Three years ago, Makai Mason couldn’t miss.

He drilled 11-of-11 free throws en route to 31 points in the NCAA Tournament. Mason, then a sophomore, led 12-seeded Yale to a 79-75 upset in the first round over Baylor. Overnight, Mason became the face of an archetypal Cinderella story. Then, shortly after the Bulldogs’ 2016 second round exit to Duke, injuries caused Mason to fade into Division I obscurity.

After withdrawing from the NBA Draft Combine, Mason returned to New Haven, Connecticut, but played just one game in his final two years of Ivy League eligibility due to foot, toe and back injuries. But Mason wanted to play one more season. He drew interest from Duke, Gonzaga and Notre Dame for a graduate season, but ultimately decided to move to Waco, Texas.

Following the 2016 upset, Mason and Baylor had familiarity and mutual respect for each other. Now as a graduate transfer for the team he knocked out in 2016, Mason paces Baylor in scoring (14.6) and assists per game (3.3), despite dealing with another nagging right foot injury that forces him to wear a precautionary walking boot whenever he’s not on the court. Mason was not made available for a phone interview.

As Baylor (19-13, 10-8 Big 12) matches up with Syracuse in the first round of the 2019 NCAA Tournament, the Bears have an added confidence knowing Mason has tournament success, bringing poise and leadership to another possible upset-bid.

“The good thing is,” head coach Scott Drew said. “all along (Makai) knew once we got to this point in the season, he was all in. With Makai, the bigger the game, the better he plays.”

Mason’s dad, Dan, started training him when Mason was five or six, beginning with “skill development and athleticism,” Dan said. When Mason turned 10, Dan introduced plyometric training for strength and agility improvement. They’d spend three hours every day in a gym, working out, going through drills and shooting around.

“I was in love with the sport and he fell in love with it,” Dan said. “It was a shared thing.”

After attracting Atlantic Coast Conference teams in the AAU scene, Mason enrolled in The Hotchkiss (Connecticut) School, and as a senior, won the NEPSAC Class A Player of the Year.

“(Makai is) so dedicated to the game,” high school coach Stephen McKibben said, “so respectful to the game, he works incredibly hard, doesn’t take a day off, doesn’t take a play off… He’s a killer. He wants the ball when it counts.”

As a freshman at Yale, he came off the bench. A year later, he led the Bulldogs to a Tournament victory in 2016. After his team was eliminated, Mason quickly transitioned into a busy summer. Though experiencing the NBA Draft combine was purely “exploratory,” McKibben said, his experience with the German national team was legitimate. With dual citizenship, Mason made the team and spent his summer practicing twice a day against professionals, developing his pick and roll ball-handling skills.

“He had no break that year,” Dan, his father, said.

Courtesy of Baylor Athletics

Weeks before Yale’s first preseason scrimmage, his foot felt tense, Dan said. Then, in the scrimmage, Mason felt his foot pop. Mason’s body rejected the overuse of the summer. The broken sesamoid bone required surgery and forced Mason to miss his junior season in which he was selected as the Ivy League Preseason Player of the Year by NBCSports.com. A complication in the surgery pushed his timetable back six months, and a back injury prevented him from playing all but one game in his senior year at Yale.

Mason became the first graduate-transfer in Baylor basketball history, but injuries still followed him to Waco. This year, Mason sat out seven games with a bruised bone in his left foot, the opposite one he injured at Yale. Before the injury, Mason was fourth in the Big 12 in scoring, averaging 16.7 points per game. He’s played hurt since a practice following a matchup with TCU on Feb. 2, Dan said.

“There was a lot of pressure to bring him back and have him play,” Dan said. “At home, I laid out all the options and all the ramifications of him playing versus not playing, and he made the decision that he wanted to play.”

When Mason was on the court, he stabilized Baylor. With him in the lineup, Baylor was 17-8 compared to 2-5 without. Now, Dan estimates his son’s foot is at “85-90” percent healthy.

“As a coach,” Drew said of Mason, “you love tough, hard-nosed guys, but you love guys that don’t mind playing when they’re not 100 percent to try to help the team win.”

Mason shoots 36.5 percent from three, and SU’s defense will have to locate him at all times. Syracuse has struggled at times this season in tracking guards with range. And on Feb. 2, he exploded for a career-high 40 points against TCU on 9-of-12 shooting from beyond the arc. Mason spotted up for deep 3s in transition, pulled up behind ball-screens and wheeled around picks to find space to catch-and-shoot.

After one of his nine triples, Mason jogged back on defense, shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head, confused as to why TCU allowed him space to shoot. If Syracuse’s zone loses him on Thursday, Mason might be trotting back on defense — on only one healthy foot — shrugging once again.

“Just to be back on this stage is going to be really fun,” Mason said.

Published on March 21, 2019 at 11:55 am

Contact Danny: dremerma@syr.edu | @DannyEmerman