March 3, 2006
Richmond, Va. -
The George Mason men's basketball team will begin its pursuit of the CAA Championship and an automatic berth in the NCAA Tournament on Saturday night when the Patriots take on Georgia State at 6 p.m. The Patriots were co-champions in the regular season and earned the Colonial Athletic Association's No. 2 seed for the 12-team tournament.
Mason is fresh off the most successful regular-season in school history. The Patriots had a school-record 22 regular-season wins and a .786 winning percentage. That tops the 1983-84 team that went 21-6 in the regular season.
For the third straight year and seventh time in the past nine years more than one Mason player was named All-CAA. Senior forward Jai Lewis was named first-team All-CAA and senior guard Tony Skinn was named second-team All-CAA. The pair had earned All-CAA honors in 2005 (second and third team, respectively). In addition, Will Thomas was named to the All-CAA Defensive Team, becoming the eighth Mason player to earn that honor and first since Jon Larranaga in 2002 and 2003.
Mason is 1-0 this year against 10th-seeded Georgia State, downing the Panthers 81-51 in the conference opener for both teams. That had been the most points scored by Mason all season until Saturday's 95-point performance in a win over James Madison.
Against the Panthers, Mason shot nearly 60 percent while holding Georgia State to less than 30 percent. Only one Georgia State player reached double figures. For Mason, Lamar Butler had 21 points, Thomas had 15 points and nine rebounds and Skinn added 11 points, six rebounds and seven assists.
The Patriots are 18-17 all-time in the CAA Tournament and 8-6 under head coach Jim Larranaga. As one of the top three seeds in the Tournament, Mason is 7-1 all-time in its opening-round game, with the only loss coming in 2001-02 when No. 10 Hofstra took a 82-76 win over the No. 2 Patriots.
The last time Mason won the CAA Championship, the Patriots were a No. 2 seed and UNC Wilmington was the No. 1 seed, same as this year. Those teams met in the finals and Mason took a 35-33 win, setting a then-record for fewest combined points by two teams in the shot-clock era.
