They Just Got in, Now They're Headed for Indy

ByABC News
March 27, 2006, 10:53 AM

WASHINGTON, March 27, 2006 — -- By the time tournament officials finally shooed George Mason's deliriously happy players toward their locker room late Sunday afternoon, the orange iron rims were naked, their netted nylon skirts long since snipped and divided into precious keepsakes.

Senior forward Jai Lewis, the 275-pound bruiser who's as wide as a baseline, wore part of one as a necklace. Senior guard Tony Skinn stuffed a white strand under the collar of his just-issued Final Four cap. And senior guard Lamar Butler already had plans for his two pieces of net.

"One I'm going to keep in my pocket wherever I go," Butler said. "One I frame and keep it on my wall."

If ever a game deserved to be enclosed in glass, this was it. George Mason's 86-84 overtime victory against Connecticut in the regional final is more than an upset, it's history. It belongs on the Mount Rushmore of March Madness not simply because the 11th-seeded Patriots, who almost didn't get into the NCAA Tournament, beat a top-seeded UConn team stocked with future NBAers, but because of the quality of their win.

This was no fluke. It wasn't decided by the echoes of a referee's whistle, a freak injury, a twist of fate. The Patriots were the better team Sunday. And if UConn and George Mason played 10 more times, you might be surprised by how often GMU would find itself on the right side of the scoreboard.

Mighty Connecticut of the mighty Big East Conference didn't try to give this one away, as it did Friday night against Washington, when it committed about a thousand turnovers. UConn simply got beat by a team that two Sundays ago was huddled in a room hoping -- no, praying -- that the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee would extend the Patriots one of those 34 at-large bids.

"We thought we were out," said sophomore forward Will Thomas, who had more rebounds (12) than anyone else on the Verizon Center floor Sunday. "When they announced us as an 11 seed in the D.C. bracket, we were ecstatic."

You should have seen them after beating UConn. So overcome with emotion was Thomas, that he literally couldn't speak for several moments. Sophomore swingman Folarin Campbell did an Adam Morrison at game's end and collapsed to the ground. You needed a towel boy to wipe down the tear puddles.