Feb. 11, 2009
The George Mason men's basketball team will travel to Delaware on Thursday night to take on the Blue Hens in a game to be televised on ESPNU and broadcast on ESPN 980. The Patriots, after starting the year 14-3, have gone 2-4 in their past six contests, with all four losses coming on the road.
Mason's struggles began on Jan. 21 at Northeastern when Mason suffered a one-point loss. Three days later, the Patriots fell at VCU by five. Northeastern and VCU are in first and second place in the Colonial Athletic Association, respectively. Mason is in third. The other two road losses came at the hands of a pair of teams tied for fourth. Both Old Dominion and James Madison beat Mason by two.
Delaware, at 10-15, 4-9, is in ninth place in the CAA. The Blue Hens have three of the top nine scorers in the CAA as Jawan Carter, Marc Egerson and Alphonso Dawson are scoring 15.4, 15.0 and 14.6 points per game, respectively. Egerson also leads the CAA in rebounding with 10.3 points per game. He is the only player in the conference averaging a double-double this year.
The sub-.500 record is a product of the defense as the Blue Hens are allowing teams to shoot better than 44 percent from the field, score more than 71 points per game and they are being outrebounded by more than four boards per contest.
The Patriots are near the top of the CAA standings because they have gotten the job done at both ends. Mason is limiting the opposition to 40.4 percent shooting and just 60.7 points per game while outrebounding the opposition by 3.5 per game. John Vaughan is averaging 11.9 points, Cam Long is averaging 11.8 points and 3.6 assists along with 4.8 rebounds and Darryl Monroe is averaging 10.1 points while leading the CAA in field-goal percentage at 58.6 percent. He's also second in rebounding at 8.2 per game.
The two teams met earlier this year, on Jan. 27 in Fairfax when Mason took a 78-55 win. Egerson had 20 points and 11 rebounds in 40 minutes but Carter and Dawson combined for just 21. The Blue Hens shot less than 38 percent while Mason shot nearly 48 percent and had a 47-29 rebounding edge, including a 17-8 advantage on the offensive boards. Mike Morrison and Dre Smith each had 14, Louis Birdsong had 11 and Isaiah Tate had a career-high 10 points and five rebounds. Cam Long had the first double-double of his career with 11 points, 10 rebounds and six assists.
