Dec. 8, 2006
Durham, N.C. -
The George Mason men's basketball team will play in one of college basketball's toughest environments on Saturday afternoon as the Patriots will play at Duke on national television. The Patriots and Blue Devils will tip-off at Noon from Cameron Indoor Stadium on ESPN.
Mason has not played Duke since January 3, 1983 when the Patriots lost at Duke, 90-79. The only other time the teams met was January 19, 1981, also a win by Duke at home, this one a 60-51 victory.
A lot has changed since then, as Duke has added three national championships and Mason earned a trip to the Final Four. On Saturday, it will be a meeting of two young teams trying to getting ready for a tough conference season.
The Patriots will be trying for their first two-game winning streak of the season after alternating wins with losses. Mason won on Wednesday at Radford, 62-60.
Mason is 3-1 on the road this season while Duke is 7-0 at home. The Blue Devils have yet to play a road game this season and do not have a road game scheduled until Jan. 10 at Georgia Tech. They will have played three neutral site contests and 12 home games before then. Before Duke plays its first road game, Mason will have played on the road 10 times with five home games and one neutral site contest.
Mason is currently 1-7 against the Atlantic Coast Conference under head coach Jim Larranaga, but the Patriots did win their last meeting with an ACC school. The Patriots downed No. 10 North Carolina in the NCAA Tournament. That was also Mason's first win over a ranked team under Larranaga. The Blue Devils are ranked No. 7 in the Associated Press' most recent poll and No. 9 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches' Poll, in which Larranaga is a voter.
This season, Mason has been paced by three players averaging more than 13 points per game - juninor Will Thomas (13.3), redshirt sophomore John Vaughan (14.7) and junior Folarin Campbell (16.3). Only one other player, sophomore Dre Smith (5.7), is scoring more than four points per game. The high-scoring trio scored 58 of Mason's 62 points against Radford.
Duke has just one player scoring more than 13 points per game (junior DeMarcus Nelson - 13.9) but there are eight Blue Devils scoring 5.6 points or more per game. Sophomore Josh Mcoberts is averaging 11.4 ppg, 6.7 rebounds per game and 3.7 assists per game.
The Patriots will start Thomas, Vaughan, Campbell and juniors Jordan Carter and Jesus Urbina on Saturday. That lineup has started three previous games this season, compiling a 3-1 mark. The Blue Devils have a younger starting lineup with Nelson, McRoberts, sophomore Greg Paulus and freshmen Jon Scheyer and Lance Thomas.
Entering this week, Duke was fifth in the nation in scoring defense (51.4 ppg) while Mason was 30th (58.4 ppg). Duke was also 11th in 3-point field goal percentage (.431). Thomas entered the week 58th in field-goal percentage and his percentage increased after an 8 of 11 performance on Wednesday. He is currently shooting .619 from the field.
