Game Story
Posted on February 4, 2008
FAIRFAX — George Mason basketball players Jordan Carter, Folarin Campbell and Will Thomas will have an array of accomplishments to look back on when their final season finishes this spring.
Most notably the trio played instrumental roles in Mason’s improbable Final Four run in 2005-06. Campbell and Thomas started for that team and Carter appeared in four of the five NCAA tournament games.
Thomas has been named to the Colonial Athletic Association All-Defensive team twice and both he and Campbell averaged over 10 points a game in their first three seasons. This season they are posting 16 and 13.7 points, respectively.
The three seniors added another highlight to their careers Saturday with a 72-46 dismantling of JMU: a perfect 9-0 record against the Dukes in what Campbell considers a “personal” rivalry.
“My freshman year I didn’t know anything about the rivalry until coach ‘L’ emphasized how important it was,” Campbell said. “Ever since that day I took it to heart.”
JMU (10-11 overall, 3-8 in CAA) is the only in-conference team Mason hasn’t lost to in the last four seasons, although the Patriots can still go 6-0 against Towson with a win over the Tigers on Feb. 13.
The Dukes’ latest loss in the series wasn’t even close as JMU led only once after junior Juwann James scored the game’s first basket on his way to breaking his career 1000-point mark.
The Patriots (16-6, 8-3) got going like they tend to do against JMU, scoring 11 straight points for Mason coach Jim Larranaga’s 200th career victory in front of a record crowd of 9,840 at Patriot Center.
JMU didn’t even come close to responding in the hostile environment, shooting a dismal 28.6 percent in the first half. James scored the Dukes’ first five baskets of the game and junior guard Abdulai Jalloh registered the only other field goal of the half on a deep three-pointer with 1:35 left.
Sophomore guard Pierre Curtis left the game with a knee injury less than eight minutes into the game, leaving the Dukes without their primary ball-handler.
“I just went up to block the shot and I came down...all my weight was on my left leg,” Curtis said.
Before the break Mason shot 61.1 percent on 11-for-18 shooting, but led by only nine points.
The Patriots opened the half with a seven-point run started by junior guard John Vaughn’s three-pointer. Vaughn scored 19 points in the contest, just behind Campbell, who scored a game-high 20 points on 8-for-11 shooting, including 3-for-3 from three-point range.
James finished the game with team-highs of 17 points and 11 rebounds for JMU but continued to receive little help offensively. Jalloh scored 16, but took 16 shots, making only five.
During the team’s current six-game losing streak, Jalloh has shot 32 percent on 85 attempts and has gone 12-for-40 from beyond-the-arc with 25 turnovers to 22 assists.
Junior Kyle Swanston was the Dukes leading three-point threat before going down with a knee injury eight games ago. Classmate Joe Posey — another outside shooter — has missed the last four games after being indefinitely suspended. Jalloh has tried to pick up the slack without the two shooters but has struggled to keep his scoring high while keeping the turnovers low.
“I’ve never been in this position in my life,” Jalloh said. “We’ve had adversity this season. But I feel like this is what’s gonna determine what kind of man I turn out to be in life; how I bounce back, how we bounce back.
The game also marked Larranaga’s 19th career win over Madison in 11 seasons. JMU coach Dean Keener has never beat the “rival” Patriots in nine tries and has lost by an average of 19.6 points with the closest margin 11, in last season’s first round CAA tournament game.
