George Mason needs one victory to go dancing again

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RICHMOND, Va. -- The Year After lives on, for at least another day.

America's Sweetheart Cinderella, otherwise known as George Mason, arrived in Richmond as the No. 6 seed in the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. After three wins in three days, the Patriots are 40 minutes away from returning to the tournament that made them famous.

"We don't want to end the season," guard Gabe Norwood said after matching the George Mason record for career games played. "We were there last year. We know how much fun it is to be in the NCAA tournament. As a senior, I want to go out like Jai Lewis and them. I'm sort of jealous."

George Mason has been fighting uphill all season, unable to garner any momentum while playing with the Final Four bull's-eye on its back. The Patriots lost to Wichita State in their home opener on Banner-Raising Day. They lost to Creighton in an important CAA-Missouri Valley showdown. They lost against Patriot League power Bucknell. They lost at Duke in a nationally-televised game. None of the losses individually were cause for alarm, but collectively, it signaled an inability to match above-average competition.

"At the beginning of the year, we were trying to duplicate last year's run," said guard Dre Smith. "We wanted to be good so bad, and you put pressure on yourself. You can't do that and play at a high level."

The trend continued in conference play. Mason took care of the bottom-feeders, but went 0-6 against the Big Four of VCU, Drexel, Old Dominion and Hofstra. The Patriots entered the CAAs at 15-14 with no shot at even an NIT bid.

"Before the season, all the teams in the conference had a goal to beat George Mason because we went to the Final Four, and some of the top teams did that," said junior Folarin Campbell.

But the Patriots put away James Madison on Friday, then dumped Hofstra in the quarterfinals and slammed Old Dominion 79-63 in the semifinals in what may have been their best game of the season.

"We're just coming out and playing reckless, like we have nothing to lose," said Campbell, who had 18 points and eight rebounds.

George Mason got off to a flying start Sunday thanks to Smith, who has been trying to fill the shoes of the departed Tony Skinn all season. Smith wears Skinn's No. 1, plays the point and is just now performing to the level coach Jim Larranaga expected when he brought in the junior college All-American.

"Andre has been very aggressive offensively and it has helped everybody else," Larranaga said. "Once he got it going, everybody played that way."

Smith had 14 points in the first half when GMU built a 35-20 lead, and finished with 19 points, five rebounds and three assists. In the first three days of the tournament, Smith is averaging 19 points a game after averaging 6.7 all season.