Frank Mason's dramatic tie-breaking jumper topples No. 1 Duke
Staring at the possibility of an 0-2 start after his team squandered a late 12-point lead, Kansas coach Bill Self put the ball in the hands of his most fearless player.
What Frank Mason did next will only add to his Jayhawks legacy.
Mason sank the nation’s top-ranked team by beating its best perimeter defender. The Kansas point guard got Duke’s Matt Jones on his heels with a couple of aggressive dribbles, pulled up 17 feet from the rim and buried a go-ahead jump shot with 1.9 seconds to go, propelling the Jayhawks to a dramatic 77-75 victory.
Self had good reason to entrust Mason with that shot considering the senior point guard has carried Kansas during the first week of the season.
Mason tallied 30 points, nine assists and seven rebounds in a season-opening overtime loss to Indiana in Honolulu on Friday night. Four days and six time zones later, Mason summoned the strength to erupt for 21 points against Duke despite battling constant foul trouble.
It’s remarkable that Mason has emerged as the go-to threat for one of the nation’s most storied programs considering how lightly recruited he once was.
Mason was committed to unheralded Towson until he failed a government class his senior year of high school and failed to qualify. Only after he reopened his recruitment did he happen to catch the attention of a Kansas assistant coach who was in the gym to watch another point guard that day.
The pairing has turned out to be ideal for both parties. Mason has evolved into the tough, savvy point guard Kansas had lacked before he arrived. The three-year starter averaged 12.9 points and 4.6 assists last season, numbers that he is so far on pace to exceed by leaps and bounds this year.
That Kansas needed late heroics from Mason to beat Duke is in some ways a testament to the Blue Devils. Duke was without McDonald’s All-Americans Harry Giles, Jayson Tatum and Marques Bolden, yet its veterans overcame foul trouble to battle a preseason top-five team from start to finish and very nearly force overtime.
After Kansas stretched its lead to 12 on a Mason layup with eight minutes to go, Duke rallied behind guards Grayson Allen, Luke Kennard and Frank Jackson. It was Jackson, Duke’s fourth McDonald’s All-American freshman, who sank the biggest shot, a game-tying left-wing 3-pointer with 20 seconds to go that knotted the score at 75.
Kennard led Duke with 22 points on just 10 shots, while Allen added 15 points but on ice-cold 4-for-15 shooting. Kansas freshman Josh Jackson had 15 points in support of Mason and keyed a Kansas surge to open the second half before fouling out.
While the outcome was exhilarating for Kansas and disappointing for Duke, the key takeaway is that both these programs will be fine.
Duke could have Tatum, Giles and Bolden back within the next few weeks and the Blue Devils have ample veteran depth to survive a little longer if necessary. Kansas will only improve too as Jackson and his fellow freshmen get more comfortable with their roles.
And when all else fails, Kansas has a luxury most teams don’t have — a trustworthy senior point guard with the guts to take a big shot and the skill to make it.
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Jeff Eisenberg is the editor of The Dagger on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at daggerblog@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
