Jan. 1, 2008
The George Mason men's basketball team will take on Georgia State on Wednesday in its first contest of the 2008 calendar year. The Patriots enter the 3 p.m. contest looking to become the first Colonial Athletic Association team to 10 overall wins and the first to two conference wins as Mason plays at Georgia State for the first time since December of 2005. Mason's lone trip to Pantherville resulted in an 81-51 win to open the conference slate in 2005-06.
Mason leads the all-time series 3-0. After that 30-point victory in 2005-06, the Patriots took an overtime win over the Panthers in the CAA Tournament later that season, 61-56. Last year, Mason won the lone meeting, in Fairfax, 60-54 on Senior Night.
The Patriots have had all five starters score in double figures in each of the past two games. Will Thomas is coming off his fifth double-double of the season as he led Mason in scoring and rebounding in a win over Liberty, with 17 points and 11 rebounds. Dre Smith had 15 points and for the second-straight game drained five 3-pointers. John Vaughan set a career high with six assists to go with 11 points and six rebounds. Folarin Campbell moved into sixth place on the school's career assists list as he had 14 points and eight assists. Louis Birdsong had 11 points and for just the second time in his career had double figures in back-to-back games.
While Mason has won three of its past four games, Georgia State has been on a downstretch, having dropped five of six. Its lone win since November was a 76-71 overtime home victory over Texas-San Antonio.
Leonard Mendez leads the Panthers in scoring at 16.2 points per game. The only other Georgia State player averaging double figures is Rashad Chase, with 10.5 points per game. He's among the top five in the CAA in rebounding with 9.5 per contest. The Panthers are outrebounding the opposition but they are allowing teams to shoot 47.5 percent from the field.
Mason is 8-2 in its first game of a calendar year under head coach Jim Larranaga, but just 1-2 in the past three seasons.
