ST. LOUIS – The George Mason University men's basketball team (10-7, 2-2) held an eight-point lead with less than three minutes to play but could not make one last bucket to put the game away, as Saint Louis (11-6, 3-1) escaped Chafeitz Arena with a 63-62 victory on Wednesday night.
The Patriots were up 62-54 with 2:21 to play, but could not score for the remainder of the contest, as SLU tallied the final 10 points of the game to earn the victory.
"We have to eliminate losing in order to win on the road," head coach
Kim English said. "A big part of that is finishing down the stretch. We just weren't sound enough late to close it out. It's unfortunate, but we have to learn from it. I'm proud of our guys fight and resolve. It's just very small things we have to clean up so we can become the program I think we're really close to becoming."
Senior forward
Josh Oduro led the Patriots with a monster effort, tallying a season-best 26 points (10-17 FG) to go along with a career-best 15 rebounds in 36 minutes of work. The Gainesville, Va., product also blocked two shots and made two steals. He's averaging 29 points over his last two games against the Billikens.
Junior guard
Ronald Polite III added 12 points, five assists and four rebounds, while
Victor Bailey Jr. tallied 11 points, five rebounds and two assists in 35 minutes.
The Patriots held a significant advantage in points in the paint (32-22) for the game but were victimized by a poor performance at the free throw line, where Mason made 12-of-23 attempts (.522).
Saint Louis built an early 15-9 lead, but a 3-pointer from Bailey Jr. cut the Billiken edge to two (17-15) at the 10:28 mark of the opening half. SLU took its largest lead of the first half at nine (32-23) with 1:49 to go in the stanza, but from there, the Patriots blitzed Saint Louis with an 8-0 run to close the half. That included two triples from Polite III. Mason trailed by one (32-31) after 20 minutes of play.
The Patriots came out firing in the second half, and a 3-point play from Oduro pushed Mason ahead 43-38 at the 14:31 mark of the period. Mason remained ahead by five at 48-43, but the Billikens used a 9-3 spurt to retake the lead at 52-51.
With SLU in front, 54-53, the Patriots ripped off a 9-2 surge, capped by an Oduro bucket, to go up 62-54 with 2:21 to go. But at that point, the Billikens began their climb back to leave Chafeitz Arena with the home victory.
George Mason returns to Fairfax for two home games over the long weekend. First up, the Patriots battle Davidson on Saturday (Jan. 14) at 12 p.m. The game will be broadcast nationally on ESPNU.
