One of these is not like the other.
There’s no mystery to sophomore forward Noah Mason. He’s a big-time player for Benedictine. Explaining the up-and-down Eagles this season, however, has been something of a puzzle.
The 6-foot-5 Mason, an Oswego East graduate, leads Benedictine in scoring and rebounding, averaging 16.2 points and 8.0 rebounds. He’s tied for the team lead with 29 steals and also has a team-best 22 blocked shots.
“I tried to get him but they were in too deep and won that battle,” said Aurora University coach Steve Christiansen, the Eagles’ Northern Athletics Collegiate Conference rival. “Mason’s been good against us. He’s a load.”
Benedictine (9-15, 8-9) headed into Saturday’s final regular season game at Wisconsin Lutheran (7-17, 5-12) having already clinched a spot in the eight-team postseason conference tournament.
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The Eagles only they will play on the road in Tuesday first-round game as a sixth-to-eighth seed. They have nice wins over AU and St. Norbert and then losses to Edgewood and Dominican.
“They’ve beaten two of the three teams tied at the top of the league (AU and St. Norbert) and lost to the two teams at the bottom of the league (Edgewood and Dominican),” Christiansen said, whose Spartans split a pair of games with the Eagles. “They’re an enigma.
“They’re always good against us.”
Not widely heralded in high school, Mason caught the attention of Benedictine coach Jordan Townsend during his junior season when Oswego East won a sectional title.
“His junior year, the team was loaded and he was a third or fourth option,” Townsend said of Mason. “He was no secret but kind of under the radar. We saw him play that summer and fall, and senior season he took off.
“He was long and bouncy and kept getting better and better. We tried to live at Oswego East getting to know him. We have a lot of recruiting battles with familiar faces.”
Mason, wanting to stay close to home, fell in love with the staff and picked Benedictine.
“Last year, his season got cut short with illness,” Townsend said of Mason. “He was diagnosed with mono, COVID-19 and pneumonia in the second half.
Playing in 11 of 18 conference games, Mason was still named the NACC’s freshman of the year after averaging 11.4 points and 5.7 rebounds.
“Playing at this level is definitely a lot different than high school, where one night you could be going against a future D-I player and the next it’s someone who will never play the game again after high school,” Mason said. “In college, it’s more of the same every night.
“Everyone is big and fast and strong.”
Mason confirmed that practicing for two years every day in high school against 6-7 Ryan Johnson, who was an NCAA Division III All-American last season at Carthage, helped prepare him.
“If I can play hard, get nine rebounds and eight points, I can affect the game in a different way,” Mason said. “It helps me do other things right.”
Diving on the floor to fight for a loose ball like he did Wednesday at AU’s Thornton Gymnasium in a hard-fought 87-78 loss to the Spartans has been a common theme for Mason.
“This season, I feel I need to play better for us to do better,” said Mason, often one of four sophomores who play at the same time. “Doing things like getting a dunk will fire the team up.”
He had two dunks against AU, answering a game-opening 3-pointer with a baseline drive for a dunk and tying the game with a free throw, then making a steal near midcourt late in the first half and driving in for another.
“I’m just trying to bring effort and energy,” Mason said
It’s what Townsend will be looking for next Tuesday from his team.
“We dealt with injuries, sickness, lost some close ones and played a tough schedule, but we’re playing with house money,” Townsend said. “We need to play 40 good minutes.
“I think we’ve shown our good 40 is as good as anybody’s 40 minutes.”