Jan. 23, 2009
The George Mason men's basketball team will face one of its biggest challenges of the season on Saturday afternoon when the Patriots travel to preseason Colonial Athletic Association favorite VCU for a nationally-televised game without one of their top players. The Patriots will take on the Rams at 4 p.m. on ESPN2 with senior guard John Vaughan sitting out due to a concussion suffered on Wednesday.
Vaughan is one point behind Cam Long for the team lead and he is averaging 11.6 points and 3.8 rebounds and he is second in the CAA in 3-point shooting percentage. The senior also happens to be one of the conference's top defenders. Mason and VCU are tied atop the CAA standings at 7-1 along with Northeastern, which handed Mason its first conference loss on Wednesday, a 58-57 road defeat.
The Rams won the CAA regular-season title the past two seasons behind senior guard Eric Maynor. The defending CAA Player of the Year was also picked as the CAA's Preseason Player of the Year this year. He is among the league leaders in scoring, assists, assist-to-turnover ratio, steals, field-goal percentage and 3-point field-goal percentage. He is averaging 22.1 points on 47.3 percent shooting and 6.2 assists with almost two assists per turnover.
Larry Sanders leads the Rams in rebounding and field-goal percentage. He is averaging 10.8 points, 7.2 rebounds and 54.8 percent shooting. As a team, VCU leads the CAA in scoring offense, field-goal percentage and 3-point field-goal percentage.
Mason is a defensive-oriented team, leading the CAA in scoring defense and standing second in field-goal percentage defense and 3-point field-goal percentage defense. The Patriots also shoot the ball well as they are second, behind VCU in field-goal percentage. Long isn't just a scorer with an 11.6 average, he also leads the team in assists and is second in rebounding and 3-point shooting percentage. He is fifth in the CAA in field-goal shooting percentage and third in assist-to-turnover ratio. He also has more steals than fouls this year, having committed less than a foul per game. Darryl Monroe is averaging 10.2 points and his 8.8 rebounds are second-most in the CAA. He would lead the CAA in field-goal percentage as he is shooting 58.2 percent, but he is just a few attempts shy of qualifying for the leader board.
The two teams will face just once in the regular season this year. Last year, the lone meeting was in Fairfax, where the Patriots took a 63-51 victory. In that contest, VCU led by six with 11:30 to play when Mason went on a 20-4 run to take control of the game, allowing just two field goals in a span of more than eight minutes.
