Patriots hope to rebound for Homecoming

Seniors Ryan Pearson and Mike Morrison have carried this team all season and have become the face of Patriots basketball. Saturday they will look to lead the team to a Homecoming victory over a tough Old Dominion team (John Powell).

Coming off just their second conference loss, Paul Hewitt and his George Mason Patriots (18-6, 10-2) return to Fairfax looking to dethrone the Monarchs of Old Dominion in front of the Homecoming crowd Saturday afternoon.

With their loss at Delaware Wednesday night, the Patriots also dropped their position alone in first place of the CAA. They now sit in a three-way tie atop the standings with Drexel and VCU. The Patriots lost their only matchup against Drexel this season back on Jan. 12 in Philadelphia and have two games upcoming against rival VCU.

ODU is no slouch either, however. They are sitting just one-half game back in the standings at 9-2, and are 14-9 overall. In their previous meeting earlier this season back on Jan. 5, the Patriots handled business with a final count of 63-54 in Norfolk, Va.

Despite the win at ODU, winning on the road has not been easy for Hewitt’s squad. Mason is now just 7-5 in games played outside of the Patriot Center this season, compared to 11-1 when playing in Fairfax.

In road games, this team seems to simply lose their offensive prowess. In their last two games away from home, the Patriots scored just 55 points against Hofstra and just 60 against Delaware, yet they put 89 points on the board in their last game played in the Patriot Center against JMU.

With what is expected to be an impassioned Homecoming crowd Saturday for a 5:00 p.m. game, Hewitt anticipates his team’s offensive production to be back on track. He believes the way his team scores the ball at home is more indicative of their true potential.

“We’re a really good team offensively, I think we’re leading the league in scoring and honestly I think we can do better than the 70 or 71 we’re scoring a game,” Hewitt said.

The Patriots are averaging 70.9 points per contest to be exact and are in fact in first place in the CAA in that regard.

Leading the squad offensively is none other than CAA Player of the Year candidate and senior leader Ryan Pearson. He is averaging 17.8 points and 8.8 rebounds per game and has nine double-doubles on the season. Pearson was also named the CAA Co-Player of the Week last week as he averaged 18.7 points and 12.3 boards over those two games.

“He’s a senior, it’s coming down to the wire now, his last few games left in college basketball and I think he’s enjoying it,” Hewitt said. “And again, I’ve been saying the whole year, I think he’s the best player in our league.”

After defeating JMU on Jan. 28, the Dukes’ head coach Matt Brady described Pearson’s game as a throwback and even admitted he creates the toughest matchup problem in the league.

Fellow senior Mike Morrison is also having a solid season for the Patriots as he is averaging 9.6 points and 7.0 rebounds per contest. He is second on the team only to Pearson in both categories.

Although Pearson and Morrison have solid rebounding totals, crashing the boards remains Hewitt’s primary concern moving forward for the group as a whole.

“We’ve been inconsistent on the boards,” Hewitt said. “If there’s an area that I think we need to really become better at and really improve as we go into the month of February it’s rebounding, especially the defensive boards.”

Following Mason’s highly anticipated Homecoming game Saturday, they will remain in Fairfax to face a Hofstra team that gave them all they could handle in New York just one week ago. Tip-off is slated for 7:00 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 8.