George Mason University Athletics

Head Coach Dave Paulsen
"Another disappointing loss - again you have to give credit to American. We need to figure out how to close out games and make keys plays down the stretch, but we also need to play well early in the game with no turnovers or shooting ourselves in the foot. We have a lot of work to do, this is quite stunning because this is not the same team I have seen every day in practice so there’s some disconnect between practice performance and game performance. AJ and Javon played with unbelievable energy and toughness. They left everything out on the court. We have to get a few more guys performing like that.”
 
On unforced turnovers
 “They are huge and costly. They’re unacceptable. We will continue to address them. They are uncharacteristic for what I see every day in practice. There's a real disconnect on a level we haven’t seen in a while. We’ll keep working on that.”
 
Paulsen on not having Grayer out on the court to end the game
"I like the group we had. Ian Boyd was playing exceptional, Javon Greene was playing exceptional. I liked Javon, not only offensively but defensively. He was all over the glass. From a defensive perspective, we liked the lineup that we had and we trusted guys who have a track record of performing well down the stretch who didn’t necessarily do that tonight but have done it a lot in the past. We have to keep working with them, but sometimes it doesn’t go your way. It is one of the neat things about this team. We have a lot of potential options. One of the challenging things is you kind of have to go with the hot hand and who’s playing well and one night it might be someone different than the next. I didn’t want the take these two kids off the court [A.J. & Javon].”
 
Paulsen on if he liked the looks his team got at the end of the game
“For the most part. I did not love the pull up shot with 22 seconds and think we could have had better looks. Beyond that, we talked about trying to score in the paint or having your feet set on threes and we got those down the stretch. Someone may have missed one of those 3-pointers, and we missed some bunnies around the basket, but for the most part we had pretty decent looks and we really struggled to stop them on the other end.”
 
On the bench scoring
“We talked about that. It doesn’t matter who starts, it’s who finishes the game and I think our guys know that and embrace that. The bench scoring was a silver lining in a cloudy night.”
 
On Otis’ last second shots and if they were drawn up like that
“Certainly not the first one. The second one there was less time. That one was about as good of a shot as you’re going to get. He’s hit that a ton of times. When we were down one with 35 seconds left to go we said, ‘We are going to take the first great shot.’ We played out of that entry, got to the paint, attacked and kicked. I would like to have that one back. That’s where the learning curve takes place, starting in a few minutes."
 
AJ WILSON
On his role on the team
“I feel my role is to do whatever I can to bring energy to this team, whether that is blocking shot, grabbing rebounds, or pumping up my teammates on the bench. I feel everybody’s role is to hold each other accountable, whether that’s the starters or whoever is coming off the bench. We want to hold ourselves to a higher standard and continue to push each other.”
 
JAVON GREENE
On his transition to his sophomore season
“There are a lot of differences. Coming in as a freshman, it is just a completely different competition level. Everyone is bigger, stronger, everybody can play. The game seems to be slowing down as the years go on, so I am just playing my role. I want to play great defense to help give energy to my teammates and do whatever it takes to win the game. I feel like it has been a great transition from freshman year to sophomore year already and I feel like I can contribute a lot this year.”