Are the Patriots coming together?

George Mason is on a three game winning streak in which their average margin of victory over UNCW, Towson, and JMU has been about 24 points. The Patriots are starting to resemble last years squad more and more each game; they are playing great defense and are not just relying on one or two guys to score points each night. Their scoring defense is tops in the CAA, last season the Patriots were ranked in the top 10 in the nation in this category at certain points in the season. Larranaga finally seems to have his patented scramble defense firing on all cylinders, steals are up, and opponents look flustered a lot more on offense then they did earlier this season. Another thing to note is that the Patriots have been shooting better, especially from three-point range. John Vaughan was able to get out of his slump and sink 4 threes on his way to 16 points against JMU. The combination of a home loss to William and Mary and a successful new starting lineup might have really kicked things into gear for the Patriots. Jordan Carter and Dre Smith are starting to show that they can make opposing teams pay if they double Thomas and leave them open. Carter has been very impressive as of late, shooting the ball well and coming up with steals that translate into fast breaks. Chris Fleming continues to show promise but suffered a bad sprain early in the JMU game and when he will return next is questionable. I really don't think Fleming can keep himself in the starting lineup, but for right now hes playing smarter than Urbina and Birdsong and thats enough to stay in Larranaga's good graces as the team keeps winning.

Can Mason keep this up? A three game winning streak is great but some of the luster is lost in the fact that the Patriots still haven't beaten a top opponent in the CAA yet. Drexel, ODU, Hofstra, and VCU all look great so far and Mason has already lost to two of these teams. But they did not play like they have been this past week in those losses. The good thing for Mason is that they a lot of important CAA home games left, which always plays into their favor. That being said Mason will still have to pull off some road victories to climb to the top of the conference which is starting to look very competitive with Hofstra and Drexel both losing recently.

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UNCW rout doesn't hide Mason's woes

Last season UNCW and Mason both earned NCAA tournament bids and were the cream of the crop in mid-major land; now they are fighting to stay out of the bottom of the CAA. The Patriots held UNCW to only two field goals the entire first half. Thats right, two! If not for Daniel Fountain's buzzer beating three pointer at the end of the half UNCW would have set the record for lowest FG% in a half since the shot clock was instituted. Whats even more amazing is that even as UNCW continued to play terrible in the second half Mason still shot only 36% from the field and scored just 55 points. Coach L chose an interesting starting lineup which included Jordan Carter and Chris Fleming who had career highs in minutes (21) and points (8). Is Fleming actually proving he can do more in the post than a 6'8" tree, or is UNCW really that bad this season? I mean a win is a win but you can't over look that neither Campbell nor Thomas were able to score more than 10 points against not only a bad a team, but a bad team on a terrible shooting night. Larranaga says the win is an indication that the "team is headed in the right direction". Really? Because watching this game shows me that Mason can only beat teams that beat themselves and that they continue to play down to the level of their competition. You can't even say that the team chemistry was better in this game because you had guys like Chris Fleming and Tim Burns playing who have rarely ever taken off their warm-ups during a game in their careers. That being said this win will at least lift some of the pressure these guys are facing and maybe just maybe we will see back to back wins sometime in the near future.

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Patriots hit an all time low

Coach Jim Larranaga looked angry, confused and at times frustrated; something you would normally not see at a home game against William and Mary. Just how bad was this loss? Mason hadn't lost a home CAA game in nearly two years and hadn't lost to the Tribe at home in nine years. A Tribe team that had no players with significant height or bulk and only one player who averaged more than four rebounds a game yet they out rebounded Mason 34-21. Whats even more disturbing about that statistic is that the Tribe had 13 offensive rebounds and Mason had 3. That was the major difference in the second half. William and Mary would score on almost every possession because of all the second chance shots they got. Once again Mason played down to the level of the competition, much like their game against Cleveland State and Radford. Will Thomas was the only player scoring in the second half while the rest of the team pretty much just stood around and watched. Campbell somehow managed 6 assists and was 3-6 from the 3-point line but as a team they shot 6-23 from there. The shot selection was poor to say the least. I've said this before and I'll say it again, 3-point shooting is not this teams strength, so why are they taking 20+ attempts a game? Every time Mason would get a turnover they would run down the court and launch up a 3-pointer, miss and then William and Mary would get the rebound. Will Thomas could not be stopped down low, but he can't do everything himself. Birdsong and Monroe should be averaging a lot more points because of Thomas' double teams. Chemistry is still the main problem, the players aren't having fun and they need to learn to play to each others strengths and take every game seriously.

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From one Cinderella to Another

Oh that George Mason public relations department, aren't they worth every penny? How do you keep the whole Cinderella thing going? Easy, take out an advertisement in another Cinderella team's local newspaper wishing them luck before their bowl game! Maybe this gesture by Mason to Boise State was where they got the courage to call some of those trick plays they did at the end of the game last night. Boise State has been labeled the George Mason of college football, but sadly for them their run is over because their is still no playoff system in place. Maybe Boise State can help make sure that we do see a playoff system in the near future for college football. But forget the underdog stories, that was just a great game of football, one of the best ever. Did you see Ian Johnson smile after that statue of liberty play, he is definitely their Lamar Butler. I hope the Mason players watched that game and I hope it reminded them of last March. No doubt Boise State watched the NCAA tournament last year thought to themselves, hey why can't we do that? Its rare in college football that a mid-major can even get the chance to be in a situation like Boise State is, unlike college basketball where every DI team has a shot to win the national title, no matter what conference they come from. College football could learn a lot from college basketball's successes, but money and politics will always reign supreme with the big boys.

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Patriots looking for a fresh start in '07

After being suffering a loss in their conference opener to Drexel and narrowly beating Mississippi State at home, the Patriots would like nothing more than to get a fresh start for 2007. Its that point in the season when your team should be developing team chemistry. I don't really see any from this team yet. Night in and night out I don't know what Patriot team is gonna show up; the team that runs the offense through Thomas in the low blocks or the team that doesn't protect the ball and then launches three point attempts every possession. The Drexel game could pretty much be summed up in the 2nd half when John Vaughan dribbled the ball off his foot which led to Dominick Mejia taking in the loose ball for an easy layup. That play was one of the many easy scoring opportunities that the Patriots basically gift wrapped for the Dragons. The Patriots were kept under 50 points after being down 30-28 at the half. The 2nd half was basically Drexel versus Will Thomas as he was the only Patriot who came to play apparently. Drexel has proven so far that they are the team to beat in the CAA and I believe they have the depth to keep it going into March.

That being said the Patriots did bounce back against Mississippi State after having less than 48 hours between games. Will Thomas again had another great game and led all scorers with 22 points. Thomas was doubled teamed as usual and this did create turnovers that let the Bulldogs stay close in the game, but he did seem like he was making better decisions as this happened. Dre Smith got another chance to show flashes of his athletic ability by tossing some no look passes and hitting a clutch three pointer late in the 2nd half. Something that Patriots did in this game that we haven't seen a lot of was driving to the lane, late in the game and getting to the free throw line. This really helped the Patriots close out the game and guys other than Campbell need to do it as well. John Vaughan had his lowest point total of the season scoring only 2. Vaughan has been generally consistent so far but lately he seems to be in a shooting funk. Hopefully a game against William and Mary coming up with fix that. Another continuing problem Mason has is the forward position next to Will Thomas. Birdsong didn't have a great game and managed only 3 points in 21 minutes. With Thomas getting doubled teamed this position gets freed up often but neither Birdsong nor Jesus Urbina have been able to profit from it. Urbina has great hustle in him but not much else, while Birdsong is still adjusting and learning the system. Monroe on the other hand continues to be useless and seems to get frustrated after every missed shot or foul. This position needs to get some stability or else the team chemistry is going to suffer more.

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Patriots need to slay the Dragons

There have been a lot of ups and downs in this young season so far. The Patriots have started to show some consistency of late and it could not have come at a better time. The team will travel to Philadelphia on Thursday to take on Drexel who have been knocking over big name schools. The Dragons are on a six game winning streak in which they have beaten two Big East schools, Syracuse and Villanova, on the road. In November they beat a strong Vermont team by 13 points in a game where none of their starters scored in double digits. Drexel is very balanced, much like last years Mason squad; and they are beating more talented teams by playing better as a team. Their RPI is up to #7 right now, making this conference game very important to Mason. Mason's RPI is #103 and beating Drexel on the road would lower that number a lot.

Can Mason slay the Dragons or are they too hot right now? Although Drexel has been playing well as of late theres nothing like having your first conference game to bring you back to reality. Syracuse and Villnova overlooked the Dragons and didn't show them much respect. The Patriots play Drexel to the wire annually and know that they have to contain guys like Bashir Mason and Frank Elegar. I'm not trying to say Mason is a better team than Drexel because they aren't right now. But I will say that Drexel looked like this last season when they gave Duke a huge scare and lost to UCLA by a point in the pre-season NIT. And look what happened, they finished with a losing record and won only eight conference games. My point is the best time for your team to come together is at the end of the season during conference play not in the beginning when your hot streak could cool off after some rivalry games.

Mason matches up with Drexel pretty well except they do not have as much depth. The important match-up to watch will be Will Thomas against Frank Elegar. Thomas has struggled with double teams this year and managed only three points against Holy Cross. Look for Thomas to bounce back and for Coach L to get him more involved in the offense. The Dragons have been playing good defense and kept their opponents shooting percentage under .400. Mason's defense has been improving but they will need to step it up to win this game. Turnovers have been a problem for the Patriots and they will have to protect the ball against the Dragons who currently have a turnover margin of +2.9. Mason will also need strong play from their bench; Birdsong and Smith have been playing well lately with their increased minutes, they need to keep this up. If the Patriots play like they did as against Holy Cross I think they will have a chance to knock Drexel off its high horse and jump start their season.

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Patriots Take Down Holy Cross

Its always good to see more wins before the conference play gets into gear, but scoring less than 60 points and turning over the ball 19 times to Holy Cross is not good to see. And Will Thomas had three points in 36 minutes? But there were a lot of positives that came out of this game such as Louis Birdsong pulling down a game high 11 rebounds. Birdsong should be starting from here on out, hes improved every week while Urbina and Monroe have been struggling and inconsistent. Another positive from this game was that the team played well on defense for a change. And they will definitely need to play defense like that again if they want to have a chance against Drexel. Drexel is best team left on our schedule after they took down Villanova, Syracuse, and Temple. They currently have a very high RPI that our team could greatly benefit from if they can pull off the upset. I'm still not convinced that this team is starting to come together but they are getting close and have showed improvement in some problem areas.

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