I Bleed Blue and White

I’ll freely admit it. As I watched Scottie Reynolds drive into triple-coverage, only to kick out to Isaiah Armwood who promptly jacked up a 3, I yelled the title of this post to nobody. As I texted with friends that our two best sharp shooters (King and Stokes) had both fouled out, the last person I expected to be taking what would be the game-winning shot was a guy who has been surrounded with redshirt questions.

A quiet game from Stokes couldn't derail 'Nova.

Let me just say, I was NOT a person advocating a redshirt for him. I love his athleticism and think he’ll be useful this year the way Dante Cunningham and Shane Clark were their freshman years. But I will admit I was not happy as I watched our wiry 6′8″ freshman launch a trey-ball. But I was ECSTATIC when he buried it. And for that Isaiah, I apologize. I doubted you for the slightest of moments, and you turned around and put the double-bird to my face. I love it.

The bigger story, in my opinion, is the resiliency that the team showed today. Corey Fisher was 1-14 from the field, yet 14-18 from the foul line. Scottie Reynolds had 8 turnovers in the 1st half, yet let the team in scoring and in my opinion led the team well down the stretch. We lost Corey Stokes, Taylor King, Antonio Peña and Maurice Sutton to fouls, yet still battled til the end to erase what felt like a 20-point deficit at times. We went 23-39 (59%) from the FT line and somehow won.

And we did all this without Mouphtaou Yarou, who was sent home hours before the game for an infection. Our lineup that end the game was Reynolds, Fisher, Maalik Wayns, Dominic Cheek, and Armwood. Think about that for a second.

(I just had a wow moment. We had 4 legitimate shooters on the floor, and Armwood. Armwood took the 3. And made it. His balls are the size of planets.)

Some more random thoughts from today:

• Jay Wright, you better suit-the-f*ck-up next game. No more of this untucked Polo crap. I don’t like it, and neither does anyone else. Stick with what works.
• If I’m ever going to criticize Jay, it’s going to be now. Yeah, I know we won, but I think he mismanaged an already thin frontcourt. He basically let his entire frontcourt foul out before inserting Armwood. It worked out, but give the kid some burn instead of letting everyone rack up the fouls.
• Maalik Wayns woke the team up in the first half. We were about to get run out of the gym until he came in. I love the kid. He is a serious, serious player. Jay wasn’t kidding when he said Wayns was ready to play.
• Maurice Sutton stepped up big. As soon as Yarou was out, Sutton’s # was called, and he answered. All over the place on the glass and the defensive end. The offensive game will come, but for now, he’s doing exactly what we need him to do.
• The refs were brutal, and I’m glad we overcame them. It wasn’t the amount of calls (which was excessive) but more the amount of ticky-tack stuff that was called, especially on us. I thought Jay was going to have a stroke. If Pat Chambers were still on the staff, I’m pretty sure he would have bitten a refs ear off.
• Fran Fraschilla has briefly replaced Andy Katz as my most hated ESPN Hoops personality. He may as well have come out and root for George Mason. It was sickening and a disgrace to his profession. Fran, go home.

All in all, a great win to have. George Mason are a scrappy bunch, and they’ll make noise this year. They’re pretty good. If you hadn’t heard, Dayton blew a 9-point lead only to come back and stave off Georgia Tech in the early game today, so we’ve got the Flyers tomorrow at 3 p.m. I’ve got a Q&A coming up with a Dayton blogger, so stay tuned!

A note to everyone on Twitter – I had a great time chatting with you during the game today and hopefully we can do it again in the near future. I’m just happy that I didn’t get a 24-hour ban for over-Tweeting like Brian of VUHoops!

UPDATE: Apparently Brian has been reinstated. No word on what sexual acts he had to perform.