Previewing CBI: George Mason at Charleston

The season continues for George Mason tonight as they are at Charleston for the first round of the CBI post season tournament. Charleston is joining the CAA next season and the Patriots won at this arena just last season. In that game Ryan Pearson shredded the Cougars for 35 points and Mason shot 8-16 from behind the three-point line against their zone defense. Charleston has a much better defense than last season but got blasted in their last game against Davidson in the conference championship. Both teams are coming off disappointing endings to their conference tournament runs and will be looking to end the year on a higher note. 

It will be interesting to see how Paul Hewitt approaches this game. Do some of the younger guys get more action or does he basically stick with what they were doing in the CAA tournament? Either way I'd expect to see a lot of Marko Gujanicic and Bryon Allen. Both had great performances in Richmond and they need that to carry over into next season. Corey Edwards and Erik Copes struggled however and both were non-factors in that loss to Northeastern. Will that alter the rotation at all here? We'll have to see.

Bryon Allen and Jonathan Arledge will enter next season as second scoring options. If Allen keeps up what he's been doing lately I think this team could be much improved next season on offense. Arledge has had his moments late in the year and proved he's more dangerous than Johnny Williams. I doubt we will see Williams during this tournament and hopefully they use this time to continue to develop Arledge. 

I'd like to see them do things that get Allen and Arledge more involved on offense. Too often this year, out of a timeout or late in a game, they tried to force things to Sherrod Wright. Teams get wise to that pretty quick and they need to be confident in their other guys. They also need more balance on offense next year and can't always depend on Wright to score 25 points. 

Defensively, there are more problems, as you know. They never seem to be able to make a stop when they need to and teams often go on big runs. Never getting a shot off during Northeastern's late game-winning run was especially embarrassing to witness. Being out of position and sloppy fouls are the biggest problems here. They were better against Drexel but reverted back to their old ways against Northeastern. 

If they are using this tournament to think about next season these are the things they need to start working on.