Never a Dull Trip to Harrisonburg (Recap of George Mason vs James Madison)

Mops have one purpose in life: keeping the court clean.

They're not intended to be used to hit a basketball, and if somehow they do touch the ball, that contact certainly should not result in the ball finding it's way into the basket. Yet that is exactly what happened last Saturday, when the James Madison Dukes hosted the George Mason Patriots.

Near the end of the first half, after taking a weird bounce off the rim of the Mason basket, the ball somehow found itself stuck among the basket supports above the backboard. One of the referees borrowed a long-handled mop from the ballboy, and attempted to poke the ball loose, but he was too short to reach the ball, and Dukes center Rayshawn Goins took over.

His first attempt sparked only some laughter, as the ball popped straight up, then nestled right back where it came from. The second attempt was far more successful, as the ball fell over the front of the backboard, and dropped straight through the hoop, Swish!

I'm not sure Goins could have repeated the feat if he'd tried, and the near-capacity crowd almost lost its collective mind. I feel pretty safe in saying JMU fans have never cheered (and never again will cheer) so loudly for a ball entering an opponent's basket.

***

Something unusual (if not outright bizarre) always seems to happen when I visit the Convocation Center. One year, a friend of mine even gave some Dukes fans from Fairfax a ride back to Northern Virginia after their car was totaled in an accident.

A few weeks ago, I wrote about my first visit to the Convo in 2008, for Dre Smith's NCAA-record breaking 10 of 10 performance from behind the three point arc. The next season provided an entirely different type of drama, as then-freshman Ryan Pearson's controlled-yet-desperate heave from mid-court kissed glass, hit the rim for a glorious millisecond, then popped out, as the Dukes escaped with a 2-point victory. The Madison students promptly stormed the court. It's hard to blame them for being excited about what's now their only win in the last 21 games in the series, but at the time it seemed excessive, adding insult to injury.

Perhaps the best drama of all came in 2010, in what will forever be known by both sides as the Hot Dog Game. Mason was up by 15 midway through the second half and the Patriots seemed well on their way to another beatdown of their southwestern rival. But then, the Dukes, fed by a raucous Convo crowd, went on a run that cut the lead to four. The momentum seemed unstoppable, until, right in the midst of a pair of JMU free throws, a hot dog inexplicably flew onto the court, thrown by a Madison student. The referees had no choice but to assess a technical foul, and the Dukes' surge came to an abrupt end. (JMU assistant coach Rob O'Driscoll re-told the entire tale last year, including what later happened to the kid who threw the hot dog).

2011 provided one of the hardest-fought basketball games I have ever attended. A late morning start time made the drive south a little weird, and I wasn't fully awake until about a quarter-second after I stepped inside the Convo. I have never seen a college arena that electric at 11 AM on a Saturday morning. The nationally-televised heavyweight bout went back and forth for a full 40 minutes, with Cam Long scoring a career-high 30 points for the Patriots while Dukes star Denzel Bowles posted 21 points, 14 rebounds, and 6 blocks. Mason led 33-32 at the half, only to fall behind by 8 in the second half before rallying for a 75-73 victory.

Last season, I was unable to make the trip due to work commitments and a nagging head cold that had left me exhausted. As it turned out, I didn't miss much. The game was ruined by an astounding 63 personal fouls, many of them completely unnecessary. With everyone in foul trouble, neither team could play defense, and when combined with 89 free throw attempts, the final was 89-83 in favor of Mason, a huge score in the normally-stingy CAA.

***

Both teams entered the day with injury concerns.

James Madison has been positively snake-bitten with injuries in recent years, and this season has been no different. Fifth-year senior Andrey Semenov would miss the game with foot and shoulder injuries, and fellow red-shirt senior Devon Moore had left the previous game with an ankle injury, leading to doubts about his availability.

George Mason, meanwhile, lost starting forward and second-leading scorer Johnny Williams to a concussion a week prior. In his place, Jonathan Arledge had started and scored a then career-high 14 points against Drexel two days earlier, but he'd only played 2 minutes against Madison in the previous meeting in Fairfax.

The game began about as well as Mason could have hoped. Unlike other recent road games, they started out hot on offense and energetic on defense. James Madison won the tip but turned it over moments later, leading to a Sherrod Wright three pointer. The Dukes turned it over twice more, and Taylor Bessick picked up two quick fouls, while Mason jumped ahead 11-0. Corey Edwards capped the run with a wide-open three pointer, but Rayshawn Goins quickly countered for the Dukes.

Madison managed to pull within 13-10 with a layup out of the under-16 timeout, but then both teams slowed down as the game became a bit of a defensive struggle, with Mason maintaining a 3 to 8 point lead. Every time the Dukes got the lead down to three, the Patriots responded. A.J. Davis hit a huge three-pointer for the home team to cut the lead to 19-16, but almost immediately Patrick Holloway responded with a trey of his own.

This year, the annual task of providing me an unusual incident fell to the Convo itself. With around two minutes to play in the first half, both baskets rebelled. First, as mentioned, Goins got to play stick-ball with the backboard above the Mason basket. Then, on the very next possession, the officials noticed that the net on the Madison basket was torn. An 11-minute delay ensued, while the damaged net was cut down and a new net installed. To their credit, the JMU cheerleaders attempted to fill the time with increasingly imaginative stunts, from walking nearly the entire length of the court on their hands, to building a pyramid at center court.

I've seen some strange facilities problems over the years (such as a nail that popped out of the Towson Center's old floor and had to be hammered back into place) but I've never seen two incidents quite like Saturday's occur back to back. And that's one reason I love college basketball so much: Just when you might foolishly start to think you've seen it all, something unimaginable happens.

The pace had picked up just before the delay, and the long break had surprisingly little noticeable impact on the players. Both sides were whistled for a number of fouls in the last three minutes, with Mason converting all 4 free throws while the Dukes made just 3 of 5 -- foreshadowing what would be a game-long problem for Madison. The Patriots took a modest 32-27 lead into the locker room.

The halftime show consisted of two parts. First, the new net apparently hadn't been installed correctly, and had to be taken down and re-done for a second time. Then, there was a contest for JMU students called Madison's Got Talent, for which students had submitted videos in advance, and three acts had been chosen to compete for a $1000 prize. The first contestant was a singer (one of the Madison cheerleaders) who drummed a beat on a plastic table with a paper cup while she sang (you had to be there), and the other two were guitar/vocal acts.

I was a little apprehensive as the second half began. Perhaps Mason's biggest problem this season has been maintaining consistency and effort for an entire game. Just two nights earlier, the green and gold had blown a 20-point first half lead in a loss to Drexel. All season, they've played lots of good halves of basketball games, only to let their guard down and fail to play a complete games. But for once, the second half began in a positive way, with Sherrod Wright assisting on baskets by big men Erik Copes and Jonathan Arledge on the Patriots first two possessions.

Juniors Wright (22 points and a career-high 11 rebounds) and Arledge (a career-high 19 points) became the offensive formula for the Patriots throughout the second half, as the visitors maintained their intensity and survived everything the Dukes threw at them.

It was only a matter of time before the Dukes made a run, and it began with 11 minutes remaining and the Patriots holding a 50-41 lead. A pair of Dukes free throws and a Charles Cook trey made it 50-45, before Core Edwards answered for Mason. Then Moore (25 points, 5 assists), showing no signs of his ankle injury, took over the game for the Dukes, scoring two traditional three-point plays and hitting a jumper from beyond the arc. All of a sudden, it was 56-55, with around 6 and a half minutes remaining, and George Mason was forced to call a time out.

Arledge converted a layup, and Wright followed with a layup-and-one to stretch the lead back to 6, but the Dukes came right back, with a pair of Cooke free throws and another Moore layup. And so it continued, with Mason clinging to a lead of one to six points. Madison closed the gap several times, but never managed to tie or take the lead. And yet, with their crowd behind them, it almost seemed inevitable to me that the home team would find a way to break through and take at least a momentary lead. There was just too much time left.

Then, with 1:40 to play and the score 65-62 in their favor, the Patriots got a big break.

Moore missed a three-point attempt, and the Dukes turned the rebound over. The ball found Wright on the break, who went up against Goins for the layup attempt. Goins swung his arm wildly in an apparent attempt to block the shot, but Wright had faked his shot, and the big man missed badly and caught the side of Wright's head instead, sending him crashing to the floor.

All attention was immediately on Wright, who lay motionless on the court for several seconds, before popping up uninjured, a smile slowly crossing his face. The officials consulted the monitor, and ruled the foul to be a flagrant-1 on Goins -- which meant two free throws and possession for Mason. The partisan crowd erupted in anger, their frustration with a game's worth of inconsistent officiating boiling over.

Because the Patriots' athletic trainer had come out to check on Wright, by rule he had to leave the game, and thus could not take his free throws. Head coach Paul Hewitt chose the silky-smooth Arledge instead, who sank both despite the dim from a furious Dukes student section mere feet away, and then scored a layup on the ensuing possession, giving the visitors a 7 point lead with a minute to play. From there, the game was effectively over, and Mason hung on for the 74-63 win, their 20th in the last 21 meetings in the rivalry.

In a strange way, it felt like the Hot Dog Game all over again, only without the absurdity of perfectly good food being thrown onto the court.

***

For the Dukes (13-11, 7-4 after Saturday), the biggest disappointment had to be their free throw shooting, as they missed 11 of their 28 attempts from the charity stripe -- which equaled the margin of victory in the game. Likewise, their promising freshman class of starters Taylor Bessick (4 fouls in 4 minutes), Ron Curry (0 points in 12 minutes), and Andre Nation, as well as reserve Charles Cooke, combined for only 11 points. The seniors -- Moore, Goins (13 points, 9 rebounds), and AJ Davis (9 points) -- can't carry the load on their own.

On the opposite side, the visiting Patriots (13-9, 6-4) played one of their most consistent games of the entire season, leading the entire game and withstanding a furious charge in the second half from the Dukes. Far too many times this season, Mason has taken 7 or 8 minutes or even an entire half off on either offense or defense. Saturday, the lapses were there, but they were limited in duration, and this allowed for a new kind of consistency.

The continued emergence of Jonathan Arledge as a complementary scorer to Sherrod Wright, a renewed emphasis on rebounding (35-25 advantage), good free throw shooting (23 of 26), and shortening their sometimes-lengthy lapses in attention on defense all played a role in the win, and are trends that need to continue for George Mason to be the contender everyone expected them to be this season in the CAA.

For the Tribe, Close Losses Becoming a Habit (Recap of George Mason vs Willian & Mary)

Last Saturday afternoon I made the drive three hours south to Williamsburg, Va. with some friends for the George Mason game at the College of William and Mary. (I'd hoped to recap this game a little sooner, but I've tried to make it up by providing some photos this time).

The Tribe have had one of the better seasons in what has been an ugly non-conference showing for the CAA overall. They played a relatively weak non-conference schedule, but they beat pretty much all the teams they were supposed to beat. However, when faced with tougher competition, an unfortunate pattern has repeated itself. At Wake Forest, the Tribe blew a late lead and lost by six. At Richmond, they fell in double overtime. At Purdue, they again fell apart down the stretch and lost by seven. Double-digit losses to Miami of Ohio and Vanderbilt ended more poorly, but both times the Tribe was in the game at least until the second half. As a result, William and Mary were still very much an unknown going into the Mason game.

This was my first visit to Kaplan Arena, an 8,600-seat gym that the Tribe unfortunately rarely fills. On the whole, it was a pleasant experience. The seating bowl and sight lines are underrated. One inconsistency I noted was that the concession stands and restrooms seemed small for so large a venue, but they were sufficient for the 3,506 on hand. The College’s students were still away on winter break, which meant there weren’t many students on hand, and also, apparently meant there was no pep band, and only a token number of cheerleaders.

A friend of mine was able to score us tickets right behind the George Mason bench, which provided a rare glimpse into just how much communications happens during the game, and who the most vocal coaches and players are. I was surprised by how constantly some of Mason’s bench players were yelling to their teammates on the court -- for example, warning them about an open shooter on their blind side.

For once, George Mason got off to a hot start, hitting their first three shots for a 7-0 lead and forcing a quick William and Mary timeout. A Sherrod Wright fast break dunk made it 11-2 before the Tribe found their offense, fueled by back-to-back three pointers from guards Brandon Britt and Marcus Thornton. The two teams traded baskets for the next few minutes, leaving the score at 18-11 Patriots at the 13 minute mark.

From there, the home team began to tighten the game, as junior forward Tim Rusthoven asserted his presence in the paint for back to back buckets, and the visitors turned it over twice, then committed some cheap fouls. Tribe leading scorer Marcus Thornton cut the lead to 18-17 with a pair of free throws, before a Wright layup made it 20-17 at the 9:55 mark.

Mason's offense got back on track as Patrick Holloway picked off a pass under the basket, and lead the break back the other way, spinning around two defenders before passing ahead to Edwards in the corner. Edwards quickly passed back to a driving Johnny Williams for the dunk. The Patriots hit the three-pointers and turned offensive boards into baskets, stretching their lead to 31-23 at the under-4 media timeout.

Out of the timeout, a Thornton three-point play ended the 13-4 Patriots run, and ignited the crowd. Energized, the Tribe forced Mason into several bad shots in a row. More frustrating, especially for Hewitt, were several iffy calls by the officials. First, Wright appeared to be hit in the head and fouled hard on a layup, yet was called for a charge. Second, a Mason put back was waived off for supposed offensive basket interference, even though to my eye (and apparently Hewitt's) the ball hit the rim and deflected away from the rim before it was touched. Third, a Vertrail Vaughns three-pointer was waived off because of a three-second call in the paint (the only one of the game despite plenty of standing around by both teams).

All parties, not just the Mason faithful, became frustrated when the shot clock was inadvertently reset on an emphatic Erik Copes blocked shot, and the referees needed nearly five minutes to find the real shot clock time via video review. Hewitt spent most of the stoppage complaining about the previous calls, especially the interference play and Wright's blow to the head, and continued the conversation at halftime, before heading to the locker room.

Mason was fortunate that the half was almost over, because nothing broke their way over the last few minutes of the first half. The crowd was loud and in to the action, the Tribe were hot, and Mason couldn't get a stop or make a shot themselves, failing to score a field goal for the last 4:38 of the first half. The Patriots managed only a pair of Wright free throws and went to the locker room down 37-33.

During the first half, Mason coach Paul Hewitt began to experiment with a new lineup, placing both point guards (the starter Corey Edwards and his backup Bryon Allen) on the floor at the same time. This is a move that some Mason fans have speculated about for weeks, and it seemed to pay off, as Edwards acted at the distributor on offense, while Allen was able to focus on defense and his ability to run the floor and drive to the basket.

The second half began with the two teams slowly trading baskets for the first six minutes or so, but then Mason began to go on a run, as Wright scored two quick baskets and assisted on a third, giving the Patriots their first lead of the half on a steal and layup. William and Mary quickly called time out with 12:20 to play, trailing 45-43.The Tribe missed two three-point attempts on the ensuing possession, before Bryon Allen made a free throw for Mason, and Brandon Britt hit a layup to cut the Tribe deficit to one.

Edwards pushed the ball quickly up the floor after the made basket, finding freshman sharpshooter Patrick Holloway all alone in the left corner, and Holloway hit on a lightning quick three-pointer before the Tribe defense could get back. Mason had the momentum now, and Jonathan Arledge hit a pair of free throws to stretch the lead to 51-45 Patriots with 10:38 to play.

But the Tribe, and especially Tim Rusthoven, weren't done. Rusthoven found ways to get deep in the paint against the Mason frontcourt, and scored two layups and knocked down an and-one free throw to help cut the deficit to 53-51. Wright, who already had 18 points for the Patriots, countered with a layup, but then made a very bad decision, picking up a dead ball technical foul for taunting.

Marcus Thornton (19 points) made both technical free throws, and then a layup, trying the game at 55-all, and Brandon Britt added one of two from the line to pull the home team back ahead, 56-55. Now was the danger point for the Patriots. Yet again, the momentum was slipping away from them. But Wright stepped up, seemingly fueled by his frustration with his own mistake. The junior scored 10 points in a six minute stretch to finish with a career high 28, and Johnny Williams (9 points) added a huge three-point play.

The Tribe were forced to trade free throws for layups, and the Patriots made 7 of 11 at the line down the stretch. Four straight empty possessions for William and Mary (7-6, 1-1 CAA) provided an insurmountable 68-61 deficit, and Mason held off the Tribe for a 73-66 win. Yet again, the Tribe held a late lead (58-57 with 5:21 to play) before folding down the stretch, giving up a 16-8 closing run to the visitors.

Despite the loss, I was impressed by what I saw from the College. It's hard to believe that Tim Rusthoven (19 points and 11 rebounds) is still only a junior in what feels like his sixth season in the CAA. The 6'9" forward has learned how to use his size and proper positioning down low. Just about every time he was able to post up and get deep enough into the paint, he scored, often drawing a foul as well from Mason's frustrated big men. The legend of "Beasthoven" will continue to grow if he repeats his performance on Saturday.

Three players did all the scoring for the Tribe -- Rusthoven and Thorton with 19 and Britt with 18, but they got little help from their teammates. Fellow starters Matt Rum and Kyle Galliard finished a combined 3-11 from the field, and the bench contributed exactly 2 additional points. The big three put up some very nice numbers, but they're going to need some help from their teammates if William and Mary want to capitalize on a weakened CAA.

As for the visiting Patriots (8-6, 1-1 CAA), each game for the last month or so has brought continued development from Corey Edwards as the starting point guard. Saturday, Edwards (10 points, 5 assists, 1 turnover) was able to keep himself out of foul trouble and play 33 minutes. This development allowed Bryon Allen to slide over and play shooting guard, where he seemed much more comfortable.

Another positive for Mason (besides the obvious -- Wright's continued dominance) was that they didn't let their mistakes snowball this time. Lapses on offense or defense didn't last long enough for the Tribe to pull away. To be fair, the home team had some opportunities, but they didn't have the unbelievable luck that Northeasten had in shooting 64% in the second half against Mason earlier in the week.

A New Year Ends An Old Streak (Recap of Northeastern vs George Mason)

Every once in a while, there’s a match up on the schedule that you circle when it first comes out, and feel just isn’t going to end well, for some reason. The CAA opener between George Mason and Northeastern this past Thursday was one of those games.

I knew that Northeastern expected to get their senior leader Jonathan Lee back from a foot injury a week or two in advance of the game. And I knew that there would be a small crowd on a weeknight in January, with the students home for winter break. Likewise, I’ve watched all season as Mason failed to defend the three point line, a place that Lee and Northeastern’s leading scorer during Lee’s absence, Joel Smith, both excel. Even worse, I realized that the Huskies were the last CAA team to come to Fairfax and win, in the final home game of the 2010 season, before Mason completed back-to-back perfect 9-0 home CAA performances. Would Northeastern be the bookend to that streak?

The game started a little slowly, with the Patriots trailing 4-0 at the 17:43 mark before redshirt junior Johnny Williams stuck back an Anali Okoloji miss for the home team’s first field goal. Quincy Ford immediately responded with a three-pointer to make it 7-2 Huskies. From there, Sherrod Wright went on a personal 9-2 run over the next two minutes to make it 11-9 in favor of George Mason -- aided by 3 Northeastern turnovers.

A beautiful pass from sophomore point guard Corey Edwards led to a Marko Gujanicic uncontested layup. Then, Jonathan Arledge turned an offensive rebound into another basket, stretching the lead to 15-9 before a Reggie Spencer layup broke the run.

The next four minutes saw more of a defensive struggle, as steals, turnovers, fouls, and missed shots by both teams slowed the pace up, with the score 20-16 Patriots at the under-8 media timeout. Out of the timeout, the Huskies scored 4 quick points to tie the game, but then Edwards found reserve guard Vertrail Vaughns all alone in the corner, and Vaughns knifed through the defense for a contested reverse layup. The shot seemed to give the slumping Vaughns some much-needed confidence, and he connected from long distance on the next possession,

But every time Mason got the lead, Northeastern had an answer. A pair of Ford free throws and a three-pointer by Jonathan Lee (20 points) from Ford tied the game yet again, with 4:58 to go in the half. From there, the Huskies offense experienced a drought that saw them score only three free throws and then one layup with 2 seconds to go, but with Edwards on the bench with two fouls, the Patriots offense slowed. Mason was only able to stretch the lead to 37-30 at the half.

Several things stood out to me in the first half, as I looked for signs of game-by-game improvement from George Mason in what has been a frustrating season. The biggest positive was the performance of Mason’s forwards, especially Jonathan Arledge and Erik Copes. Both have had their struggled catching and holding onto loose balls, whether in the post, at the rim, or on the floor, and yet they showed very good hands Thursday, as Arledge was good for 9 rebounds and 2 steals, and Copes for 9 rebounds and 3 blocks.

The second half began ominously, as Northeastern sank their first three shots, while Johnny Williams committed his third foul just 31 seconds into the half. A wide open three ball by Edwards off a beautiful kickout from Copes temporarily maintained some separation for the Patriots, 42-37, but the Huskies had returned from the locker room with increased intensity, while the Patriots seemed to have lost theirs. Arledge missed a dunk, which led to a Lee three-pointer in transition, and then David Walker tied it with a dunk at 16:14.

Out of the first media timeout, the Patriots showed better passing and better defense, forcing two Northeastern turnovers and stretching the lead to 50-44, with Wright doing the lion’s share.

Northeastern called a timeout with a little over 13 minutes remaining, and the game began to shift. Allen, spelling Edwards at the point, turned it over three times, and Walker assisted on three straight baskets as the Huskies tied the game up once more, at 52-all with 9:57 to play.

It seemed by now that Northeastern had found a strategy to break down the George Mason defense, and the pattern would repeat itself many more times: Drive toward the basket, then pass out to the perimeter, where at least one jump-shooter would be wide open as the Patriots defense collapsed inward, then never reset.

As the second half progressed, it seemed that the visitors from Boston couldn’t miss, but for a while, the home team hung right with them. Vaughns (twice) and Edwards traded three pointers with Zach Stahl (twice) and Demetrios Pollard, while Wright chipped in two for Mason and Stahl converted two free throws and a two.

The lead changed hands several times, until Northeastern went ahead for good, 65-63, on Stahl’s three ball off a kick-out from Quincy Ford (18 points) with 4:56 to play. Mason was helpless to stop the barrage, despite two Paul Hewitt timeouts, as the visitors suddenly went ahead 73-63. Northeastern would finish the game shooting 64% in the second half, including 6-of-9 on three point attempts.

Suddenly confronted with a ten-point hole, the Patriots seemed to get the message, and picked up their intensity, as they took 11 field goal attempts in the final 3 minutes, but they were simply out of time and Mason was forced to start giving fouls. After an Allen layup, they didn’t score another point until Wright’s pair of free throws (19 points) with 49 seconds to play broke the ice. The 6’9” Arledge made it 78-72 on his second three three-pointer of the season with 23 seconds remaining, but the Patriots could get no closer.

The Huskies (6-7, 1-0) made their last six free throws, winning 84-74, and putting up a very impressive 54 points in the second half against a Patriots squad that had come in holding opponents to a CAA low 64 points per game. After only losing one home game in the previous two-plus seasons, Mason (7-6, 0-1) has now lost back-to-back games at the Patriot Center.

All the more frustrating for me personally was that I saw some very good signs from individual players, before the game got out of hand. Corey Edwards has continued to develop as Mason’s starting point guard, finishing with 7 assists and 0 turnovers. The sophomore is now averaging 9 points, 3.5 assists, 1.5 steals, and only 1.8 turnovers in roughly 24 minutes a game over his last 4 games. Jonathan Arledge has struggled in the past with how to use his very long arms to play good defense without getting caught reaching in/around/over his man, but he showed improving skills around and above the rim on offensive and defense (evidenced by his 9 rebounds and 9 rebounds). Redshirt junior Vertrail Vaughns, who offered instant offense off the bench as a freshman (over 49% on treys) and averaged 8.8 points a season ago, finally reminded Mason fans what he can do, breaking out of a season-long slump with 13 points on 5-11 shooting.

As for Northeastern, I was most impressed by 6’5” freshman Zach Stahl, who finished 5 out of 8 from the field, including 2-for-2 on three pointers and 3-for-3 at the line, for a career high 15 points in 20 minutes of play. If Stahl can become a consistent fourth option to complement Ford, Lee, and Smith, the Huskies are going to be a very dangerous team in a weak year for the CAA.

This isn’t a rerun: Sherrod Wright wins it at the buzzer (Recap of George Mason vs Richmond)

The first game of the inaugural (Virginia) Governor’s Holiday Hoops Classic doubleheader this past Saturday in Richmond, Va., provided a finish that more than validated Governor Bob McDonnell’s vision in creating what will hopefully be an annual four-school, all-Commonwealth event.

With 5.8 seconds left, George Mason and Richmond found themselves knotted at 64-all. The Patriots retained possession after a Spiders foul, and guard Sherrod Wright inbounded to point guard Corey Edwards, who drove the right side of the lane, then suddenly spun and passed out to Wright.

The redshirt junior has become known for hitting big shots, and he rose and fired, absorbing a collision with his defender, to swish a three-pointer as the horn sounded. With the soft smack of leather against nylon, a long streak of futility at the Richmond Coliseum ended for the Patriots.

***

By way of introduction, I'm a George Mason student and diehard Patriots basketball fan. I'll be writing about George Mason and the CAA here for the rest of the season. This is the holiday-delayed first installment of what I hope will be a regular contribution. Thanks, Gary!

***

The city of Richmond, and especially its Coliseum, has not been kind to the team from Fairfax. Mason has won many games in the Coliseum against other out-of-town guests, but when faced with a hometown squad, they always seemed to lose. The CAA tournament has been held at the Richmond Coliseum every season since 1990, with Richmond participating up until 2000, and VCU participating from 1996 until last March. In that entire time, Mason never won a single game against either school in conference tournament play.

Even in their best years, playing the Coliseum has been a struggle. The two best teams in Patriots history, the 2006 Final Four team and the 2011 Round of 32 team, both earned at-large NCAA bids after crushing conference tournament losses (to Hofstra, and to VCU, respectively).

The Patriots had fared slightly better at the Coliseum in the regular season, most recently defeating VCU in February 1999. However, with the Spiders departing for the A-10 after the 2001 season (not to face Mason again until this past Saturday) and with the Rams relocating to the Siegel Center for 2000-01, the futility streak expanded to regular season play.

After a decade of painful losses, Mason finally broke through at the Siegel Center in February 2011, with a 71-51 shellacking of the Rams on national television (improbably, this loss awakened a sleeping giant, and Shaka Smart's squad went to the Final Four barely a month later).

But the Coliseum streak continued, right through the 2012 CAA tournament. Mason went home early from Richmond last March, falling to VCU on a supposedly neutral court for the fourth year in a row and the sixth time in the last nine tournaments. With VCU departing in the offseason for the A-10, and the CAA tournament shifting to Baltimore after one final hurrah this coming March, that could have been the end of the story. However, one last opportunity presented itself, with the establishment of the Governor’s Classic. The Patriots were chosen to face Richmond (for the first time since 2001!) in the early game, with Old Dominion versus Virginia to follow.

The pregame scouting reports should have been fairly simple. Richmond came in having taken 32 three-point attempts earlier in the week against Kansas, and shooting 38% from long range for the season. The Patriots, meanwhile, entered having consistently been ranked as one of the top teams in the country at defending two point field goals, yet one of the worst at defending against the three.

Richmond took full advantage, hitting two treys in the first minute and sinking eight of their first ten attempts from beyond the arc. Darien Brothers was especially hot, beginning the game five-for-five. In fact, with all their hot shooting from the outside, the Spiders did not score a two-point basket until over 15 minutes into the game.

On the Patriots side, leading scorer Sherrod Wright (Mason’s only double figure scorer at over 16 per game) kept Mason in the game early. The junior accounted for 11 of Mason’s first 21 points, including a sequence in which he made a layup, stole the inbound pass right under the basket, and dunked to tie the score at 11.

Offense was in style early, and after about 9 minutes of trading baskets, the game was tied at 21. Each team began to make defensive adjustments, and Mason’s offense bogged down as Wright faced additional pressure, while Richmond was forced to start to look inside for points. Sloppy play and turnovers on both sides slowed the pace, with Richmond pulling away late to lead 41-32 at the half.

With the final seconds ticking down for Mason, in a foreshadowing of coming events, Sherrod Wright forced up a long three-pointer, which missed everything, and may have been tipped. It dropped into the arms of freshman Patriot Marko Gujanicic, who alertly laid it up, albeit milliseconds too late to count.

The second half was defined by three major runs. First, Mason came out with a renewed focus to defend the three, especially against leading scorers Darien Brothers and Derrick Williams. Defensive intensity and some timely hot shooting fueled an 11-3 Mason run to cut the deficit to 44-43 with 16 minutes to play.

Momentum shifted as Mason’s offensive ground to a stop again, victimized by turnovers and poor shooting, while the Mason defense fouled Richmond five times in about a minute and a half. The run was finally stopped by a Patrick Holloway jumper and a Corey Edwards uncontested layup, but not before an 12-2 run had given the Spiders a 12 point lead with 7:31 to play.

It seemed likely that Mason had expended all their energy in closing the initial gap at the start of the half, and that the game was now slipping away. Instead, Richmond opened the door, as over the next few minutes Edwards drew a charge, then Trey Davis missed a pair of free throws, then Richmond committed four turnovers against Mason’s full court pressure and missed two rushed three-point attempts.

Mason took what they were given, as Wright’s three-pointer made it a seven point game, then Edwards and Anali Okoloji scored in transition cut the deficit to three. Back-to-back turnovers by Wright slowed the comeback, however Richmond got only a single Darien Brothers (20 points) made free throw from the miscues. With two minutes to play, the Spiders still clung to a four point advantage, 62-58.

The sophomore Edwards, who has emerged as Mason’s new starting point guard in recent weeks (an ever-revolving position for the Patriots, dating back to the beginning of last season), came up with a big steal for the Patriots. The ball found it’s way into the hands of the sweet-shooting Holloway, who promptly knocked down a trey, cutting the Richmond lead to one, 62-61, with 1:53 to play.

Spiders forward Alonzo Nelson-Ododa promptly turned the ball over again, and Jonathan Arledge stuck back Edwards' miss for the Patriots first lead of the game, 63-62. Spiders coach Chris Mooney called timeout, but he was powerless to stop his team’s collapse, as Greg Robbins lost control of the ball on a drive to the basket seconds later.

Robbins fouled Edwards in the act of shooting, and the point guard converted one of two free throws for a 64-62 Mason lead with 54 seconds to play. Richmond walked the ball up the court, running as much clock as they could. Derrick Williams (14 points) missed a three-pointer, but teammate Cedrick Lindsay was there to put it back and tie the score with 19.8 seconds to play.

Mason had been in these tight end game situations many times already this season, with mixed results (a blown five point lead to New Mexico in the final 12 seconds looms especially large), and inconsistency in such situations surely played a role in the demotion of former starting point guard Bryon Allen. This time, the Patriots could not be denied. The Spiders had a foul to give, and they used it with 5.8 seconds to go. Paul Hewitt used Mason’s final time out, and from there, Edwards (career-high 13 points) ran the designed play to perfection.

Mason’s defensive pressure, compounded by unforced Spiders miscues, allowed the Patriots to  close the game on an 18-3 run and win the contest at the buzzer, as Wright (22 points) replicated his walk off heroics from last February’s win over VCU. If there had been any question previously, it was now crystal clear: Sherrod Wright is The Man for Mason.

For me personally, and for a lot of Patriots fans, a burden was also lifted that afternoon. A regular season win, even such an important and exciting one, can't undo all those years of conference tournament heartache. Only cutting down the nets this March, on what should finally be a truly neutral court, can begin to do that. But we don't have to dread the Coliseum anymore.