George Mason moved to 4-0 Wednesday night with a huge 71-66 victory at No. 20/21 Maryland inside the XFINITY Center.
The Patriots held a 32-31 lead at the half, then pushed in front by 10 (38-28) midway through the second half. Maryland (3-1) cut it to one (67-66) with 57 seconds remaining, but Mason scored the final four points of the game to seal its first win over a ranked opponent since 2007.
The Patriots are now 4-0 for just the fourth time in school history.
“This is our fourth win against a team that will finish at the top of their league,” head coach Kim English said. “That’s the most important thing. I saw something in the media where they said it was a big game for us. Our guys know that’s the complete opposite of what we preach. We didn’t prepare for Maryland any differently than we did Stony Brook, Penn, Morgan State. Our standard is our standard. I’m really proud of our guys. It keeps us on track with our goals. It’s a quality road win.”
Graduate student D’Shawn Schwartz led the Patriots with a career-best 24 points (8-15 FG), including a personal-best six 3-pointers on 10 attempts (.600). He added nine rebounds and three steals in a stellar 38 minutes of work.
Fellow graduate student DeVon Cooper notched 16 points (6-13 FG), five assists and two steals while hitting big shot after big shot.
Junior Davonte “Ticket” Gaines tallied his first career double-double (15 pts, 10 reb) in 32 minutes of work, while junior Josh Oduro notched 12 points (6-12 FG), including a huge fallaway jumper with less than a minute to go to keep Mason in front.
The Patriots once again set the gym on fire with an outstanding shooting performance while making 12-of-24 3-pointers (.500). Over the past three games, Mason is averaging 13 made 3-pointers and shooting a blistering 47 percent from long distance.
Mason held a +6 (36-30) edge in rebounding against a team which entered the game averaging a +14.3 rebounding margin.
Maryland struck first in the game and opened up a 10-3 lead at the 16:01 mark of the first half. With the Terps leading 14-6, the Patriots responded, using a 15-4 run, capped by a Cooper 3-pointer, to take a 22-18 advantage
Maryland moved back in front, 27-25, but Mason scored seven of the final 11 points of the half to take a 32-31 lead into the break.
With Mason ahead 39-38 four minutes into the second half, the Patriots made a run, ripping off 10 straight points to go up 48-38. A Gaines 3-pointer kept the Patriots up nine (51-42) with 10:19 left, and freshman Blake Jones hit a huge triple to keep Mason up by that margin (59-50) with 7:03 left.
A Schwartz 3-pointer gave Mason a 54-46 edge with 3:06 left, but Maryland responded, with back-to-back 3-pointers from Eric Ayala cutting the lead to 67-66 with 57 seconds left.
But on the ensuing possession, Oduro made a difficult fadeaway jumper to increase the lead to three (69-66). After a big defensive stop, Gaines hit two free throws to seal the win.
Mason wraps up a two-game road swing with its 100th all-time matchup against James Madison. The Patriots and Dukes will square off in the new Atlantic Union Bank Center on Friday night at 7 p.m. The game will be broadcast on NBC Sports Washington+ and FloHoops.
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