Atlantic 10 Basketball: In-depth look at George Mason guard Brayden O' Connor

This week the Mid Major Breakout player series takes us to the Atlantic 10 conference. The league is trying to get back to being one of the premier mid major conferences in the sport and with a preliminary look at the rosters for 2024-2025 it looks like that goal is not far off. The league saw a resurgence of some of the perennial powers last year with UMass and Richmond having great seasons.

Atlantic 10 fans were treated to an extremely competitive league last year as well. Duquesne was the team who ended up winning the league tournament and joined at large Dayton in the NCAA tournament. Each of those teams won their opening round game and started to put Atlantic 10 basketball back into conversations about who is the best mid-major conference.

Let’s focus on another team that is trending way up in the league and has been for the last few seasons and that is the George Mason Patriots. Head coach Tony Skinn enters his second season at George Mason and the first season was a successful one. The Patriots won 20 games and finished .500 in the league. It was the second season in a row that George Mason has won 20 games in a season and the hope is that the Patriots are going to be able to turn last year’s success into a jumping-off point for this season and hopefully get themselves into the postseason.

Coach Skinn heads into his second season with a lot of talent but it is talent that has not played very much together. Much of the roster was assembled through the transfer portal but there is one player who stands out as a player who is likely going to have a huge year for George Mason. A season ago it was Keyshawn Hall, a transfer who had a huge year leading the Patriots and this year it is another transfer, from a smaller school, who is going to have a huge breakout year for coach Skinn. Brayden O’Connor is a talented guard who is transferring up with the hopes of finding a lot of success in the Atlantic 10.