Hot-shooting Long, Cornelius lead payback rout at Patriot Center
Last year when George Mason traveled to Radford, the Highlanders handed the Patriots their most decisive loss in six seasons. Wednesday night at home, Mason didn’t waste its chance for payback.
Riding the shooting of guards Cam Long and Andre Cornelius, Mason led all the way and was never challenged in a 81-55 victory before 4,273 at Patriot Center.
With senior Long (20 points) and junior Cornelius (17 points) hitting a combined 9 of 12 shots from 3-point range, Radford had little chance to make a run at focused Mason (3-2).
The final score bore resemblance to last year’s 80-53 rout. The difference this year, was the cast of characters. While Mason returned nearly intact, Radford arrived in Fairfax with just one starter from last season, and without 6-11 Art Parakhouski, who dominated Mason with 34 points, 12 rebounds and 5 blocked shots.
But after Wednesday’s game, the Patriots had little interest in discussing revenge or their marksmanship. The theme was defense as they held Radford (2-2) to 38 percent accuracy from the floor and 27 percent from the arc.
“We came out very energized. The main thing we were focused on was defense,” said the 6-foot-4 Long. “Everybody pressured the ball. Everybody elbowed the blocks. There was no way for them to penetrate the defense.”
With the Highlanders settling for jump shots, and the Patriots (3-2) draining there’s, Mason scored the game’s first 10 points. Ten minutes into the game, GMU had swollen the lead to 26-6, with four different players hitting 3-pointers and Long and center Mike Morrison (7 points, 4 rebounds) contributing emphatic slam dunks.
“Any team can play well for 5 minutes, 10 minutes, even a half,” said Mason coach Jim Larranaga. “What a team has to do to really be a good team is to sustain that.”
Mason achieved it in the second half, never letting its lead slip below 18 despite the efforts of Radford reserves Evan Faulkner (15 points) and Lukas Winegarner (10 points, 5 rebounds).
While Long and Cornelius lit it up from the outside, junior forward Ryan Pearson (13 points) was just as effective inside, hitting 6 of 7 shots in 18 minutes, before leaving with a sprained ankle. X-rays were negative and his status for Saturday’s game with Florida Atlantic will be determined later this week.
Fueling the offense on a night when the Patriots hit 54.5 percent from the floor and 50 percent from the arc, was sophomore guard Luke Hancock (5 points, 8 rebounds, 10 assists).
Long said the feeder role will change from game to game.
“Luke is gonna change every day,” said Long. “Luke is one of our main scorers. That’s what we expect him to do. Today, he was just capable of finding people because everybody was knocking down shots … He had 10 assists today and we all love him for it.”
But not as much as Larranaga loved the Patriots’ defense.
“We talked about field-goal percentage defense,” said Larranaga. “We talked about how important it is to hold our opponents under 40 percent overall and under 30 percent from 3. We were able to do that tonight and it made a significant difference.”
UP NEXT
Florida Atlantic at George Mason
When » Saturday, 4 p.m.
Where » Patriot Center, Fairfax
Guard-oriented Florida Atlantic (3-3) is led by 6-2 sophomore Greg Gantt (16.2 ppg) and 5-11 junior Alex Tucker (12.3 ppg, 3.8 apg). The Owls of the Sun Belt Conference lost games last week to American University, 82-72, and No. 14 Florida, 79-66.
