Frank Mason embodies the Kansas Jayhawks’ new, smaller offensive attack

Frank Mason lifted Kansas past Duke on Tuesday as the Jayhawks continue to roll out smallball lineups.

It takes a bad man to knock down a game winner in Madison Square Garden.

Frank Mason is that kind of man.

With 8.2 seconds remaining in the Kansas Jayhawks’ Champions Classic battle against national title favorite Duke, four teammates stood and watched as Mason attacked Matt Jones — the Blue Devils best individual perimeter defender — with a hard dribble to the left. Jones cut off Mason from getting to the rim, but that wasn’t enough to stop the 5-foot-11 point guard so often described as a “pitbull.”

On tired legs that had traveled to New York City from Hawaii just days before, Mason pulled up from the left elbow and sank an off-balance jumper to give Kansas a much needed win on college basketball’s biggest non-conference stage. “Big time shot by a big time player,” Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski told Mason in the handshake line. For a point guard to be the go-to option in the clutch for head coach Bill Self represents a significant shift in tactics for the Kansas program.

Self has historically oriented his offensive attack around a pair of big men. His reluctance to hoist more and more three-pointers is unique in an era where the number of threes attempted is rising across all levels of basketball. Self, instead, has relied on a simple philosophy: create easy shots for yourself close to the basket and deny them from your opponent. The future Hall of Famer’s high-low offense is designed to do just that. Playing with versatile power forwards who can knock down at least a mid-range jumper, attack off the dribble and pass on the move, Self has consistently produced one of the best offenses in the country at Kansas.

This season, though, he is being forced to blaze a different path. The Jayhawks are light on scoring talent in the frontcourt. Senior Landen Lucas is excellent about positioning himself to catch an entry pass, but he’s never quite gotten the hang of finishing around the basket. Freshman Udoka Azubuike has flashed a few more post moves in his first season than most expected, but the 17-year-old is still at his best catching lobs and letting others create looks for him. Sophomore Carlton Bragg was the player most expected to fill the void at power forward left by last season’s leading scorer Perry Ellis, but he is more of a stationary scorer than Ellis was. Although Bragg can knock down catch-and-shoot jumpers at a decent clip even out to the three-point line, the 6-foot-10 forward isn’t capable of creating off the dribble like past Kansas high-low power forwards have.

That frontcourt roster crunch has forced Self to make adjustments, and while the Jayhawks aren’t yet participating in the three-point revolution — about 30 percent of their total shots have been attempted outside the arc; right where Self likes the stat — other aspects of the modern era are finding their way into the Kansas program. In particular, Self has been increasingly willing, and occasionally forced by foul trouble, to play smaller lineups featuring four guards and just one big man. Those lineups mean that Self’s traditional high-low attack goes out the window and Kansas has to run other actions better suited to its personnel.

In their four guard lineups, the Jayhawks are attacking using two simple actions to get a look for an open shot. The first one is an obnoxious dribble weave that looks more like something you’d see in practice against empty chairs than against one of the top teams in the country. Kansas’s four guards will switch spots along the perimeter, dribbling and handing off the ball until a defender is out of position and the ballhander can explode to the rim. Here, for example, Mason drives, but gets cut off and is forced to pass out to Lagerald Vick who is able to attack the close out of Luke Kennard and make a tough runner in the lane:

There are wrinkles built in, though, and more will be added as time progresses. It’s early in the season after all. On Tuesday, Kansas players were given the freedom to back cut when their defender stepped up to cut off penetration. Devonte Graham, in particular, took advantage on this possession by diving in behind the defense when Jones stepped in to break up the handoff which forced a rotation from Chase Jeter and gave Graham an easy pass to Carlton Bragg for what should have been a three-point play, but turned out to be only a pair of free throws:

The Jayhawks second action in these four guard sets is a really simple pick-and-roll between the point guard and the lone big man on the floor. Jesse Newell of The Kansas City Star chronicled Self’s use of the play extensively after Kansas’s opening night loss to Indiana. The idea is pretty basic: the point guard calls for a screen from the big man while the other three guards on the court space the floor by standing at the three-point line where their defenders have to avoid giving them open looks. The Jayhawks have the type of playmakers who excel in these situations and can use their change of pace to blow by bigger defenders in the lane:

There will presumably be new wrinkles to come on this action as well. Kansas could start integrating more movement off the ball away from the initial pick-and-roll. For example, Self could have one of the two players standing on the same side of the court set an off-ball screen for the other with the goal of creating an open three-point shooter on the perimeter. Kansas will also likely start to stagger screens with the lone big setting the first screen and then rolling to the basket while one of the bigger guards sets a second screen. Here’s an example of what that looks like from a piece Scott Rafferty wrote earlier this year examining how the Oklahoma City Thunder used Kevin Durant as a screener:

For now, though, the Jayhawks can continue to roll out a simple offensive playbook with their four guard lineups. They’ve got good enough players to do battle with even the country’s best teams without working in anything fancier than a simple weave or pick-and-roll. Self has at his disposal a plethora of playmakers the likes of which few, if any, other head coaches can rely on. Both point guards, Mason and Graham, are triple threats in the pick-and-roll actions. They’re capable of attacking the basket, passing to a teammate or pulling up either from behind the screen at the three-point line or in the mid-range after a dribble or two inside the arc.

Freshman swingman Josh Jackson was the top-ranked recruit according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index (RSCI) and his ability to make plays with the ball in his hands was a big reason why. Jackson is quick and decisive with his drives, capable of beating nearly any defender one-on-one when he feels comfortable. Junior Sviatoslav Mykhailiuk is also a valuable creator from the wing, although he relies more on his creativity and passing vision than the others because he doesn’t possess the same type of quickness getting to the rim.

Even with all of those options available to him on Tuesday night, Self still rolled the dice on his 5-foot-11 point guard who was originally committed to play for Towson. “It was quite a play we called, just get out of his way and go shoot it,” Self said half-jokingly after the game.

As a senior, Mason has become the embodiment of what his head coach wants in a basketball player, a stoic leader on the court who represents toughness, grit and a desire to push his team to new heights. “He’s got some things you can’t teach, intangibles that are as good as anybody in America probably possess,” Self remarked.

Mason is also a representation of Self’s offensive philosophy on the hardwood. Just 30.9 percent of his career field goal attempts have been three-pointers. On Tuesday, the head coach chided his guards at halftime for not taking advantage of their speed to get into the paint. “He just got after us about driving the ball,” Graham said of Self’s halftime speech. The head coach echoed the sentiment, praising Mason’s second half, “He played a little bit smarter offensively, drove it down hill.” The point guard has shown great results through two games doing just that. Mason is shooting better than 60 percent at the rim and when his shot doesn’t fall, he’s probably heading the free throw line (he’s drawing 9.1 fouls per 40 minutes). The idea for Kansas is still the same: put pressure on the defense and get high percentage shots closer to the basket.

Now, with four guards often on the floor, the Jayhawks are just creating those looks from the outside in. Therein lies the benefit of having so many playmakers on the floor all at once. Kansas can take advantage of the speed of Mason and Graham to break down defenders and the creativity of Jackson and Mykhailiuk to attack close outs. Vick, too, is rounding into form as the most improved player on the Jayhawks’ roster.

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On Tuesday, it was Mason delivering the dagger, but there’s plenty of confidence in the Kansas locker room that the other guys can do it, too. When Devonte Graham was asked after the game if there’s any other player in America who could make the same play that Mason did, he fumbled his words for a few seconds before his backcourt mate interjected.

“He could have made the same play.”