Mason has done a much better job on the boards lately and forcing Towson into bad shots and feasting off the rebounds will be a key for them.

Controlling Benimon inside is going to be a tough task for Erik Copes, Johnny Williams and Jon Arledge. As a group they have had a real difficult time defending without fouling. And with Marko Gujanicic playing better recently, he's probably going to be getting more minutes and will need to play better on defense. Paul Hewitt seems to favor some of these forwards on any given night if they are scoring. Sometimes the guy isn't playing great defense but he leaves them in there anyway. This is where a lack of a second leading scorer is really killing them, because if one of them is scoring, Hewitt has no choice but to leave them in. I was hoping the rotation would be a little more stabilized at this point and I still feel that Hewitt is playing too many guys and it's hurting the team.

[Photo by John Powell]