After long run at Wagner, Bashir Mason comes home to lead encore at Saint Peter’s

Bashir Mason comes to Saint Peter’s on heels of decade of success at Wagner that he now hopes will springboard Peacocks in wake of Elite 8 run. (Photo by the Bergen Record)

After Saint Peter’s became the toast of the college basketball world by making history as the first No. 15 seed to reach a regional final in the NCAA Tournament, reality — and life as a mid-major — happened in relatively short order.

Head coach Shaheen Holloway was first to depart Jersey City, receiving a well-deserved step up just four days after leading Saint Peter’s in its Elite 8 loss to North Carolina, accepting the head coaching vacancy at his alma mater, Seton Hall, replacing Kevin Willard after the longtime Pirate skipper and Holloway’s former mentor took the same job at the University of Maryland. In the coming days, seven Peacock players followed suit and entered the transfer portal, creating a program in transition that athletic director Rachelle Paul now trusts to a Jersey City native who comes home after spending ten years building Wagner into the class of the Northeast Conference.

Bashir Mason, who led the Seahawks to three Northeast Conference championships over a decade on Staten Island, was announced as Saint Peter’s new leader two weeks after Holloway was introduced at Seton Hall, and immediately went to work to keep seven players from last year’s historic squad in the fold, while also landing six newcomers and aggressively using the transfer portal to his advantage.

“There’s definitely name recognition nationally,” Mason said of Saint Peter’s now having a leg up in recruiting after its magical March. “You pick up the phone and you reach out to recruits, high school coaches, AAU coaches, they’re familiar and actually excited to actually be on the phone with you. So we’ve been able to be in the mix with some guys from higher levels than I was able to recruit at Wagner.”

“In the grind of practice daily, these guys are working hard. They’re getting used to the differences between myself and Sha, who did an unbelievable job here. It’s been fun, it’s been exciting, it’s been challenging, but we’re working really hard and it’s all you can really ask for.”

Point guard Juju Murray, already lauded by Mason as one of the best players he’s coached, will lead a roster that also includes rotation mainstays like Oumar Diahame and Isiah Dasher, as well as incoming transfers the likes of Jayden Saddler, Kyle Cardaci and Alex Rivera, who played against Mason in the NEC at Long Island University. From top to bottom, the roster has already taken on Mason’s image as a hard-nosed defender who will fight on every possession, a fabric honed to perfection by playing for and coaching under Dan Hurley, something Mason insists will make the transition from Wagner to Saint Peter’s smoother as he now picks up where Holloway left off.

“As a 28-year-old guy replacing the last name Hurley and taking over a program that had just won the most games in school history, we won 19 games my first year and I spent a lot of time feeling like I wasn’t good enough to live up to the expectation and challenging myself and pushing myself really hard to get better and keep the program afloat over at Wagner,” Mason recalled. “That experience definitely will help taking over for Sha and the run that these guys just had.”

“I think Bashir has such great experience,” Hurley added. “Every job he’s gotten, he’s kind of taken them in steps. He was a high school coach before he became a college assistant, where he got experience for a couple of years, then he became an NEC head coach and now he’s going up to a much tougher league. So yeah, every experience he’s had has prepared him for the next one, and he’s a natural leader. He was one of the best leaders I’ve ever coached in the two years he played for me at (St.) Benedict’s.”

That natural ability, now mingled with an effusive pride in his hometown program, has made Mason eager to hit the ground running in his new endeavor, which begins Monday night against NJIT as the Peacocks raise a banner and honor last year’s heroes inside Run Baby Run Arena.

“It’s funny, man,” Mason observed. “The world just comes full circle. I watched Saint Peter’s run like everybody else, and for me being from Jersey City, it meant a lot to me. I was in my living room literally coaching Saint Peter’s during games, and a couple of weeks later, I’m named the head coach here. It’s funny, but it’s something that I’m excited about. I just can’t wait to get started.”