Feb. 20, 2009

Omaha, Neb. - The George Mason men's basketball team will travel to Omaha, Neb. this weekend as the Patriots take on Creighton in the ESPN BracketBuster event to be televised on ESPNU and broadcast on WWRC 1260. Tip time for the contest is 9:30 p.m. EST.

Creighton is 22-6 on the season and in first place in the Missouri Valley Conference with a 12-4 record. They are the top team in the MVC in the RPI. Mason is the top CAA team in the RPI and the Patriots are 18-8 with an 11-5 CAA mark, good for a second-place tie. The two teams will be meeting for the first time since 2006-07 when the Patriots suffered a 58-56 loss as Dane Watts made a pair of free throws with seven seconds to go to earn the Bluejays the win. Creighton has one player on their roster who played in that game while Mason has five, including John Vaughan who scored a career-high 22 points in that game.

Creighton is averaging more than 75 points per game, outscoring the opposition by nearly 10 points per game. The Bluejays are shooting 45 percent from the field and nearly 40 percent from 3-point range. They are forcing nearly four more turnovers per game than they are committing but they are being outrebounded by more than 2.5 per game. Booker Woodfox is leading the team with 15.9 points per game, and he is shooting 50 percent from 3-point range on 152 attempts. P'Allen Stinnett is the only other Creighton player averaging in double figures with 12.7 per game.

Justin Carter and Kenny Lawson Jr. are providing a solid interior punch. Carter, a 6-foot-4 forward, is averaging 8.5 points and a team-high 5.1 rebounds while shooting 46.2 percent from the field. Lawson is averaging 8.4 points, 5.0 rebounds and is shooting 53.3 percent form the field, tops on the team among those with 100 or more attempts.

The Patriots have lost five straight on the road but in four of those games, they were either tied or held the lead in the final four minutes. In the other, they trailed by one with less than five minutes to play. Vaughan leads Mason with 11.8 points per game and he is second in the CAA in 3-point field-goal percentage shooting 41.4 percent from the field. His 4.2 rebounds are third on the team. Cam Long is averaging 11.5 points, 5.0 rebounds and he has 29 steals, all second-best on the team. He is shooting 46.4 percent from the field which would be fifth in the CAA if he qualified for the leaderboard. Long also leads the team in assists with 3.3 per game.

Darryl Monroe, who played just three minutes in the game two years ago, has been Mason's force on the inside. He is averaging 10.9 points, 8.2 rebounds and he is shooting 59.7 percent from the field. He leads the CAA in field-goal percentage, is second in rebounding and he is third all-time at Mason in career field-goal percentage.