by Patrick Stevens
 
George Mason coach Tony Skinn isn’t the sort to puff up his team before any games are played. And the way his Patriots clearly sputtered to the finish last season helped provide a map for what needed to be added in the offseason.
 
Skinn believes the problems that spilled out in February and March have been fixed, giving Mason an opportunity to make a run at the top of the Atlantic 10 standings.
 
“I love what I’ve seen from this group,” Skinn said. “We lost pretty much our whole team from last year and had to refill it with 11 players. I think in the months we spent with these guys, the overall competitive spirit that I’ve seen from 1 through 15 has been phenomenal. I’m pretty pessimistic in October, but for the first time in my head coaching career, I’m pretty optimistic about this group.”
 
Consider that for a moment. As a first-year coach, Skinn oversaw a 20-win team. The next season, the Patriots went 27-9, shared the regular season title with VCU and lost to the Rams in the conference final.
 
And even last year, which ended on a sour note, still delivered 23 victories despite an injury that shelved veteran guard Brayden O’Connor after the first game of the season.
 
O’Connor’s back, and so is Baraka Okojie for his second stint with the Patriots. Both bring plenty of competitiveness, as does Northern Illinois transfer Makhai Valentine, who checked the biggest box of all on Skinn’s wish list.
 
Not scoring, though he can do that. No outside shooting, though he is plenty respectable there.
 
“He’s just so tough,” Skinn said. “He can make shots and all those different things, but you’re going to feel him on the floor. He’s to me not exactly Jared Billups defensively, but close, and a lot better offensively.”
 
A LOOK AT THE PATRIOTS:
Coach: Tony Skinn, third season at George Mason, 70-31 with the Patriots and overall.
 
Last year: The Patriots got off to a 20-2 start and were 8-1 at the midpoint of conference play before things began to unravel. Mason endured a four-game skid in February, though showed some spunk with a 29-point rout of Saint Louis in the regular season finale to secure a fifth-place finish. However, losses in their openers in the A10 tournament and the NIT left the Patriots at 23-10 overall and 11-7 in the league.
 
They’ll miss: Mason’s top six scorers all left, either via transfer or exhausted eligibility. Guard Kory Mincy (14.3 ppg, 3.6 rpg) was the Patriots’ best player last season, while Jahari Long (12.2 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 4.0 apg) led the team in assists. Both shot better than 37 percent from 3-point range, combining for more than half of the team’s made 3s last season.
 
Impact returners: O’Connor is in his third year in the program, but since he only played in one game last season, he doesn’t account for much returning production.
 
That leaves two members of last season’s rotations who are back. Emmanuel Kanga (4.6 ppg, 5.3 rpg) improved as the year unfolded and shot 62.3 percent from the field during A10 play. He’s likely to have greater responsibilities in the frontcourt. And veteran wing Malik Presley (3.2 ppg, 1.5 rpg) faded in the second half due to injuries, but is an important part of Mason’s connective tissue as a team.
 
Newcomers of note: There are a bunch of them. Okojie, who began his career at Mason three seasons ago, is back after stops at Memphis and Mercer. Athletic wing Efeosa Oliogu-Elabor joins his fellow Canadians O’Connor and Okojie as scoring threats after transferring from Butler. Forward Elijah Jones averaged 13.1 points and shot 38.6 percent from 3 last year at Texas-El Paso. Valentine is a rugged, rebounding guard. And Shane Pendergrass arrives as a top-100 freshman.
 
They’re hardly the only ones who could have an impact, though there’s a decent chance all of them will become familiar names to fans around the Atlantic 10 by March.
 
Reasons to be optimistic: Skinn didn’t like the way last season ended, but even before the Patriots’ late slide, he was uneasy about how they had strayed from their defensive identity.
Granted, it was always going to be difficult to be quite so sharp at that end without Jared Billups, a defensive stalwart in Skinn’s first two seasons. But Mason’s staff was determined to get back to that style of ferocity this season.
 
“I’ve got four or five guys who can be a pest on the basketball,” Skinn said. “Last year, I thought we put so much pressure on Kory to do it, and it was Kory only. Everyone else hadn’t done it before or they weren’t capable of doing it. I think this year with Brayden, with Baraka, with Makhai, with the freshman Peyton Miller. We just have to get back to who we are from a defensive standpoint and let everything else figure itself out.”
 
X factor: O’Connor’s presence was missed on the court last season, when he was a preseason first team all-league pick. He checked in on the preseason third team this season, but he has a chance to be every bit as valuable for the Patriots as a combo guard and as a veteran presence.
 
“It’s not very often that you get the chance to coach a guy for his third year, a guy that when he got to us, he’d never played a certain position that we asked him to play,” Skinn said. “He then led that team to our first A10 championship. Now to have him as a senior, as a married man, his leadership is something that makes my job so much easier. He’s as tough a player as I’ve ever coached.”
 
Circle the date: George Mason starts a pair of home-and-homes with teams that reached the NCAA tournament last season. The Patriots play host to defending American champion South Florida on Nov. 21, then visit High Point (winners of back-to-back Big South titles) on Dec. 2.
 
Bottom line: George Mason has the look of a contender. With O’Connor and Okojie anchoring the backcourt and Kanga set to show some improvement in his second season, the Patriots should win 20 games for the fifth consecutive season and have a shot at their first NCAA tournament berth since 2011.
 
Patrick Stevens is a veteran college basketball writer who oversees Mid-Atlantic College Hoops. Previously, he worked for The Washington Post, Syracuse Media Group and The Washington Times. Stevens has written selected pieces for the Atlantic 10 Conference since 2013.