The Triangle

Issue date: 11/9/07 Section: Sports

Second year pro J.J. Barea recently scored 25 points against the Sacramento Kings, however, he was shut down by Drexel's Bashir Mason while playing for Northeastern in 2005-06.

The end of one season brings another. An appropriate theme - considering the Drexel men's basketball season kicks off this Friday night and the Eagles season seems to be coming to a close.

I personally witnessed the 38-17 drubbing at the hands of the rival Cowboys and let me tell you, as if you don't already know, that it wasn't pretty.

The Cowboys were able to move the ball down the field with ease using a variety of Tony Romo passes, while the Eagles were stuck in third-and-long situations on a regular basis due to the poor play calling by Andy Reid.

However, don't give up yet, remember what happened last year. Reid is still a great head coach and Donavan McNabb is still a good quarterback.

For the rest of the season the team philosophy should be: GET THE BALL TO WESTBROOK!

Alright, so you're sick of hearing about things you already know. However, you may find the next couple of segments of this article, which is really supposed to be about men's basketball, quite interesting.

Mason made NBA guard Barea lay bricks

J.J. Barea, known as Jose Juan Barea to Drexel fans, recently notched a career-high 25 points, including a 9-for-11 shooting performance in which he made all four threes he attempted, leading the Dallas Mavericks to a 123-102 victory over the Sacramento Kings, Nov. 3.

While the second year pro from Northeastern was collecting all the accolades for his breakout performance, somewhere, recently graduated point guard Bashir Mason must've been smiling.

During Barea's senior year in 2005-2006, the first year the Huskies were playing in the CAA, Mason stifled him on two occasions.

In his two games against the Dragons, Barea combined to shoot just 7-for-27 from the floor (25.9%) and committed 13 turnovers.

Mason, who finished his career ranked second on Drexel's all-time steals list also was named to the CAA's all-defensive team from 2004-2007.

Why is this all relevant?

Well, I interviewed Mason following last season and he said the toughest player he ever played against was not Barea. It was in fact Penn guard Ibrahim Jaaber, who like Mason, graduated last year.

Continued...

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