Shaking off a hot-shooting Georgia State team and a sluggish start in the first half, the George Mason men’s basketball team overcame an 11-point deficit with a 42-9 scoring run, as the top-seeded Patriots downed the No. 9-seed Panthers, 68-45, on Saturday afternoon. The victory in the quarterfinals sends Mason to the next round, a noon matchup Sunday against either VCU or Drexel.
Mason (26-5) notched its 16th-straight win, tops in the nation, as it limited GSU (12-19) to 5-of-23 second-half shooting (21.7 percent) and earned its largest margin of victory in CAA tournament play since a 62-36 semifinal win over James Madison ten years ago. Senior Cam Long led the effort with 15 points, one of three Patriots in double figures. Eric Buckner had 10 points to lead the Panthers.
The Panthers connected on four of their first five field goal attempts and led 9-8 five minutes into the game. The hot shooting continued as the Panthers built a 16-13 lead eight minutes into the game, and grew that into an 11-0 run which pushed the gap to 23-13. The Panthers would go on to lead by as many as 11 points at 27-16 before a 12-0 Mason run swung the advantage back to Mason, 28-27, with 1:32 left to go in the first half. It extended to 14 straight before GSU ended the run with a long Marques Johnson jumper. Sophomore Luke Hancock followed with a free throw to set the halftime margin at 31-29 in favor of the Green and Gold.
Junior Andre Cornelius led the way with his nine points, all coming from beyond the arc, as the Patriots were out-shot from the field by a 60-to-41.7 percent margin. The Panthers also controlled the boards with a 16-to-10 advantage, the fewest first-half rebounds by Mason this season.
Leading 36-34 with just over three minutes expired in the second half, the Patriots embarked on a 22-2 run to send the margin into double digits for good, and the Panthers got no closer than 17 from there on.
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