NCAA News Wire
George Mason 63, Princeton 60
Jeff Hawkins is an award-winning sportswriter with more than four decades in the industry (print and digital media). A freelance writer/stay-at-home dad since 2008, Hawkins started his career with newspaper stints in Michigan, North Carolina, Florida, Upstate New York and Illinois, where he earned the 2004 APSE first-place award for column writing (under 40,000 circulation). As a beat writer, he covered NASCAR Winston Cup events at NHIS (1999-2003), the NHL's Chicago Blackhawks (2003-06) and the NFL's Carolina Panthers (2011-12). Hawkins penned four youth sports books, including a Michael Jordan biography. Hawkins' main hobbies include mountain bike riding, 5k trail runs at the Whitewater Center in Charlotte, N.C., and live music.
All posts by Jeff HawkinsUpdated15 Oct 2021
After falling behind early to Cornell in its season-opening loss, host George Mason made sure to make no such mistakes against Princeton.
The Patriots went wire-to-wire against the Tigers, jumping out to a 15-point first half lead and riding that to a 63-60 win.
Guard Patrick Holloway led the way for George Mason (1-1) for the second straight game, and the junior guard looks primed for a big year. After averaging 8.7 points per game, his 19 points after dropping 22 against Cornell puts him at 20.5 after two contests. Guard Marquise Moore’s 11 points made him the only other Mason player in double figures.
George Mason outshot Princeton 43.6 percent (24-of-55) to 33.9 percent (19-56), and also had a 43-34 advantage in the rebounding column.
Trailing 32-19 at the break, Princeton scored the first six points of the second half to cut George Mason’s lead down to seven.
The Patriots had it back up to 11 before the Tigers made their strongest push yet. A 3-pointer from guard Clay Wilson and five straight points from forward Hans Brase had it down to a three-point game with 13 minutes to play before it got stretched back out to a nine-point gap, which is where it was with 2:29 remaining.
Princeton (1-1) made one final push, getting going on a 9-3 run to make it 62-59 George Mason with 22 seconds remaining after GMU forward Jalen Jenkins missed the second of two free throws, but forward Steven Cook’s 3-pointer with six seconds left was no good.
Brase paced the Tigers with 17 points and 14 rebounds, going six of 12 from the floor and three of seven on 3-pointers.
