An NCAA Tourney to remember

The University of North Carolina, Michigan State, the University of Connecticut.

And George… The University of North Carolina, Michigan State, the University of Connecticut.

And George Mason University?!

This time of year, one of these four schools doesn’t seem to fit.

The Tar Heels of UNC, the Spartans of MSU and the UConn Huskies are college basketball powerhouses. These three universities have combined for three national championships in the five NCAA tournaments this decade.

In the history of the three schools’ storied basketball programs, they have made 24 trips to the Final Four while walking away as champions eight different times. They are led by unbelievable coaches – Jim Calhoun of UConn is already in the Hall of Fame, while Tom Izzo of State and Roy Williams of UNC are sure to follow in his footsteps.

They perennially recruit high school All-Americans and contend for conference championships. It’s not a matter of if they’ll get a bid or not for the tournament, it’s merely a discussion of how highly they’ll be seeded year after year.

So where does George Mason fall into this discussion?

Well, the Patriots, members of the Colonial Athletic Association, clearly seem not to belong in any discussion of upper echelon college basketball programs.

However, this year they did crack the national top-25 polls once, at the 25 spot for only a week in February, and they were the favorite to win the CAA tournament and get the automatic invite into this year’s tournament.

Two losses to CAA rival Hofstra in the last 10 days of their regular season, one in the CAA conference tournament’s semifinals, left their tournament status up in the air heading into Selection Sunday.

And even though the Patriots had never won a tournament game, the selection committee found them worthy of an at-large bid despite the fact that the CAA was ranked as the 10th-best conference in the nation.

The Patriots received an at-large bid and entered this tournament as a No. 11 seed in the Washington bracket with a seemingly tough road to advance. But after two weekends of madness, the Patriots have made that road seem silky smooth and have proven that the committee’s decision to let them in the field was a pretty solid one.

As I sat down to watch the Patriots take on Michigan State in the first round of the tournament, my girlfriend asked me where GMU was. Normally, I can pretty much tell you where any prominent university is located, but to be honest I wasn’t too familiar with George Mason.

As I refused to leave my post on the couch, she went into my bedroom to Google where the school was. By the time she found that the school was located in Fairfax, Va., the Patriots were up three at the half against MSU.

After dominating the second half, the Pats cruised to a 10-point victory. That set up a match up with the defending national champion Tar Heels two days later. The Patriots stunned the nation and proved they belonged in the field with a 65-60 win that set up a Sweet 16 match up with the other Cinderella team in this region, the seventh-seeded Wichita State Shockers.

This past weekend, the only shocking was done by the green and yellow of GMU.

Playing 22 miles from their campus at the Verizon Center in Washington, the Patriots beat WSU by eight to set up an epic battle with the nation’s top team, Calhoun’s Huskies.

In one of the most thrilling games in tournament history, George Mason squeaked out a two-point overtime victory to punch their Final Four tickets as the Washington region champions.

So now the Patriots will head to Indianapolis to participate in the Final Four. They are only the second 11 seed to ever do so, and the first from a mid-major conference. It seems clear that this is one of the most remarkable stories in the tournament’s history, but what is even more remarkable is the mentality head coach Jim Larranaga has instilled in his team.

He told them their 11th seed didn’t matter, and they were just going to have fun in the tournament and see what happens.

If the Patriots can keep having fun in Indy and win two more games, they will raise a national championship banner at the Patriot Center just like North Carolina, Michigan State and UConn have all done in their arenas in recent years.

It’s safe to say that no one will forget where George Mason is if they can achieve such a feat.

Dave Thomas is a senior staff writer for The Pitt News and hopes that Fairfax, Va., will be the toast of the sporting world after George Mason shocks the world and captures the national title. E-mail him the facts at dthomas7224@yahoo.com.