by Bill Rohland, Voice of the Patriots
Tonight at the Patriot Center will mark a familiar tradition held all across the country during college basketball season as the men's team will celebrate senior night, honoring Vaughn Gray and Corey Edwards for their contributions over the past four seasons.
Mason fans take for granted the Patriot Center and the 9,800 seats for basketball. This coming fall will mark the 30th year the men's team will call it home, starting all the way back for the 1985-86 season. It also means it has been 30 years since the most dynamic scorer in school history wore a Patriots jersey.
Carlos Yates is sometimes a forgotten legend in the annals of George Mason Basketball. He played from 1981-1985--just missing out on the first ever post season bid (1986 NIT)—and also missed out on playing in the Patriot Center. It's one of those cruel twists of fate sports sometimes takes. Yates scored 2,420 career points—before the three point line existed in college basketball—and none of them came in the building he helped get built.
Looking back through some old scrap books from the mid 80's, there are quite a few Yates stories most Patriot fans don't know. There was the game during the 1982-83 season at Duke when Yates led the Patriots to a six point halftime lead at Cameron Indoor against the Blue Devils. Mason would drop the contest 90-79 but Yates scored 35 points on 10-16 shooting and a perfect 15-15 from the free throw line. After the game Coach Mike Krzyzewski said “Yates was excellent. His scoring was one of the single biggest achievements I've seen by anyone since I've been here.” His 15-15 is still the Cameron Indoor record by an opponent for most free throws without a miss. And just for good measure, he also had six rebounds, six assists and two blocks while playing 39 minutes. Quite a day.
There was no doubt Yates could score. Looking over the Mason record book, he's all over it. Most points (2,420), highest season scoring average (26.8 as a sophomore in '82-83), most field goals in a career (865), most free throws in a season (209) and career (690) and of course most free throw attempts for a season (266) and career (921). Doing the quick math, Yates shot 78.5% in his single season record year and 74.9% for his career, both impressive numbers. His career scoring average (22.2) is tops in Mason's Division I history, in fact he owns three of the four top spots in single season average since Mason has been D1. And he did this all while shooting nearly 49% for his career. If you take away his freshman year point total…he'd still be #2 in Mason history in scoring just behind Kenny Sanders.
(To give the free throw numbers even more prespective—2006 Regional MOP Lamar Butler went 203-263 from the free throw line for his entire career. Yates went 209-266 in ONE season.)
As impressive as his game against Duke was in 1983, Yates' best performance probably came in his next to last home game as a Patriot. Playing against David Robinson and Navy on February 27, 1985 in the old PE Building (now renovated as the RAC), Yates put on an absolute show in setting the school's single game scoring mark of 42 points (again without a 3-point shot). Yates went for 25 first half points as the Patriots opened up a 20 point lead on the Midshipmen. He added 17 more in the second half in the 93-77 rout, 42 points on 17-27 from the field and 8-11 from the free throw line. When asked what it was about Navy that made it so easy for him that night, Yates replied “They didn't make it easy…I just made it look easy.” The original swag.
There are two great moments from the game against Navy his former teammates tell about Yates. One was captured in the newspaper accounts of the game. At one point during the game, there was a scramble for a rebound. Yates got tangled up in the mix and ended up on his back. The ball landed in his hands and with the hot shooting hand going according to the papers “(Yates) was feeling so good he even took one shot while lying flat on his back in the lane. It was one of the few that missed.”
The other moment comes from teammate Ric Wilson, a then junior on the 1984-85 team. At one point during the first half Yates was unstoppable. Yates was dribbling through the Navy zone and driving toward the rim when Robinson, the future NBA star, rotated over to contest the shot. Bodies collided and Yates twisted himself with his back to both Robinson and the basket so he could flip the shot up towards the backboard. With no possible way for Yates to see the rim, Robinson was stunned when Yates not only got the shot over his outstretched arms, but drew the foul and made the basketball while crashing to the floor. As Wilson tells it, Robinson stood in disbelief as Yates gathered himself off the floor, patted Robinson on the behind and said “don't feel bad man…I do that move all the time” as he walked to the free throw line.
Yates and the Patriots would win his senior game a few days later against UNCW but their season, and his career, would end two games later in the ECAC semifinals. There would be no post season tournament for Mason, something Yates wanted to make happen for his hometown school, a goal that would be achieved the following season in the NIT. Again, like playing in the Patriot Center, it came just a year too late for Yates.
In the days leading up to the final few games of his career, much was written about the impact Carlos Yates had on the George Mason basketball program. Former Mason Athletic Direct Jack Kvancz was quoted as saying while the Patriot Center wasn't necessarily the House that Carlos built “I won't say we wouldn't have the building if we didn't have Carlos. But let's just say funding has gone a lot smoother because of him.”
Yates is one of the most decorated players in Mason history. Four times he was named to the ECAC South's first team. He was co-player of the Year in 1982-83. He was an AP Honorable Mention All American four straight years. Had it not been for David Robinson at Navy, one of the greatest players of all time, Yates would have had more than one POY award to his name.
Thirty years ago the greatest scoring force to ever wear a Patriot uniform finished his career. Thirty years later current Patriot players, even if they don't know it, are benefiting from his legacy.
