George Mason rallies, defeats La Salle, 69-62, to hang close in A-10 race

George Mason completed a perfect A-10 home season with a 69-62 win over La Salle on Wednesday in Fairfax.

Mason (23-7, 14-3 A-10, NET: 77) remains a game back of VCU (25-5, 15-2 A-10, NET: 29) in the A-10 standings.

VCU has already clinched the #1 seed in next week’s A-10 Tournament, but the Patriots can still earn a share of the regular-season title with a Rams’ loss on Friday vs. Dayton (21-9, 11-6 A-10, NET: 69) and a Mason win at Richmond (10-20, 5-12 A-10) on Saturday.

In Wednesday’s win, the Patriots got a career-high 26 points from junior Brayden O’Connor.

Senior Jalen Haynes added 22 points and 10 rebounds to notch his fifth double-double of the season. Haynes made 8-of-11 shots from the floor and a perfect 6-of-6 attempts at the line.

Senior Darius Maddox added 17 points, three assists, three steals.

The Explorers (12-18, 4-13 A-10) shot 48.1 percent in the first half and made five threes to build a 33-26 halftime advantage. But in the second half, the Green & Gold held La Salle to just 32.1 percent and made 58.3 percent of their shots on the other end.

“At the end of the day, I can find solace that we were 9-0 at home and finished it out,” George Mason coach Tony Skinn said. “Regardless of how we played in that first half, I’m glad we got another win. Now we just have to regroup, because we’re going to play some pretty good teams here in the next few days.”