Patriot seniors seek uncharted territory

jconroy@potomacnews.com

It’s their Holy Grail if you will. The pièce de résistance.

For the seniors of the George Mason men’s basketball team, the Colonial Athletic Conference tournament title is the one accomplishment that has eluded them.

“We've done it all,” senior guard Folarin Campbell said before a recent practice . “We’ve got a regular season championship, made the NCAA Final Four, we got a lot of records here. The one thing we don’t have is a CAA championship.”

Redshirt junior John Vaughan called the league tournament ring the “missing piece” on his senior teammates’ collective collegiate resumé.

In each of the three years since Campbell, Will Thomas and reserve Jordan Carter joined the Patriots, the team has advanced at least one round further than the previous year, including a title-game appearance last season, with the crown sitting just beyond their grasp.

Mason made a historic run to the 2006 Final Four after earning an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament despite falling in the CAA semifinals to Hofstra, missing the automatic berth that is awarded to each league winner.

This year, the Patriots (20-10) will likely not have the at-large bid to fall back on thanks to inconsistent play throughout the season. Mason defeated quality opponents Kansas State and South Carolina in the Old Spice Classic in December and played Villanova close before losing between those two games. They also defeated CAA No. 1 seed Virginia Commonwealth in the two squads’ only matchup and Horizon League No. 2 Cleveland State.

But third-seeded Mason has almost as many bad losses, hurting the program’s chances at a selection committee bid including a defeat at the hands of sub-.500 Northeastern in the season finale.

“Every game is an opportunity,” George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga said. “When you lose, you miss out on improving your resume. When we lost to East Carolina (68-65), that was a really bad loss for us, very disappointing. When we lost to Georgia State (66-64) and Delaware (73-68) after having 15- and 19-point leads, that’s disappointing.

“We went to Ohio U. [in the BracketBuster], played a great first half,” the coach continued, “and we really struggled on both ends of the floor in the second half. All of those games haunt me.”

Had Mason won its BracketBuster against Ohio, a game televised nationally on ESPN2, the Patriots could have made a stronger case for an at-large selection. Instead, Larranaga will have to ask his seniors to accomplish something they have never done to keep GMU’s season alive.

The first step is a quarterfinal match up against the winner of tonight’s game between No. 6 Northeastern (13-16) and No. 11 James Madison (13-16). The quarterfinal game is set for 8:30 p.m. Saturday in Richmond.

One thing the Patriots have going for them is the best record in March among CAA teams in the past 10 years at 16-13.

Also in their favor is the presence of Campbell and forward/center Thomas. They own two of the most distinguished careers in the history of Mason basketball and both played key roles during the 2006 NCAA tournament run.

This year Campbell became the first GMU player to record 1,300 points, 400 rebounds, 350 assists, 100 3-pointers, 100 steals and 50 blocks. He is considered the most versatile player in Mason history, having played both guard positions and in the frontcourt over the course of his career.

Thomas is the active CAA career leader in rebounds with 951 and leads the league this year with 311. He also has 14 double-doubles and 17 games with 10 or more rebounds, both top performances in the conference.

“For our legacy to go down as two of the top players ever at George Mason we have to win something,” Campbell said. “We can't go out without winning a CAA championship. [And] we have to win a championship to get back to the NCAA and that’s what we plan on doing.”