|
George Mason
still pays respectable 6 to 1 odds of winning NCAA
Men's Basketball Championship
 It's a far cry from
the 500 to 1 odds they opened with at the start of
the March Madness tournament, but George Mason still
has great value, paying $6 for every $1 bet or $600
for every $100 bet. With the field narrowed
down to four teams, George Mason's odds of winning
it all look that much brighter.
Canbet (See
Web Site Here), which is
giving away free cash equivalent to 20% of one's
deposit when opening a betting account, has posted
George Mason with odds of 6 to 1. Florida is
the favorite to win with near even odds. LSU
pays approximately 2 to 1 while UCLA pays 3 to 1
odds.
After answering one
last question inside the Verizon Center's media room
on Sunday afternoon, George Mason guard Lamar Butler
swiped a card bearing his name on it that had been
resting on a table in front of him.
He dumped the card into a gym bag that was already
carrying a game program and a couple twines from a
basketball net.
"I'm picking up every memento I can find in this
building," Butler said. "I'm taking everything back
home."
He wasn't going to leave behind a single scrap of
George Mason's history-making performance.
Behind a tenacious defense and Butler's clutch
3-pointer shooting, George Mason made history with a
shocking 86-84 overtime victory over NCAA Tournament
favorite Connecticut that will send the once-unknown
Patriots to the Final Four.
George Mason (27-7) became only the second
double-digit seed (at 11) to ever reach the Final
Four, matching 11th-seeded LSU's run in 1986.
But not since Larry Bird led Indiana State to the
national championship game in 1979 has a school from
a true mid-major conference reached college
basketball's grandest stage.
Colonial Athletic Association member George Mason, a
commuter school that hadn't won an NCAA Tournament
game before this postseason started, overcame a
major size disadvantage and Connecticut's storied
history to pull off perhaps the biggest upset in
NCAA Tournament history.
"I was kidding with one of my assistants before the
game," George Mason coach Jim Larranaga said. "We're
not just an at-large, we're an at-extra large and if
we win today, we're going to be a
double-extra-large. I can't tell you how much fun
we're having."
Last week, the only thing anyone knew about George
Mason was that CBS commentator Billy Packer didn't
believe the Patriots deserved to be invited to the
NCAA Tournament.
Packer criticized the NCAA Tournament's selection
committee on Selection Sunday for inviting several
mid-major schools and said Mason wasn't deserving of
a bid.
But George Mason has become more well-known among
fans and proven Packer wrong after beating three
teams - Michigan State, North Carolina and
Connecticut - that have won a combined eight
national championships.
"We don't mind being Cinderella," George Mason guard
Tony Skinn said. "We weren't supposed to get into
the tournament and we got into it. We weren't
supposed to beat Michigan State and we beat them. We
weren't supposed to beat North Carolina and we beat
them. We definitely weren't supposed to beat
Connecticut.
"I think we'll stick to the script going into
whoever we play."
The Patriots overcame a nine-point halftime
disadvantage and a buzzer-beating shot in
regulation.
With George Mason holding a 74-72 lead with 5.5
seconds remaining, Skinn missed the front end of a
one-and-one free throw.
The Huskies snatched
the rebound and passed the ball ahead to forward
Denham Brown, who made an acrobatic reverse layup at
the buzzer to send the game to overtime.
But George Mason didn't panic.
"We stayed cool because of Coach," George Mason
center Jai Lewis said.
"He kept telling us that we play in the CAA, which
stands for Connecticut Assassin Association. He just
said CAA before we started the overtime."
George Mason forward Folarin Campbell responded with
a difficult fadeaway jumper in overtime over Rudy
Gay for the dagger that gave his team an 84-80 lead.
Despite missing some free throws down the stretch
that allowed Connecticut to pull within 86-84,
George Mason moved on after Brown missed a potential
game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer.
When the buzzer sounded, George Mason's players
jumped on the press row tables as a crowd of 19,718
fans serenaded the team with chants of "Let's Go
Mason."
YOU CAN BET ON GEORGE MASON
HERE
----
Sports911 Wire
Originally published
March 26, 2006 11:52 pm ET
|
