Coming off a massive win over UMass on Wednesday, George Mason (8-15, 2-8) hosts Saint Louis (13-9, 5-4) in their annual Pink Game on Sunday afternoon in Fairfax.
The key to success for Mason this entire season has been to simply put the ball in the basket, and they finally were able to do that Wednesday night. As Coach Milleson put it, it’s finally a monkey off their backs that will hopefully propel them forward.
As bad as their eight-game winning streak was, George Mason isn’t out of the running just yet to potentially host a first round A-10 Tournament game. Granted, it’s going to be an uphill battle and they will need some help, but it can be done.
Here’s what the standings look like entering Sunday:
Updated @A10WBB Standings:
9-0 Dayton
8-1 VCU
–
6-3 Davidson
7-3 Fordham
5-4 Saint Louis
5-4 Duquesne
6-5 UMass
4-5 Rhode Island
–
3-6 Richmond
3-6 George Washington
3-6 La Salle
3-7 St. Bonaventure
2-8 Saint Joseph's
2-8 George Mason#A10WBB— Daniel Frank (@n1a2v3y4) February 8, 2020
For those unfamiliar with the A-10 women’s basketball tournament format, seeds 3-8 host a first round game against seeds 9-14. Needless to say, if you have to play that first round game (seeds 1 and 2 are the only ones that don’t), you’d much rather prefer it to be a home game. There are seven teams that are in the running for the final “higher seed” spot: George Mason, George Washington, Rhode Island, Richmond, La Salle, St. Bonaventure, and Saint Joseph’s. Here a visual breakdown of the current standings, remaining schedules and head-to-head tiebreakers:
So lets break this down a bit. Including today, George Mason has six games left. Four of those six games are against teams included in this graphic, meaning that Mason will have a tremendous opportunity to help themselves. Almost every game left at this point is a must win (with the exception of VCU, given that’s likely to be a loss given how things went the first time around). Today is significant because Saint Louis is a beatable team, and it’s a home game. Not to mention, last year on Mason’s Pink Day, the Patriots pulled off a huge upset over Dayton at the buzzer:
Here's the game-winning shot by @nikkich_14 as George Mason defeats Dayton 54-51! #GetPatriotic pic.twitter.com/khuecwzdYw
— Daniel Frank (@n1a2v3y4) February 24, 2019
(Yes I did just use this as an excuse to post this video one more time).
If George Mason can beat George Washington, Richmond, Saint Joseph’s and La Salle, they will have at least put themselves in a position to possibly slide into the eighth-seed. Another things that Mason has going for them is that the other six teams they are jockeying for position with almost all play each other head to head, meaning that as long as Mason keeps winning, they can move up the standings.
Of course, this all becomes a mute point if Mason stumbles a bit down the stretch, in which case, if Mason is forced to play a road game in the first round of the A-10 Tournament, we just hope it’s somewhere close so that it’s easy to travel to (Richmond, La Salle, GW, VCU, and Saint Joseph’s are all within just a couple hours drive).
Anyways, let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves. Let’s take a look at today’s opponent:
Breaking Down Saint Louis
The Billikens enter today 13-9, and in fifth place in the Atlantic 10 at 5-4 (they have the tiebreaker will Duquesne via a head-to-head win). SLU enters having won three straight games, taking down Duquesne, George Washington and Saint Joseph’s along the way. They also have wins against and La Salle, while their four loses have come against Davidson, VCU, Dayton and Fordham.
Saint Louis is led by sophomore Ciaja Harbison who averages 14.6 points per game but was held to just eight points in her last game. SLU boasts a trio of players averaging around 10 points per game (Kendra Wilken, Myia Clark and Rachel Kent), with Kent leading the team in made threes with 48 and Wilken leading the team in rebounding with 8.1 per game.
I also gotta shoutout Ciaja Harbison who is from Louisville, KY aka my home, and Hannah Dossett is from Warsaw, KY which is about 45 minutes from Louisville. So there’s that.
I honestly don’t know what to expect from this game. Mason could win going away as they did on Wednesday or they could lose by double digits if their offense dries up again. They’ve just gotta take this thing one game at a time, and take care of business with the task directly before them, and worry about the rest later.
Oh, one more thing: all students at the game will receive a limited-edition pink homecoming shirt!
Our annual Pink Game is this Sunday vs. Saint Louis 💞
🆓 pink homecoming shirts for students in attendance! pic.twitter.com/fosesKToct
— Mason Women’s Basketball (@MasonWBB) February 7, 2020
Tipoff from EBA is 2:00 and the game will be broadcast on ESPN+. See you there.
