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The USF men's basketball team heads to Northern Virginia tonight to take on George Mason. After back-to-back home losses, the Bulls (4-2) aim to stem the tide on the road. This is the return match after USF defeated the Patriots 61-57 last season at the Sun Dome. Remember, the game when Anthony Collins left on a stretcher?
George Mason (5-2) is coming off a 61-54 non-conference victory over Atlantic-10 conference-mate Rhode Island. Prior to joining the A-10 this season, George Mason had previously scheduled a non-conference game with Rhode Island. Ken Pomeroy has the Patriots rated 112 in the country so far this season (USF is 145).
The Patriots are 4-0 at home against light competition (American U, Northern Iowa, St. Francis, and URI).
George Mason not only shares the same green and gold colors of USF, they also share USF's slower, defense-first style. They are third in the A-10 in scoring defense, but offensively they are dead last of the 14 Atlantic-10 teams.
When allowing 70 or fewer points, the Patriots are 5-0, but they are 0-2 when allowing over 70 points. USF so far has only won games when they score in the 70s, but those four wins were all against lower caliber competition. In USF's two losses they've been held to 63.5 ppg. So it looks like the Bulls might want to keep the pace up in tonight's game.
GMU has also out-rebounded their opponents +5.6 rpg. The Patriots have size inside with 6'8" Serbian Marko Gujanicic, who leads the team with 7.1 rpg and is second on the team in scoring.
Leading scorer is senior off-guard Sherrod Wright, who is charting almost 17 ppg, and scored 23 in a win against UNI and 27 a loss at Princeton. Wright scored 22 vs. the Bulls last season.