George Mason travels to Drexel

On this day one year ago George Mason defeated VCU at the Patriot Center on a Sherrod Wright buzzer-beater. Fans were starting to feel a bit more confident in how the Paul Hewitt era would turn out. Fast forward to one year later and the Patriots are barely holding on to the 4th seed in the CAA tournament. And a loss at Drexel tonight would knock them into the 5th seed. Drexel has only won three games at home this season and Mason has played some good basketball in road conferences games this year. The last two times George Mason and Drexel has played the big story has been Dragon's swingman Damion Lee. The Patriots seem to bring out the best in this sophomore, who dropped 29 points on them two weeks ago.

The last outing between the two teams was ugly for Mason because they could not find a defender to put on Lee. They shuffled everyone from Sherrod Wright to even Anali Okoloji on him and yet was still very open on the perimeter all night long. They really need to figure something out for this one or else it's going to be more of the same. Drexel doesn't have a scary offense as a team, so shutting down Lee should be their number one priority in this game.

Mason's running out of time to build any sort of momentum heading into the conference tournament. They have found what seems to be a better starting lineup but their lapses on defense continue to haunt them this season. 

[Photo by John Powell]