Senior Janaa Pickard scored 15 points to finish her career with George Mason as the 17th Patriots to score   1,000 points as the Patriots (8-23, 1-15 A-10) lost 89-55 to Saint Joseph's in the first round of the Atlantic 10 tournament to end the season.

“I was really excited for Janaa Pickard, you would have thought we won the World Series the way we reacted there,” head coach Nyla Milleson said.

Taking the court just 17 hours after the end of Wednesday night's thrilling overtime win over Massachusetts in the opening round, the Patriots quickly found themselves in a 6-0 hole.

“That's the price you pay for being a 12 seed in this conference, you've got to come back with a short turnaround, we knew that,” Milleson said. “That's going to be one of our goals heading into next year, not to have to play the play in game.”

 Kyana Jacobs got Mason on the board with a jumper with a little under 16 minutes in the half to start a 7-4 Mason run to make it a three point game. However, that was as close at the Patriots would get as they trailed 38-25 at the break.

The Patriots didn't back down in the second half, but couldn't handle the Hawk's offense as they'd hit over 50% from the field and just over 54% from beyond the arc.

“Tough game for us today,” Milleson said. “We're obviously very much outmatched against Saint Joe's, which is a very good basketball team.”  

Sophomore Taylor Brown contributed 15 points and two steals in the loss while Sandra Ngoie added 13 points in the effort.  

Milleson notes that thought the record might not show it, there are plenty of positives to take from this season.

“A lot of teams quit, they don't want to do the things that you have to do, our team continued to do that,” Milleson said. “We believed today that we could win, we believed we could win every time we stepped out on the court.”