PROVIDENCE, R.I. — During Makai Mason’s first AAU game with the New England Playaz at the Adidas Summer Invitational in 2011, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his entire staff were at center court watching his game.
But when Duke plays Yale here on Saturday in a second-round NCAA Tournament game in the West Region, the 6-foot-1 Mason will be playing for the Bulldogs not the Blue Devils.
“Yale was kind of there from the beginning,” Mason said. “They were one of the first teams to be interested in me. It worked out pretty well. I grew to trust the coaching staff, and it’s really paid off for me here.”
Yes, it certainly has worked out for Mason and Yale. The sophomore point guard from Greenfield, Mass., went off for 31 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists to lead the No. 12 Bulldogs to an impressive 79-75 victory over No. 5 Baylor at Dunkin’ Donuts Center. He was a perfect 11-for-11 from the line, including making two key foul shots with 20.5 seconds left after getting hit in the eye.
On Saturday, Yale (23-6) will get a rematch with No. 4 Duke (24-10), a team that beat the Bulldogs 80-61 on Nov. 25 at Duke.
“We’re not on national TV every night, so guys haven’t heard of Makai Mason before, and he just dropped 31,” said Yale senior forward Justin Sears, a Plainfield, N.J., native who went for 18 points and 4 rebounds. “He should be a scholarship player at any high major program.”
While Duke features seven McDonald’s All-Americans and the projected No. 1 pick in Brandon Ingram, Yale is an Ivy League outfit lacking in one-and-dones and star power.
Baylor, meantime, features a possible future NFL (Rico Gathers) and NBA player (Taurean Prince) but Mason and his guys were just too much.
“I thought Mason really controlled the game,” Baylor coach Scott Drew said. “We had a difficult time matching him. Didn’t want to try to foul him at the end because he was 11 for 11; he’s a good free-throw shooter, too. But really got to credit him and Yale for playing an outstanding game.”
Sears said he felt the Baylor players didn’t take Yale seriously entering the game. The Bulldogs seized a 39-34 halftime lead and led for most of the second half.
“I’s a chip on our shoulder for us, just when we stepped out there,” Sears said. “You could see that Baylor, they didn’t take us seriously from the start of the game, and as we started hitting shots, they realized we’re for real. And that’s with a lot of mid-major teams. They don’t really do a good job scouting them or think highly of them. We have a bunch of seniors on the team and at the same time guys who are playing hard out there. Anything can happen. And that’s how we put up a win today.”
Mason said he grew up a UMass fan but they never recruited him.
The Duke staff was interested in Mason when he was a young player, but Mason said his father, Dan, a coach at the Hotchkiss (CT) School, opted to pull him off the AAU circuit to hone his game privately.
“I guess I was pretty highly recruited end of freshmen year,” Mason said. “And then I stopped playing AAU. It was kind of a joint decision with me and my dad just because we thought that working out every day would be better than kind of traveling and not being able to work on my game on the weekends and the crazy schedule of AAU.”
Mason pulled the trigger for Yale, which is relatively close to Hotchkiss, during his sophomore season and ended his recruitment.
“It wasn’t that long of a recruiting process to have him commit to us,” Yale coach James Jones said.
When Jones went to see him play one day at Hotchkiss after the commitment, he said he was blown away by the competitiveness of Makai Mason, as well as a pair of yellow shoes the father wore.
“I went to watch him work out at Hotchkiss, and his dad was playing,” Jones said. “I believe his father had some on ugly yellow sneakers, so it was kind of like an old man’s pickup game. And he was so intent on winning that pickup game, that fire, that desire, that commitment to being good, you could just see it in his eyes. He had already committed at that time, but at that point, I knew I had somebody special the way he reacted.”
He added: “You saw tonight he’s a special player, and you don’t see it every night. He doesn’t feel like he has to do it every night. But when it’s time to step up and the lights are on, he’s ready to go.”
He certainly was on Thursday and he’ll be ready to go against Duke on Saturday.
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NDuring Makai Mason’s first AAU game with the New England Playaz at the Adidas Summer Invitational in 2011, Duke head coach Mike Krzyzewski and his entire staff were at center court watching his game.
