February 19, 2017
The George Mason men's basketball team (18-9, 8-6 A10) lost a critical game against Rhode Island (17-9, 9-5 A10) Saturday, 77-74, in Fairfax, VA. Mason overcame an 18-point second half deficit to tie the game at 54 with under 10 minutes to play in the second half, but their comeback fell short when the Rams scored 6 of the game's final 8 points.
Rhode Island used seven three-pointers to build a 39-26 into the break, and pushed the lead to 51-33 with 16 minutes left in the game. The Patriots countered with a 21-3 run to even things up at 54. From there, the two teams went back-and-forth, with Rhode Island going up by as many as 6, and Mason taking their only lead of the half, 72-71, with just one minute left to play. However, the Rams were able to knock down some crucial free throws down the stretch and stop the Patriots' comeback in it's tracks.
Redshirt senior scored a game high 22 points for Mason, while senior Marquise Moore recorded his 17th double-double of the season, contributing 19 points and 10 rebounds in the effort. Moore also reached the 600 rebounds mark for his career, becoming the only Patriot in history to post 1100 points, 600 rebounds, and 300 assists for his career.
Rhode Island was led by Stanford Robinson's 21 points, and E.C. Matthews added 18.
The loss marks a missed opportunity for the resurgent Patriots. Mason could've leap-frogged Rhode Island into third place in the Atlantic 10 standings, but instead, drop into a three-way tie with St. Bonaventure and LaSalle for fifth. The top four teams will receive a double-bye in the conference tournament, scheduled for March 8-12 in Pittsburgh.
"I told our guys in the locker room that there were two stories to this game," Paulsen said. "One was how hard we fought in the second half and how resilient
we were. But those things were lacking in the first half and that's a
reflection of one of our worst practices of the season Friday. Our guys
have to get over the notion of big games. Every game is a big game, and
if we want to be a championship team we need to have a championship
approach to every single thing we do."
The great thing about a coach like Paulsen, is that he doesn't just talk the talk. He walks the walk too. His reaction to the tough loss against Rhode Island is the cornerstone of his mentality. He's installing a winning culture at Mason, something that's been lagging since Jim Larranaga left the suburban DC campus, for the sunny beaches of Miami, and he's ahead of schedule, too.
Prior to the season started, Paulsen spoke about the
growing pains of rebuilding a program from the ground up, and said, "We’ll have some games this year, I am pretty confident we look
awesome, and within three or four days, we can come back
and look like we never practiced before.”
This was on full display Saturday in Fairfax. Mason has a very young squad in a really competitive league, so these bumps in the road aren't all that surprising. But Mason Nation is taking solace in the fact that after four gloomy seasons under coach Paul Hewitt, Paulsen finally has the program moving in the right direction.
Less than two seasons into the rebuild, Paulsen has the Patriots on the verge of a 20-win season, and even if they don't get the double-bye in the A-10 Tournament, they'll more than likely get a single bye, which was virtually out of the realm of possibility their first three seasons in the league. The future is bright in Fairfax.
Now, here's a look at all of this weekend's Atlantic 10 action:
