Winning Ticket: No. 11

Lamar's father owns Varsity Sports in Marlow Heights. Coached his son's high school team at Oxon Hill in Fort Washington. Been to all but three Mason games -- home and away -- in five years. The man actually had the Patriots in the Washington Region final of his office pool.

The rest of the starters are from Maryland, too -- Skinn from Takoma Park, big Jai Lewis from Aberdeen, Thomas from Baltimore and Silver Spring's own Folarin Campbell.

It's a great tale, and it lives for at least another two days.

"We got the golden slipper!" yelled Mason fan Jackie Engelhardt, holding up what was indeed a gaudy gold-and-rhinestone slipper in the first row of a building bordering on bedlam. "George Mason!"

By winning what is essentially a home game against top-seeded Connecticut tomorrow, the Patriots would become the first 11th-seeded team to reach the Final Four since LSU in 1986. A wildly improbable victory -- in this increasingly wildly improbable season of victories over Michigan State, North Carolina and now seventh-seeded Wichita State -- would put Mason and its irrepressible coach, Jim Larranaga, in the company of that amazing 1979 Penn team that somehow played in a Final Four featuring Magic and Bird.

The Patriots follow Gonzaga's 1999 team, before the Bulldogs had a national player-of-the-year hopeful. David Robinson's 1986 Navy team. Kent State in 2002. Tulsa in 2000.

Where the Patriots, their quickly growing fan base and that androgynous-looking, green furry mascot Gunston go from here, who knows? Yet on a night when this loosey-goosey bunch of kids could have buckled like Gonzaga, Duke and West Virginia on Thursday night, George Mason found its game and its poise late to hold off the Shockers and make school history.

Again.

Mason lived well early. The Patriots didn't pick up their first foul until four minutes remained in the half. One of Campbell's three three-point baskets bounced high off the front of the rim and in. Skinn released a pretty layup in the lane that fell through, a layup taken after the shot clock appeared to expire. Lewis, the 6-foot-7, 275-pound (before breakfast) senior forward whose vertical leap is measured with his Mason library card, suddenly rose and rejected a layup by Wichita State's P.J. Couisnard at the outset of the first half.

Calls. Bounces. Their barge of a big man, finding his lift.

By halftime, the university band was playing Bon Jovi's "Livin' on a Prayer," and it didn't sound like some bad karaoke night in Bethesda. Gabe Norwood, the junior swingman, rejected two shots in the final three minutes, made his teammates better and slowed play instead of doing something foolish. Jordan Carter, a stubby reserve guard, made a stupendous three-point shot with the Shockers closing within 10 points in the final eight minutes.

Larranaga said his kids have been playing like this all season, that the only reason CBS and the rest of America does not know about them is because they haven't bothered to come to see them play.

So Mason came to them, in the round of 16. And now Mason will come to them again, in the round of eight. Unlike so many small schools, George Mason did not come to die here last night. The Patriots came to rework the script.

"Tony said he wants to play himself in the movie, huh?" Larranaga said, laughing in the locker room. "Okay, fine. But I got to be Craig T. Nelson. You know, 'Coach'? God, I love Craig T. Nelson."