Rams halt nation's longest streak, eliminate Patriots from CAA tourney

Senior Cam Long shoots like he's "Livin' on a Prayer." The shot missed though.  (John Powell)

Recalling the spirit of the 2006 Final Four team, No. 25 George Mason lost Sunday afternoon to the VCU Rams by a final score of 63-79 in the semifinals of this year’s CAA men’s basketball Tournament. The loss eliminates the Patriots from the championship round, meaning that they will not receive an automatic bid into the NCAA tournament. A similar situation happened just five years ago.

VCU took the lead early and kept it for most of the game. Even though Mason played against VCU’s “Wreaking Havoc” defense, a game-long full-court pressure defense designed by their head coach, Shaka Smart, it worked better for the Rams the second time around.

When Mason played the Rams just a few weeks ago, VCU’s game focused on sending the ball to the perimeter on both offense and defense. In this tournament, star forward Jamie Skeen and guard Joey Rodriguez went after Drexel’s big men, then Mason’s juniors Mike Morrison and Ryan Pearson. Between the two games, they fouled out three Drexel Dragons and two Patriots, Morrison and freshman guard Vertrail Vaughns.

“From the beginning, VCU’s players were very focused, very sharp,” head coach Jim Larranaga said.

Maybe it was the fact that without winning the conference tournament, VCU may not see the NCAA tournament. Maybe it was junior point guard Andre Cornelius’s tweet two hours before tip-off that read, “The game is over don’t forget to tell VCU that’s over.”

“We had to win to keep our hopes alive,” Smart said. “We had a sense of urgency. Mason came in with some swagger.”

Referring to Cornelius’s tweet, senior forward Jamie Skeen took a special reservation. Cornelius and Skeen were friends that both came out of the Charlotte area.

“You just don’t do that,” Skeen said. “You would think guys would learn, when they get to college that anybody can beat anybody.”

VCU’s freshman center DJ Haley was the first scorer of the game, but Skeen led the team and worked to a seven-point differential in VCU’s favor. Mason only had the lead for 31 seconds in the first half, starting at the 10-minute mark. But another run gave the Rams a 14-point lead to close the half.

Pearson was double-teamed under the basket during most of the game, especially when Morrison was sitting on the bench. Pearson picked up four fouls, but his usual 14.5 points per game was nonexistent. He scored 10 points, six in the second half, but added seven rebounds to his stat sheet.

VCU’s Rodriguez, was held to three points and three assists in the first half, but quickly gave Morrison foul issues, forcing him to help the Mason defense on the perimeter.

Rodriguez finished with seven points from the field, but capitalized on the fouls. Morrison had 4 fouls with 10 minutes to go and eventually fouled out. Rodriguez made the best of the fouls by shooting a perfect 6-of-6 from the free throw line. The Rams made 20-29 from the line as a team to Mason’s 5-13 free-throw shooting.

Morrison finished with only five points and two rebounds, but the Rams were able to take out a big three-point threat off the bench in Mason’s Vaughns. He finished with six points in 11 minutes, going 2-3 from 3-point land.

Sophomore Luke Hancock was nowhere to be found offensively. He scored five points in the Georgia State game and four against VCU, and had just five rebounds in his last two games combined. This year’s tournament was nothing like his 11-point, four-rebound regular-season.

Only one of Rodriguez’s three-point attempts found the basket, but Skeen stepped up and found a three-point stroke, knocking down 4-6 from long. Skeen’s 21 points was good for his fifteenth double-digit scoring game in the last 17.

“I don’t know what happened to me,” Skeen said. “I’ve never took (sic.) six threes in one game in my life. Not even in AAU. But, I mean, I just felt like I could knock them down and was completely open.”

Guard Bradford Burgess made three shots from behind the arc to finish with 16.

The Patriots looked more frantic than they had been during their nation-leading 16-game win streak. Senior Cam Long began to look for more outside shots as time wound down. Long finished with 20 points on 8-20 shooting to lead the team’s point total, but it did not seem to be enough. He took it upon himself to crack the lead.

“I was just trying to hit some shots to get back in there,” Long said. “That’s one thing I always feel like a lot of players, you know, that’s what we all want to do. We all want the ball because we all want to win […] I just had the confidence and belief in myself that if I could knock it down, I could motivate us to get back into it.”

Long and the Patriots were unable to overcome the rapidly increasing lead. VCU had 18 points more than Mason with just over a minute left in the game.

Mason will have to wait until the NCAA’s Selection Sunday, March 13, to find out if they will play in the NCAA’s national championship tournament. Before Sunday’s game, Mason sat in the 23rd spot in the national RPI rankings, helped by a win in ESPN’s BracketBuster event.

If they are following the 2006 Patriots’ postseason handbook, they are doing it well. That team went in as an at-large bid since they did not win the CAA crown that year either.