Mason Remains Unbeaten In CAA

George Mason 71 James Madison 57

George Mason Coach Jim Larranaga recognizes that his team has not had the most demanding schedule among the Colonial Athletic Association's challengers, but as the Patriots prepare for the toughest week of the season, they find themselves unbeaten in conference play and alone atop the CAA standings.

Bolstered by strong starts to each half yesterday, Mason cruised to its sixth straight victory overall and seventh without a loss in the league, a 71-57 triumph over wayward-shooting James Madison before 8,665 at Patriot Center.

The Patriots will visit Northeastern, which lost at Hofstra for its first CAA defeat, on Wednesday night before playing at preseason favorite Virginia Commonwealth (13-5, 6-1 CAA) on Saturday.

"It's going to be a challenge for us to see if we can play as well [away] as we've been able to play at Patriot Center," said Larranaga, whose team has played four of its past six CAA games at home and has yet to board a plane for a league game.

The Patriots (14-3) have taken full advantage of their home dates, improving to 9-0 overall this season and 22-1 the past two years. They have also continued their recent domination of the Dukes: 10 straight victories by an average of 20 points.

"The crowd was into it, our team was into it, there was a bunch of electricity in the gym," said freshman forward Ryan Pearson, who had all 13 of his points in the first half on 3-of-4 shooting and 7 of 7 free throws. "The level of intensity was just rising as the game went along."

Louis Birdsong emerged from a scoring rut to contribute 15 points, matching his total from the past three games and compensating for a quiet afternoon by Mason's primary scorers. Cam Long heated up after intermission to finish with 13, but Darryl Monroe (seven points, 11 rebounds) didn't have a field goal until late and John Vaughan and Dre Smith combined to shoot 6 of 19.

Pierre Curtis had 16 points for the Dukes (12-7, 4-3), whose four-game winning streak ended. Playing without injured starter Devon Moore, Madison shot 32 percent from the field, 58 percent from the free throw line and made just 6 of 26 three-pointers. Outside of Juwann James's 5-of-7 field goal shooting, the Dukes were 13 of 50.

Just two of Mason's past 12 opponents have shot at least 40 percent and five in a row have failed to score 60 points.

"They made very few mistakes," Dukes Coach Matt Brady said of the Patriots. "It was hard to get open shots, and the few that we did get, we didn't do a good job connecting on them."

The Patriots began each half in an almost identical manner, holding the Dukes scoreless for about five minutes. They surged to a 7-0 lead, and with a 33-27 advantage at halftime, scored 10 in a row. During those stretches, JMU missed a combined 12 shots and had four turnovers.

"We brought the high energy," Birdsong said.