By Dick Patrick

The halftime entertainment for Thursday's game against Binghamton was The Amazing Tyler, who balanced several objects including ladders, a wheelbarrow, a suitcase and a mountain bike. On his face. While dancing to music.

Impressive. Entertaining. But it may not be the best balancing act in EagleBank Arena this season.

Coach Dave Paulsen and the George Mason players, 3-1 and in the Cancun Challenge for games Tuesday and Wednesday, are so far successfully performing a difficult tightrope walk.

The Patriots are thin with just eight eligible scholarship players. They are young with no scholarship seniors and four freshmen. They are small with no player taller than 6-8.

But they are exciting to watch, pulling out wins last week against Binghamton (69-57) and Cal State Northridge (78-73 OT) despite trailing for a majority of the time in both games.

"They don't get down on themselves," Paulsen said. "They're going to keep firing and keep shooting. They're going to play with a level of confidence. I think that's important --for a young or old team."

The Patriots were down by 11 points Saturday to CSUN with 13:44 left in regulation. 

"I was never worried at all," said point guard Otis Livingston II. "I have the utmost confidence in my teammates."

"I thought we just needed to get some stops. We always talk about getting three consecutive stops in practice. We just wanted to do that, get some easy points in transition, run good offense if we didn't get the transition points, move the ball from side to side."

Livingston's 20 points and five assists came with some spectacular plays Steph Curry would have enjoyed. The 5-11 junior hit contested threes, tough fadeaways while pressured, and acrobatic drives. Yes, he did that last season, too, but he's even better now.

Freshmen Goanar Mar continued his impressive play with 22 points and 11 rebounds. He's not afraid to make big plays. His drive from the top of the key, after a timeout and play suggestion from assistant coach Duane Simpkins, tied Northridge at 68 in OT and sparked an 8-0 run that put the Patriots in control.

The 6-7 forward looks more comfortable every outing and is averaging 11.8 points and 5.3 rebounds per game.

Paulsen isn't surprised by the production: "We knew that would happen; we just didn't know when. He's the real deal."

The other three freshmen – redshirt AJ Wilson, Greg Calixte, Javon Greene – have seen playing time. Wilson, a 6-7 jumping jack, didn't score in the first three games. But he may have had a coming out party Saturday with 12 points, four rebounds, eight blocks and two steals in 22 minutes.

"AJ Wilson was nothing short of phenomenal off the bench," Paulsen said. "He was huge for us."

Wilson dunked, hit threes and swatted away inside attempts by the Matadors. His teammates have seen that for two years in practices but Wilson hadn't previously wowed with his game play. Saturday he supplied more energy than a case of Red Bull.

The bench was scoreless in the season's first three games but provided important contributions in the two wins last week.

"We're starting to see the development of our bench and some of our younger guys," Paulsen said. "We're going to need all that."

The Patriots also will have to stay healthy. When Livingston hit the deck hard with his head against Binghamton and had to go to the locker room for a concussion evaluation, there was great relief when he quickly reappeared on the court.

Fellow junior Jaire Grayer, averaging 13.0 ppg, went down with a knee injury in the first half Saturday and played only four minutes in the second half. Paulsen is optimistic the injury isn't serious. No one wants to think about him missing considerable time.

This season isn't going to be easy. But this team will be fun to watch and easy to like.

"This is a tight knit group – I could tell that from the summertime," Livingston said. "All our personalities are similar. We all have a chip on our shoulder when we play the game of basketball."

"We love each other on and off the court … and that should serve us well when we get to conference play and face all these tough games."