I watched the second half of the VCU - George Mason game last night on ESPN2 (and I replayed for myself the first half this morning which I taped). Mason scored a big 63-51 win over VCU last night as Will Thomas had 21 points and 15 rebounds to lead the Patriots and Folarin Campbell added 17 for the Patriots. The Patriots were able to handle the full court pressure of the Rams as George Mason only had 8 turnovers for the game as opposed to 16 turnovers for VCU.
A couple of things to note from last night’s game. One, if you don’t double Will Thomas early in the game as Doug Gottlieb (who was covering the game) noted, he will burn you with either a score or a good setup pass for another Mason player. In the game vs UNCW, the Seahawks did exactly that doubling Thomas with Vladimir Kuljanin and Todd Hendley and Thomas had to pass the ball away and was held to 6 points on the game. Last night, VCU did not do that and Thomas made them pay. And by the way, it was noted in last night’s game by Tom Brennan, that coach Jim Larranaga stated that Will Thomas is the smartest player he has ever coached. And last night’s game proved that to a lot of people.
Also, as much as I love VCU’s guard play, they are starting to eerily remind me of Hofstra last year. All guards, no inside scoring. Last night, Jamal Shuler (who played a terrific game scoring 21 points), Eric Maynor (12 points) and Joey Rodriguez combined for 41 of VCU’s 51 points. This was very apparent during George Mason’s 20-4 run in the second half that turned a six point deficit into a ten point lead. The frontcourt for VCU scored 10 points on 13 shot attempts. VCU needs to develop some inside scoring or eventually in the CAA tournament they will reach the same fate as last night.
Comments