George Mason in the final four.
Seems so impossible that a commuter school in Fairfax, VA just about 30 minutes away from Washington, DC, is now on college basketball's biggest stage. I do not think it has fully sunk in that it's George Mason, a team that I have seen and rooted for for years. The same George Mason that before Larranaga took over, was a team that scored often but never played defense. The same George Mason that had lost three times in the NCAA Tournament before this season.
This team I knew from the beginning of the season could be a team that could surprise in the NCAA tournament, they graduated no seniors last year, but never in my wildest dreams did I think that they would topple Michigan State, North Carolina, and Conneticut and reach the Final Four. In my brackets I had them winning against Michigan State and then losing to Carolina in the second round. My bracket was already shot with Duke losing in LSU but I now couldn't care less about my bracket.
I met Larranaga briefly last year. I was a manager for our schools varsity basketball team and we were playing our crosstown rivals. One of the players on this team had signed with GMU (the big white kid Chris Fleming) but had been hampered by injuries throughout the season. So with any amount of luck, Larranaga attended our game. After the game ended with our opponents winning on a last second shot, I got to meet with Larranaga and say I've always been a fan of the Mason basketball team. Of course my feelings at the time were a little mixed, I was upset we had lost but grateful that I got to meet Jim. The coach at our school played for Mason in the mid 1980s and actually played under current Texas coach Rick Barnes who was a GMU assistant when he played.
I can't wait for Saturday they have as good a chance as any other team in this final four. If they win, this will be awesome for college basketball.
posted by Tim Blank at 2:19 PM
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