Colonial Fans

George Mason 62, Old Dominion 45

The Colonial Athletic Association is a little confusing this year if you’re not paying close attention. As the first week of February recedes into the record books, the Atlantic Seaboard’s mid-major conference is staging not one two-horse race, but a pair of them.

You’ll need to follow the bouncing ball after the latest and most significant result to emerge from the Colonial’s upper reaches.

Ryan Pearson had 18 points and 11 rebounds, leading George Mason to a 62-45 win over Old Dominion in front of a sold-out crowd at the Patriot Center in Fairfax, Virginia. The win, the Patriots ninth in a row, keeps them on pace with Virginia Commonwealth in the Colonial Athletic Association. The Patriots also improved to 12-0 at home on the season.

The Monarchs, meanwhile, had a four-game winning streak snapped and fell two games behind VCU and George Mason in the CAA. ODU, at 9-4 in the CAA, is tied with Hofstra for third place. You might think that George Mason and VCU, at 11-2, are now the only two teams you need to watch over the next month, and on a certain level, that’s correct. However, this Mason mashing of Old Dominion means that the defeated Monarchs will become a heavily-scrutinized team as February continues.

Yes, the Mason-VCU horse race is one of the two-team competitions to watch in the Colonial, but while the Patriots and the Rams battle for the regular-season CAA title, there’s another skirmish which is of interest to the conference’s brass. It is the pursuit of NCAA Tournament bids. The winner of the CAA Tournament – which is shaping up to be Mason or VCU – is obviously going to get an automatic invite to the Big Dance and therefore garner a lot of interest, but in addition to the CAA tournament champion, Old Dominion is the second team that needs to be kept in mind when Selection Sunday arrives.

Old Dominion, you see, is the one CAA team with top-shelf non-conference wins. The Monarchs pasted Xavier and Richmond, two likely NCAA teams, and played both Georgetown and Missouri to elevate their RPI ranking. ODU could get an at-large bid while the VCU-Mason winner (or another surprise team in the Colonial) takes the conference tournament and locks up the auto-bid.

The basic storyline of Saturday’s George Mason victory, then, is that while it improves the Patriots’ prospects, it hurts Old Dominion’s at-large chances and, by extension, makes CAA executives more worried that a two-bid haul might not materialize when the NCAA Tournament brackets are announced. This romp was certainly a triumph for GMU, but it did not make CAA suits happy at all.

How did George Mason carry the day? They set up the first half to play the second half. The Patriots started very slowly, missing nine of their first ten shots, but were able to rebound and grab a 24-21 lead heading to the locker room at halftime. And after that, the Patriots started pulling away, aided by a strong defensive effort that resulted in the Monarchs hitting just 5 of 27 shots in the second half. The Patriots were out-rebounded 40-38, but head coach Jim Larranaga’s emphasis on defense showed up after the break. ODU head coach Blaine Taylor could only watch as the Monarchs hit 27 percent of their shots for the game (15-of-55) and just 7 percent from three-point range (1-15).

The Patriots also got 14 points from Cam Long and 10 points from Mike Morrison, as they shot 41 percent from the field and 38.5 percent from three-point range. Kent Bazemore and Chris Cooper had 12 apiece for the Monarchs in the loss.

Sure, it will be interesting to see how George Mason fares in its battle with Virginia Commonwealth in the coming weeks. However, it will be just as fascinating to see how a wounded Old Dominion squad responds to the pressure of trying to justify at at-large selection on CBS television when March 13 arrives.

Matt Zemek
DFN Sports Senior Staff Writer