RICHMOND, Va. – With 8:39 left in the second Colonial Athletic Assciation semifinal and down by 4 (43-39), Jim Larranaga’s George Mason Patriots came out of a time-out full-court pressing the upstart Towson team. The Tigers beat the press easily that possession, and there was senior Rocky Coleman with the ball leading a two-on-one break, lobbing to junior Calvin Lee for the dunk that would have extended Towson’s lead to 6 and brought the house down. Alas, the pass was in inch too high, sailed off Lee’s outstretched fingertips for a turnover, and instead of nailing the coffin shut on Mason, Towson left the door open.
Led by sophomore point guard Cam Long’s 3-point shooting, from that point on George Mason outscored Towson 17-5 to come away with a hard-fought CAA semifinal win, 56-48.
The undermanned Towson team showed that reckless abandon Pat Kennedy had talked about the previous night, particularly on the defensive end. While being outrebounded by Darryl Monroe, Louis Birdsong and friends 42-34 in the game, Towson stayed in the game (and led by as many as six with nine minutes remaining) on the strength of 10 interior blocked shots (and that’s just the number the scorer was able to record), four by senior Junior Hairston, three by sophomore Robert Nwankwo, and three by junior JUCO transfer Calvin Lee. But it was not enough.
First, Nwankwo dominated the first half as much as anyone could with just two points and one rebound, blocking two shots (at least) and changing countless others. And in the biggest change of momentum imaginable, first Nwankwo dunked off a pass from Coleman with 15 seconds left in the half to tie the game at 26, only to see a trey from six feet behind the arc by Mason’s Dre Smith at the buzzer give Mason a three-point lead at the intermission, 29-26.
No matter the final score, the second half belonged to Towson’s Lee, as the junior grew up on the big stage this night. In that half alone, showing great confidence and athleticism, Lee had four points, seven rebounds, and a block, and was a force to be reckoned with on the inside. And from Lee’s point of view, as well as Kennedy’s, one can only think back to that Coleman lob that missed Lee by inches and ask what might have been.
Monroe lead Mason with 15 points on 6-11 shooting and seven rebounds, and his running mate Louis Birdsong had nine boards, six points, and showed the game over by circling out with his dribble after catching a baseball press-breaking pass in the last minute. Cam Long finished with 14 on 5-11 and 4-7 (nine on three treys in the second half), and added six rebounds and five assists, with one turnover in 33 minutes at the point.
Josh Thornton kept the Tigers in the game from the perimeter with 15 points on 5-12 and 3-10, and freshman point guard Troy Franklin from Mt. Carmel High School in Baltimore had a second straight good game on the ball, and scored 10 on 4-8 shooting.
Larranaga told the media that he thought Towson played “as hard as a team can play.” Admitting some fatigue showing up in his team’s early shooting and late rebounding, Kennedy was proud of his group, particularly of senior forward Hairston. Surprisingly, Pat again answered a question this writer had posed last night, when we asked “what took you so long,” talking about having six players on his roster who sat out last year, eight who had never played together, and adding simply that it “took a while.” Kennedy agreed with tonight’s question, that being whether “Calvin Lee grew up before our eyes,” and thought Lee and Thornton would bring their improved tournament play into next season, when they’ll be joined by solid incoming recruiting class.
So yet another all-Virginia Final is set in the CAA tomorrow night, with VCU and George Mason, the conference’s two signature programs, set to meet tomorrow night at 7 p.m. eastern. These two teams last met in a final two years ago, when 6th seeded Mason ran all the way to the final, even led 39 minutes into the game, before that famous steal and basket by then-sophomore Eric Maynor gave VCU the game, the tournament and the automatic bid, en route to a first-round upset of Duke. Expect tomorrow night’s match to be just as good.
