NEWARK, Del. - A
stretch of 18 unanswered points bookended the halftime intermission and led the
George Mason men's basketball team to a 69-49 Colonial Athletic Association
victory at Delaware Monday night. The victory, Mason's fifth straight, improves
their record to 15-5 overall and 7-2 in league play. The Blue Hens, meanwhile,
dropped to 5-4 in CAA play and 10-9 overall.
Senior Cam Long, named the
CAA Player of the Week earlier in the day, led all scorers with 20 points on 50
percent shooting while junior Ryan Pearson chipped in 13 points and sophomore
Luke Hancock added 12. Mason held the Blue Hens to 30.4 percent field goal
shooting in the game (17-56), with Devon Saddler leading the effort as he
scored 15 points.
UD scored first but a 7-2 run
by the Patriots put them ahead in the early going, with the first five points
coming from Long. Mason continued to lead despite the Blue Hens closing within
one on numerous occasions, holding an advantage as large as 16-10. Delaware
would again get within a point, but Mason closed out the half on a 9-0 run to
go to the locker room leading 32-20.
Pearson led the way in the
opening half with 10 points, as Mason out-shot the Blue Hens by a 41.4-to-25.8 percent margin from the field
and outscored UD by a 16-4 difference in the paint.
It was all Mason out of the
whistle in the second half, using a 9-0 run and holding the Blue Hens scoreless
for more than six minutes. UD missed their first seven field goal attempts
before Johnson ended the drought with a jumper at the 13:56 mark, making the
score 41-22. However, the Blue Hens
could not mount any kind of charge to get back into the game, and the Patriots
cruised to a season sweep over Delaware.
The Patriots continue a
jam-packed week of CAA play on Wednesday evening when they return to Fairfax to
host Towson. Tip time is set for 7 p.m.
MASON NOTES: The Patriots' game on Saturday, February 12 at home
against James Madison has been officially announced with a 5 p.m. tip time. The
contest will be televised live on the Comcast SportsNet family of networks.
