City of Basketball Love

By Jared Leveson (@jared_leveson)
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OLNEY — It was a tale of two halves for the La Salle men in their Atlantic 10 opener against George Mason. 

The Explorers went into the halftime break with a 43-37 lead, but everything went haywire afterwards. La Salle couldn't buy a bucket, and George Mason couldn't miss in a 77-62 drumming on Wednesday night at Tom Gola Arena.

La Salle (9-5, 0-1) hasn't won an A-10 opener since 2019, and Wednesday was the first loss all season in the seven games where it led at halftime. 

The Explorers struggled shooting out the gate in the second half and went 1-of-13 in the half's opening eight minutes. George Mason found their rhythm offensively, went on a 13-0 run, and took a 50-46 lead with 11:56 left on the clock. The Patriots never looked back.

"[In] the second [half], we were not the same team," head coach Fran Dunphy said. "I thought George Mason turned the screws up defensively, and we didn't react quite like we needed to. We couldn't score, and that was the story of the game, and we didn't do a great job on the defensive end in the second half.

"We were not the same team in the second half and that's gotta be on me."

La Salle went 37% from the field after making 51% in the first. They couldn't score in the second half, shooting an abysmal 22%. George Mason shot 52.7% from the field for the game and hit 57% of their shots in the second half. 

The Patriots' defense came into the contest ranked second in the A-10 in opposing field goal percentage (37.8%) and lived up to their billing in the second half. 

George Mason's defense began pressing out on La Salle's guards, disrupting the offenses' timing and making everything difficult. Their closeouts were precise, and their hands were up. 

They mitigated La Salle's success with on and off-ball screens, giving them little space to operate. 

Jhamir Brickus led the Explorers with 19 and got his 1,000th career point but was denied easy looks by George Mason's defense. Khalil Brantley added 17 of his own. Redshirt freshman Ryan Zan got his first career start in place of sophomore Rokas Jocius and finished with 10; however, he got shut out in the second half. Jocius contributed five points in 14 minutes off the bench.

“The last game we played he had 10 minutes and four fouls, so we talked to him a little bit about coming off the bench and lets get 20 minutes instead of 10 minutes,” Dunphy said of Jocius.

La Salle's next highest scorer was Andres Marrero, who had six on two made threes. Anwar Gill struggled to go 1-for-10 from the field, too. 

George Mason's defense was aggressive yet clean. La Salle only shot nine free throws, making seven. 

"When we did get it to the rim, we didn't finish. That's critical for us," the 32-year head coach in his second season at La Salle added. 

La Salle went into the halftime break with the lead because of their defense, which has shown that they can harass opposing offenses. The Explorers are ranked second in Division I in steal percentage (6.2%) and are 29th nationally in turnover percentage. 

George Mason shot 48.3% from the field but turned the ball over seven times in the first half. Dunphy's defense swiped the ball away four times and swatted three shots. 

But they couldn't replicate that success because they lost the board battle. The Patriots came into the contest leading the A-10 in rebounding margin (+6.3), and they bullied La Salle on the glass, 41-23. 

The most significant difference came on the offensive glass. George Mason gathered 10 to La Salle's five, which put further pressure on La Salle's defense, giving the A-10's second-best shooting percentage team (47.9%) extra opportunities. 

"The offensive rebounding is the critical piece," Dunphy said. 

In the final frame, Keyshawn Hall and George Mason outscored the Explorers 40-19. The sophomore transfer from UNLV posed the biggest threat to La Salle all night, and he delivered. The 6-foot-7 Ohio native finished with 27 points and 13 rebounds (two offensive), his eighth double-double this season. He averages 16.7 points per game, shooting 48% from the field.

Darius Maddox, a 6-foot-5 senior, finished with 15 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the field, including 3-for-4 from three.

George Mason's roster went through a complete overhaul, adding nine new scholarship players, including seven via the transfer portal and two first-year students. It's paying off for first-year head coach Tony Skinn this season. The Patriots' win got their record to 12-2 (1-0), their best start to a season since the 1983-1984 campaign.

They came into this contest ranked 76th in the NCAA NET rankings, their highest since the metric was introduced in 2018. La Salle, who got picked to finish last in the A-10 Preseason Poll, is now 3-9 all-time against George Mason. 

Despite exceeding expectations by finishing 9-4 in their non-conference schedule, plenty of work remains left for this group as they embark on A-10 play. Tonight's game was their second straight loss. They lost to Howard last Saturday 71-66, which broke their seven-game winning streak at home.  

"We need to continue to work," Dunphy said. "We don't have a lot of margin for error."

The Explorers will look to break their two-game losing skid as they venture up to Rose Hill in Bronx, N.Y., for a Saturday matinee against Fordham (7-7, 1-0), which needed three overtimes to beat George Washington on Wednesday.