Despite a large alumni contingent at the Patriot Center on Saturday night to watch Mason play its first Homecoming game as a member of the Atlantic 10, the Patriots failed to feed off of the raucous crowd, falling to St. Bonaventure’s 85-73 in their first matchup as conference foes.

Mason, now 9-16 on the campaign, is 2-9 in A-10 play and are in a three-way tie for last place alongside Rhode Island and Fordham. Both teams, however, hold tie breakers over Mason with head-to-head victories.

Mason men’s basketball travels to Amherst, Mass. on Wednesday to take on Massachusetts at 7 p.m. at the Mullins Center.

UMass at a glance

This will be the second meeting between these two teams this season, with UMass taking the last decision in the final eight seconds of the game in Fairfax last month, 88-87.  

The Patriots (8-15, 1-8 A-10) snapped a nine-game losing streak and captured their first Atlantic 10 Conference win on the road on Saturday after defeating Duquesne, 74-68.

On Friday, Mason men’s baseball will enter a new era in their history. Always a consistent contender for the Colonial Athletic Association regular season and conference titles, the Patriots face an entirely new set of competition in the Atlantic 10.

Selected to finish fifth in the 12-team conference, Mason will open up play at the University of South Carolina Upstate, the first of seven games in the Palmetto State before their first home game of the season against Hartford on February 28^th.

The Mason men’s volleyball team lost 3-0 sets to Ball State University on Friday night at the Recreation and Athletic Center in Fairfax, Va.

Mason (4-3) had a hard time dealing with the No. 15 Cardinals’ balanced offense and defense throughout the match and committed multiple serve and attacking errors that cost them losing the individual sets 25-18, 25-18, and 25-20.