One Final March for Campbell

"When I heard that, I was able to stay after practice and get some more shots up and do more things here. And I just started playing well. Now I'm able to balance seeing him and playing basketball."

He said an early-season meeting with Coach Jim Larranaga also was pivotal. A heart-to-heart at the airport with Larranaga after a 73-55 loss to Kent State in early December changed Mason's fortunes. Campbell told his coach he felt more comfortable as the team's point guard, which he played his sophomore year. The most multidimensional player in school history at 6 feet 4 and 205 pounds, Campbell had played every position but center for the Patriots. But he wanted to run the offense again before his career at Mason ran out on him.

Larranaga listened.

"I told him I trusted him," he said. "And I understood. And I talked to my staff. Next day I called him in and said: 'Hey, you're at the point. It's your ball. Run the team.' "

The offense gradually slowed down at the request of a grounded and centered senior, who understood the pace and cadence needed for Mason to thrive -- the extra half-second for a shooter to curl off a screen, the patience to re-post Thomas so he could get closer to the goal and back his man down.

"After Kent State, I felt in control," he said. "If we were down, I would stay calm instead of just rushing things."

The Patriots began to pile up victories before a late swoon hurt any at-large chances they had and forced Mason to win the conference tournament to get in. It was then that the old Campbell fully emerged, knocking down big three-pointers, going hard to his right, crossing-up defenders, winning the tournament MVP, delivering that same pretty step-back jumper -- circa Larry Bird 1986 or Folarin Campbell 2006.

"It was almost like a Michael Jordan-type thing, where he hit a shot and his career took off," said Thomas, his roommate for four years. He added he had seen a different side to the eternally upbeat and smiling Campbell as recently as last week.

"Winning the CAA championship, seeing him on the bench crying, that was new," Thomas said. "I didn't see nobody else cry except for him. I guess it was all that joy of winning the championship. I [hadn't] seen him in cry the last four years about anything. He's always upbeat, but not so much that he'll cry."

Campbell explained how euphoric he felt winning the title, a first in his Mason career. "I mean, if you told me I would have two trips to the NCAA tournament in four years, a CAA title and a Final Four -- and now there's more to come? Man."

He said he never lamented not playing in a power conference for an elite program, especially after a summer run at an open gym with Maryland and Georgetown players, post Final Four. James Gist and Jessie Sapp congratulated him and told Campbell, "Y'all made it; we can't believe it."

"Of course when I was younger I wanted to go to the big-time schools," he said. "As I got older, you realize you want to go somewhere where you can play and contribute right away."

It was nearing 2 p.m. Tuesday in Fairfax, behind Patriot Center after practice. The team charter bus, Scenic America No. 571, was being loaded with uniforms and basketballs and suitcases packed for a full weekend in Denver. Campbell wore green Mason sweats, Bose headphones and a 76ers baseball hat backward. He slapped high-fives with a few dozen students and teachers who had come to see the Patriots on another March journey.

"We know it can be done because we've done it before," he said.

As he climbed aboard, it almost seemed cliche to ask anything else about the shot over Rudy Gay or Mason's past. He and the Patriots indeed have a present, a huge game tonight, and they will be led onto the court by their senior with the same sophomore smile, whose first name in Nigerian means "walk with glory."

Neither he nor his team's story could be discarded like old newspapers after all. Folarin Campbell and George Mason went about their journey, finding their path back to the tournament two long years after their majestic run. It turns out we were the ones stuck in the past.