DENVER, Colo. - Notre Dame cruised through the second half to a 68-50 win over George Mason.

Coach Jim Larranaga gave his senior starters, Will Thomas and Folarin Campbell a curtain call late in the game. They were key players in the Final Four run of two years ago.

Thomas went down swinging, leading the Patriots with 25 points. He was the only Mason player in double figures.

Notre Dame was led by Harangody's 18 and McAlarney's 15.

Barring something noteworthy in the press conference, that's a wrap from Denver for today. Tomorrow, I'll have at least a preview of Saturday's games.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - The final timeout of George Mason's season has arrived, and some fans are headed for the exits. with 2:41 to go, ND still leads by 17.

Game times for Saturday have been announced. Notre Dame will face Washington St at 4:40 local time (Mountain), followed by Pitt and Michigan St at roughly 7:10.

Hopefully those games will be closer than what we had today.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 11:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - A Mason fan behind me just called Patriot player Jordan Carter, "Eraser." I assume that's because that big 'fro on his head looks like one.

Nine minutes to go, the Irish are still up 16, so Mason is having no luck erasing the lead.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 11:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - Notre Dame is keeping Mason at bay. The lead is 14 at the second media timeout of the half.

The Green Machine is in the process of setting the record for the fastest version ever played of "Living on a Prayer." It sounds like a 78 RPM version. If you don't know what that is, go ask your mother. I don't want to hear it.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 11:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - The George Mason pep band played for us at halftime. Their band director, Doc Nix, is a bald, black man with a beard that is about 4" long and sticks straight out about 4" from his chin. He's wearing white pants, a long white coat, a green shirt, gold tie and gold, mirrored sunglasses. He directs with a long cane with a green door-knob shaped handle. "Directs" is putting it loosely. He gets them going, then dances up in front of the band, occasionally waving an arm or pointing at the band to get what he wants. This is a guy who is INTO his job.

I saw Tom O'Connor again asked if he was in fact the director, and he told me that he was, and that the guy has a Ph. D. from Michigan.

He is easily the most flamboyant pep band director I've ever seen. You gotta love a guy who digs his gig this much.

Here's a link to some picks of Doc Nix and the Green Machine Pep Band

Posted by Jerry Palm at 10:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - Mason cut four points off of the Irish lead going into the break and now trail 33-21. Poor shooting has hurt them, like it has all of the lower seeds here today. GMU is 9-27 for 33%, while the Irish are at 12-29 for 41%. Notre Dame has four more three pointers though.

Despite this little run, I haven't seen anything from the Patriots to lead me to believe this will be anything but the fourth blowout of the day.

It also looks like this halftime period will be devoid of entertainment. That's a shame, because the game isn't holding up its end of the bargain.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 10:33 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - At the 6:40 mark of the first half, the Irish have a 16-point lead over Mason. At one point in this half, GMU missed six straight shots.

Later, Harangody took a couple of bad shots and was chastising himself for it coming back down the floor.

Larranaga has a loud, piercing whistle, and when he does it, every guy in yellow turns to the bench to see the play he's calling.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - Another game, another blowout. George Mason can't buy a bucket, and Notre Dame has three pointers from five different guys. The Irish are, by my count, in the middle of a 17-0 run and lead 23-7 with 11:11 left in the first half.

The ND Leprechaun is different than the guy I saw during football season.

Mason's crowd behind me doesn't look too happy.

Most coaches during full timeouts don't sit, or if they do, they sit on the same chair as the team. Jim Larranaga sits on a mini bar stool (for, I presume, use at a hotel mini bar).

Posted by Jerry Palm at 10:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - The Irish have built an early 11-7 lead with five points from Harangody and three each from Jackson and McAlarney.

Will Thomas is holding his own against Harangody with four points. He's also had a quick rest already, but the offense looks like its designed to go through him.

On the Mason bench, Darryl Monroe, a senior sitting out this year with an injury, was telling one of his teammates that the back door is open on ND. We'll see if they go there now.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

DENVER, Colo. - Notre Dame and George Mason are next. Tom O'Connor has taken off his committee chairman hat and put on his athletic director hat and is sitting in the stands behind me with the other Mason fans. I asked him if he was nervous about the game and he said, "No, I can't do anything about it anyway."

This is our last chance for a good game here. We've had three blowouts, so anything competitive would be nice.

The starters for Notre Dame are Kyle McAlarney and Tory Jackson at Guard, Zach Hillesland and Rob Kurz at forward, and center Luke Harangody.

Mason starts Dre Smith and John Vaughan in the back court, with Louis Birdsong, Folarin Campbell and Will Thomas up front.

Our refs are Scott Thornely, john Hughes and Antonio Petty.

We'll be underway in a few minutes.

Posted by Jerry Palm at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Stop me if you've heard this one before -- the internet connection is down at the NCAA tournament site in Denver.

Last year St Louis had significant internet connectivity issues as well.

Then, on top of that, I had trouble connecting back in my hotel room, although you can tell by the fact that this is posted that I got that worked out. Not so sure about the arena.

The Pepsi Center seems like a nice place although its a bit strange to be drinking Coke here. Coke is one of the corporate partners of the NCAA. I wonder if they will give the building another name for the duration of our stay.

Here is a little preview of what we will see here tomorrow.

Continue reading "NCAA Tournament Preview: Denver" »

Posted by Jerry Palm at 09:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)