Mason men win sixth straight season opener

FAIRFAX — Before the season began, Jim Larranaga said this George Mason men’s basketball campaign would have a very different look than most Patriots fans are used to.

Perhaps Friday night’s opener against Liberty offered a glimpse of what the 13-year coach was alluding to.

After building a 19-point second-half lead, the youthful Patriots frittered nearly all of it away over the final eight minutes before refocusing their defensive efforts to earn a hard-fought 76-72 win over the Flames.

The victory pushes the program’s season-opener win streak to a record-seven games, but it wasn’t without excitement.

“Wow,” Larranaga said, seemingly exhausted himself, “we’re a very interesting team, aren’t we?”

That’s putting it mildly. Mason (1-0) took off on a frenetic pace to start the game, forcing Liberty into mistakes on offense and defense.

This may be the hallmark of this year’s Patriots, though, with athletic, energetic play from every one of the 14 players—seven of which are freshmen and four are sophomores—on the roster a requirement.

Liberty (0-1) struggled to deal with the pressure on both ends of the court, turning the ball over 15 times and leaving GMU players open constantly for open jump shots and drives through the lane.

Mason demonstrated an ability to score in a variety of ways: From slowing the game down to post up under the basket with sophomore forwards Mike Morrison and Ryan Pearson to running a high-octane, full-court offense complete with long passes on fast breaks by guards Cam Long and Andre Cornelius and plenty of 3-point shots.

In all, nine of the 10 players who stepped onto the court scored at least three points, led by Cornelius’ 17. The sophomore was 4 of 6 from behind the 3-point line and made all but one of his six free throw attempts.

Morrison and Pearson each chipped in 12 points and freshman Luke Hancock made a strong first impression with 11 points in his collegiate debut.

Long was lost for much of the second half when he left the game just two minutes into the period with leg cramps. The junior point guard from Freedom High School finished the game with just seven points in 20 minutes, but also had a game-high five assists.

“A young man like Cam, who’s so vital to this team,” Larranaga said, “with his leadership, his ball-handling, his scoring ability and my concern is with him. He’s had this issue with cramps for a while now and we need to find a way to keep those muscles from cramping. … Without him, there was a period where we had a very young team on the floor.”

Indeed they are young, as the Patriots’ second-half lineup rarely featured more than one upperclassman at a time and the inexperience showed.

Cornelius took over the point guard duties while Long was sidelined, but the 5-foot-9 North Carolina product hasn’t seen much time in that spot this year.

“He’s been playing the off-guard spot,” Larranaga said. “Between he and [freshman] Vertrail Vaughns I thought they did a good job getting the offense started.”

“They are young, but they [the sophomores] are leaders on this team,” Hancock said. “They can all pull us together and make defensive stops when we need them.”

It was the defense which seemed to suffer from the leadership void most. After holding the Flames to just 27 points in the first half, the Patriots gave up 45 in the second, allowing Liberty to creep back into the game.

“In the second half we let down on defense,” Cornelius said. “We slacked off a little bit on our defense, but we picked it up again.”

Despite the roller-coaster ride, Cornelius, who also cramped for a time during the game, said he liked the pace and game plan Mason used.

“I think it’s better than last year because we get to run more,” he said. “We have to play harder defense, though.”

The Flames clearly missed Seth Curry, younger brother of NBA player and former Davidson star Stephen Curry, who transferred to Duke in the offseason. With Curry last year Liberty beat Mason 69-66 in overtime in Lynchburg. Friday the team looked lost at times before Kyle Ohman asserted himself offensively. The senior finished the night with a game-high 23 points.