A-10 Basketball: 7 positives and negatives from first month of 2021-22 season

A Modern Redux

An 0-3 Thanksgiving week really killed the momentum from George Mason’s upset win over Maryland but the Patriots still look like a Top Half A-10 team, which is remarkable itself.  After the hiring of Kim English, Mason’s four best players from last season, Jordan Miller, Tyler Kolek, Josh Oduro, and Javon Greene, entered the transfer portal, leaving the roster pretty barren.  So English set about on a mission that was basically impossible in college sports a few years ago, a rapid rebuild.

English convinced Oduro to stay, landed two transfers he knew from previous assistant coaching jobs, D’Shawn Schwartz from Colorado and Devonta Gaines from Tennessee, and got Morehead St transfer DeVon Cooper.  These four now represent the core of this year’s George Mason team.  Oduro (16.9 ppg, 6.0 rpg) and Schwartz (15.3 ppg, 5.6 rpg) are both serious All-Conference candidates and can take turns with each other and Cooper in leading a versatile offensive attack, featuring Oduro’s overpowering post-game, Cooper’s outside heat-check ability and Schwartz’ off the bounce attacking skills.

Gaines is already the glue that holds the team together after just a few months with the program, a fact that represents the future of college basketball. Coaches will have a chance to overhaul a team in any given spring and while George Mason will likely be a middle of the pack team when conference play rolls around, they looked like a lock for the Bottom 4 in early April.

The best Hollywood remakes aren’t of great movies, they are of flawed pictures with untapped potential and Kim English has made a fascinating series of fixes to make George Mason relevant from the beginning of his tenure.

Honorable Mention

Quisenberry, Daye, and Neptune’s Shirt: There are finally signs of life at Fordham, thanks to Kyle Neptune’s revamped offense led by transfer guards Darius Quisenberry (19 ppg) and Antonio Daye Jr (18.3 ppg, 3.3 apg).  The Rams are 291st in offensive efficiency, which still sounds awful until you realize that they haven’t finished Top 300 the last five years, and already have wins over two Top 200 teams (Akron, Rice), which Fordham hasn’t accomplished in the non-conference since 2017.

Malachi Smith: He was mentioned earlier, but Dayton’s starting point guard of the next four years deserves a few more sentences. Dayton’s lowest-ranked freshman, he barely played until seeing heavy action and dragging the Flyers back against Lipscomb.  He proceeded to get at least five assists in each of his four starts since that game and while he’s not a heavy volume shooter, he is unafraid of the moment and already understands that he is the team’s steady hand.  His shot to cut Kansas’ lead to one (1:35) was the work of a veteran point guard:

Yuri Collins: 7.7 assists a game!

Light The “L”: La Salle, a struggling program, seriously decorated their arena with a huge light-up “L” for celebrations.  Maybe they don’t understand memes or social media, or maybe they want to attention the inevitable joke would bring but I have to assume that they really loved the idea of putting their own spin on the Cubs “Flying The W”, only they thought the “W” stood for Wrigley and not win.