Name: George Mason University
Who’s George Mason? We’ll get to it in a second.
Location: Fairfax, Virginia
Huh, I would have guessed Washington, D.C. It’s definitely in the DMV, but it’s a 20 mile drive outside of town.
Founded: Would you believe that GMU used to be just the northern extension branch of the University of Virginia? It’s true! Happened in 1949 as UVa wanted to serve the professionals working in the D.C. area. Things stayed that way until 1966 when the Virginia lawmakers granted then-George Mason College the ability to confer their own degrees. 1972 brought both the separation from the Charlottesville administration as well as the transition to university status.
Enrollment: Total enrollment in the Fall of 2023 was 40,185 with 27,160 traditional undergraduates. It feels like GMU is a smaller school, but that’s only in the scope of other public institutions.
Of course, they might be lying about it: In 2008 and again in 2012, T. Mills Kelly taught a course at George Mason titled “Lying About the Past.” Part of the class included an attempt to pull a fast one on the internet, creating a fictional 1870s pirate in the first go-round and then raising the possibility of a relative being a serial killer. The first attempt was much more successful than the second, with Reddit dismantling the serial killer story fairly quickly. GMU did not make the class part of the ongoing curriculum, but Mills continues to touch on the same themes in his digital history class that is in fact being taught this semester. You can read the syllabus if you want.
Competitive Bench Painting: Okay, it’s not really a contest for the best bench painting job, but the walkway in front of GMU’s student union has a number of benches lining it. I don’t know what the process is to get approved to paint a bench for your student organization is, but with nearly 400 student groups, I presume it’s a pretty prestigious deal to get a bench.
Nickname: Patriots
Why “Patriots”? Because of their namesake, George Mason. He was a delegate to the US Constitutional Convention in 1787 and earned himself quite the reputation there as one of three delegates to refuse to sign the Constitution. Mason was also a primary force behind the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which turned into a strong starting point for the US Bill of Rights in 1789. The fact that the Constitution was missing something like the Bill of Rights was actually Mason’s sticking point on not signing the thing.
A decorative lucky statue: As you might expect, there’s a statue of George Mason on campus. The university themselves adorns the statue with green and gold clothing or decorations for various events on campus, and student groups often get permission to do the same for whatever their event might be. At graduation, they put a green mortarboard graduates cap on the statue, so obviously you have to take a picture with George while wearing your cap and gown.
As these things tend to go, the statue is considered to be a lucky totem on campus. The superstition is that you have to rub the toe of the statue for good luck, and the toe of the statue has been reinforced to hold up to the wear and tear. The statue also used to contain a bad luck superstition, as there were two plaques in the ground nearby and stepping on one or the other would cause certain doom (or at least a bad grade on an exam). A remodel of the area pushed the statue up onto a platform and the plaques are now in the base. Much safer in the luck department, that’s for sure.
Notable Alumni: Actress Rhea Seehorn, best known as Kim Wexler on Better Caul Saul; Richard Hatch, the first ever winner of the CBS reality TV show Survivor; NFL reporter Dianna Russini; and finally, GMU head men’s basketball coach Tony Skinn.
Also: Tyler Kolek originally enrolled at George Mason but ended up transferring.
Last Season: 20-12, with a 9-9 record in the Atlantic 10. Their season ended after a 64-57 loss to Saint Joseph’s in their first conference tournament game.
Final 2023-24 KenPom.com Ranking: #97
Final 2023-24 BartTorvik.com Ranking: #98
So Far This Season: 1-0 after a 75-58 home win over North Carolina Central on Monday.
Current KenPom.com Ranking: #96
Current BartTorvik.com Ranking: #83
Preseason Poll: George Mason was picked to finish sixth in the Atlantic 10, which makes them the best team in the league that did not earn at least two first place votes in the poll.
Returning Stat Leaders
Points: Darius Maddox, 14.0 ppg
Rebounds: Jared Billups, 4.3 rpg
Assists: Darius Maddox, 1.8 apg
Monday’s Stat Leaders
Points: Darius Maddox, 17
Rebounds: Jared Billups, 10
Assists: K.D. Johnson, 4
Bigs? Giovanni Emejuru measures in at 6’11” and 265 pounds, so he’s going to take some solving for at the McGuire Center. He played 17 minutes in his GMU debut on Monday after transferring from Siena, and gave the Patriots 11 points and six rebounds. That’s about on par with his averages for the Saints last season, although he came off the bench here and averaged more than 26 minutes a game last year.
Freshman Stas Sivka is 6’10” and 210 pounds, but he played just two minutes in the opener, so I don’t know how much we’ll see him. Jalen Haynes is 6’8” and 265 pounds, and after starting and playing 21 minutes against NCCU, I imagine we’ll see a decent amount of him. He matched Emejuru’s output of 11 points and six rebounds, and if those two guys are GMU’s 5 man tandem, then 22 points and 12 rebounds is a pretty good contribution.
Shooters? Based on one game? Not really. Darius Maddox went 2-for-6 against North Carolina Central, and he contributed both of GMU’s long range makes….. on 17 attempts. Eeeesh. Maddox is a career 42% shooter after three seasons at Virginia Tech and last year at GMU, so he’s definitely a problem to watch.
As for the guys who missed threes in the opener, Brayden O’Connor was a 35% shooter for UMass Lowell last year, and he led the America East in league play at 48%. Fifth year guy Woody Newton is a career 29% shooter, and his 7-for-18 (38.9%) in 11 games at Syracuse as a freshman was a long time ago. Jeremiah Quigley hit for 32% at Iona as a freshman last year.
Zach Anderson didn’t attempt a three in the opener, but he did connect on nearly 47% of his attempts for Florida Gulf Coast last year. That went up to 50% in league play, but I suspect that two turnovers and two fouls in 12 minutes kept him pinned to the bench before he could get into a shooting rhythm.
Head Coach: Tony Skinn, entering his second season in charge at George Mason. He took over after Kim English left to take the Providence job after just two campaigns. 20-12 and 9-9 is a reasonably successful first season at any level, so bravo to him. Skinn is a GMU hoops icon as a starter on the 2006 team that made the shocking 11 seed run to the Final Four.
What To Watch For: Before we talk about basketball, let’s talk about actually watching this game. First: It’s a students-only game at the McGuire Center, so if you’re a season ticket holder and you missed the memo, it’s time to cancel your plans for Friday night because you don’t have tickets to the game. Second: It’s the Big East’s debut on Peacock, the streaming service operated by NBC Universal. You have to subscribe to Peacock to be able to watch this game. Marquette will appear on Peacock three more times this season, and five Big East tournament games will be on the streamer as well.
Okay, moving on.
We’ll have to wait to see what the Patriots turn into as the season goes along, but here’s what we know about their opening win against North Carolina Central.
- They couldn’t throw the ball the ocean, hitting less than 12% of three-point attempts.
- They couldn’t hold onto the ball, turning it over 17 times in a 68 possession game. That’s 25% of the time!
- They couldn’t even that out on other end, as NCCU only turned it over 10 times.
- They made up for their awful outside shooting and bad ball control by grabbing a bajillion offensive rebounds. GMU ended up with 18 second chance points, and hey, look at that: They won by 17.
- While GMU obviously had some problems on their end to overcome, they were the beneficiaries of a bad night by North Carolina Central. 31% shooting on two-point buckets and 24% shooting on three-point attempts makes things really hard for you. Is that NCCU being a not great basketball team or is that George Mason putting the clamps on the Eagles? The Patriots were a top 100 defense per KenPom.com last season, so it could be a bit of both.
On top of all of that, George Mason was one of the slower paced teams in the country a year ago. We can probably expect that to be the goal from Tony Skinn and his staff again this year…. but if Marquette can provoke turnovers from the Patriots the same way that North Carolina Central did, there’s a real chance that the McGuire Center turns into the runout dunk capital of the world for a night.
All Time Series: This is the first ever meeting between Marquette and George Mason.