If ever there were a sequence that could describe how Ryan Pearson plays the game of basketball, it occurred with just over six minutes remaining in Saturday’s game between the George Mason and Old Dominion men’s basketball teams at the Patriot Center.
(See more photos from the game here.)
The Patriots’ junior forward, listed at 6-feet-6 and with an awkward post game that produces both circus-like shots and match-up nightmares for opponents, missed a wide open fastbreak dunk, but would scramble back to get in position to draw a charge on Old Dominion senior forward Ben Finney.
The hustle play preserved what was then a 49-35 advantage, and George Mason went on to claim a 62-45 victory over the Monarchs in front of a sellout crowd of 9,840 at George Mason’s homecoming game.
“That kept them from gaining some momentum at a critical part of the game,” said George Mason coach Jim Larranaga.
Added Pearson, who finished with game-highs of 18 points and 11 rebounds. “I had tried to gather myself and dunk it real hard and it didn’t work out, so I knew I just had to run and get back on the defensive end.”
The play highlighted the ninth straight win for the Patriots (19-5 overall, 11-2 Colonial Athletic Association), their longest since the 1998-99 season, and put two games between them and Old Dominion (18-6, 9-4) in the conference standings. George Mason is curently tied atop the CAA with Virginia Commonwealth, which was a 70-66 winner at James Madison on Saturday.
As well as things ended for the Patriots, which used a 9-0 run late in the second half to stretch their advantage to a game-high 58-37 on two free throws by sophomore Luke Hancock, they certainly did not start start well.
George Mason missed nine of its first 10 shots and, with 9:24 remaining in the first half, had more turnovers (5) than points and found itself in a 9-4 hole. Luckily for the Patriots, the Monarchs were almost equally as cold from the field, hitting just 1 for 10 3-point attempts in the half. George Mason eventually woke up, tying the game at 13-13 on a 3-pointer by senior guard Cam Long and taking their first lead of the game at 22-19 on a 3 by senior guard Isaiah Tate with 3:18 left in the half en route to a 24-21 halftime lead.
“Offensively, we took some shots that were out of character for us [in the first half],” Larranaga said. “So at halftime, I told the guys, ‘It’s not about who we play or where we play, it’s how we play. And we need to get back to playing George Mason basketball’.”
Added Long, who finished with 14 points: “Lately, we’ve been definitely been a second half team. In the first half, we didn’t execute. The second half, there was no let up. We just went in there with complete energy and complete focus.”
That execution on the offensive end allowed the Patriots to eventually put away an Old Dominion team that set season lows in points and shooting percentage. The Monarchs hit just 5 of 27 shots in the second half and shot 27 percent (15 of 55) from the field for the game in seeing their own four-game winning streak come to an end.
“I can’t tell you anyone on our team who had a particularly good day,” said Old Dominion coach Blaine Taylor. “Somebody’s got to hit some shots.
“If you’re classy, you always give the other guys credit for playing pretty good defense, but I thought we had some awful good looks. They just weren’t falling.”
Junior forward Chris Cooper had 12 points and seven rebounds and junior guard Kent Bazemore also had 12 points for the Monarchs, who got just nine points from leading-scorer Frank Hassell and none from senior forward Ben Finney, the team’s third-leading scorer averaging 9.7 points entering the game.
Junior forward Mike Morrison added 10 points and seven rebounds for George Mason, which improved to 12-0 at home.
The Patriots are next in action on Tuesday at UNC-Wilmington, then return home to face rival James Madison on Saturday.
Notes: The sellout was the second in two years and just the eighth in Patriot Center history. … The home team has claimed 13 of the last 14 games in the series between the schools, the lone exception being a 66-56 win here by Old Dominion during the 2006-07 season. … Cooper and Long competed against each other locally while in high school, when Cooper attended Forest Park and Long attended Freedom. Both schools are in Woodbridge. … Pearson has recorded double-figures in scoring each of the last 17 games, and Long has done so in each of the past 16 games.
