Without Vaughan, Mason can't handle VCU

First off, an exciting game to watch. Some great basketball on display Saturday afternoon, but it became obivous early on that Mason would have it's struggles while missing their leader John Vaughan. Cornelius started in Vaughan's absence and made way too many mistakes handling the ball. Luckily Cam Long had another stellar performance leading Mason with 24 points, the most by a Patriot this season. Long was making shots and driving to the basket left and right to keep the Patriots in this one, and even had a dunk that was on Sportscenter's highlights top plays last night.

He got help from Dre Smith, who connected on 4-of-4 shooting from three-point territory but was literally taken out of the game by the Rams defense in the second half. I didn't see many screens for Smith in the second half and that's just puzzling. Long didn't get help from Louis Birdsong who ended up fouling out with zero points. Darryl Monroe just couldn't get started on the low post, despite the Ram's Larry Sanders being in early foul trouble. Ryan Pearson had a great first half but was unable to keep it going in the 2nd. Isaiah Tate played pretty well and made too big three-pointers late in the 2nd. Credit Ram's coach Anthony Grant for making the proper adjustments at halftime to thwart the Patriots though. The simple fact remained that Mason had no answer for Eric Maynor who finished with 28. Another game where the Patriots could not slow down the other team's star player and it hurt them. It also didn't help that Mason gave the VCU 14 free-throws in the first half with some sloppy defensive play.

You can view the post-game interviews at the end of the video from the VCU Ram Nation blog here. In the interview Coach L state's that John Vaughan won't be playing Tuesday against Delaware.