This Win Rates an 11

By George, they did it.

With an epic, did-that-just-happen upset of top-seeded Connecticut that ranks as one of the biggest in the history of the NCAA tournament, 11th-seeded George Mason is going to the Final Four.

They were one of the last teams chosen for the NCAA field of 65, but the Patriots of the Colonial Athletic Assn. are one of the last four standing after a tenacious 86-84 overtime victory over a Connecticut team loaded with NBA prospects in the Washington Regional final Sunday at Verizon Center.

The Patriots’ conference became Coach Jim Larranaga’s rallying cry.

“Coach just told us, ‘We’re the CAA,’ ” forward Jai Lewis said.

“Connecticut Assassin Association.”

George Mason (27-7) didn’t finally dodge yet another frantic Connecticut comeback until Denham Brown’s three-pointer with one second left in overtime missed and George Mason’s Lamar Butler grabbed the rebound.

“This string?” Butler said after the celebration subsided, glancing at the piece of twine from the net that hung from his cap. “I’ve got two, actually. I’m going to keep one in my pocket wherever I go. The other I’m going to frame and keep on my wall, good safekeeping, for winning the regional championship to go to the Final Four.”

The Patriots will face Florida on Saturday.

George Mason’s victory over Connecticut ranks short of North Carolina State’s upset of Hakeem Olajuwon’s Houston team on a miracle last-second shot in 1983, when Lorenzo Charles grabbed Dereck Whittenburg’s air ball and slammed it home for a national championship, but it is not shy of even a handful of others.

Only one other team seeded as low as 11th since the NCAA began seeding the field in 1979 has ever reached the Final Four, Louisiana State in 1986, but the Tigers are from the mighty Southeastern Conference. The Ivy League’s Pennsylvania made the 1979 Final Four as a No. 9. Another outsider, Indiana State, made it that year too, but Indiana State was a No. 1-seeded team that had Larry Bird.

In 1977, Charlotte upset No. 1-ranked Michigan to reach the Final Four.

But consider what George Mason did: It beat three of the last six NCAA champions in four games -- upending schools with a total of eight national titles among them -- by defeating sixth-seeded Michigan State, third-seeded North Carolina and top-seeded Connecticut along the way.

The Patriots crashed a Final Four that will not have a No. 1-seeded team for the first time since 1980, and is without an Atlantic Coast Conference or Big East team for the first time since the Big East was formed in 1979.

It is the season when the so-called little guys bellowed they belonged, even though George Mason, a suburban commuter school in Fairfax, Va., isn’t small, with more than 28,000 students.

“We never saw ourselves as a No. 1 seed or a No. 11 seed or 16th seed. That number is truly irrelevant to us,” Larranaga said. “The seed is just a number where you’re placed as to who you will play in the first round. Once you get on the court, no one really cares where you’re seeded. It’s about performance and execution.”

Perform and execute George Mason did, defeating a Connecticut team that finished 30-4. And despite the Huskies’ habit of lackadaisical play, they didn’t make it easy for George Mason, shooting 47% and holding their turnovers to nine while Rudy Gay led the way with 20 points.

Connecticut led by 12 in the first half after a hail of three-pointers and an old-fashioned three-point play. But George Mason came back, and the shots that did not go down in the first began to fall.

“Six of seven from three in the second half,” Connecticut Coach Jim Calhoun said. “That’s decent shooting, I believe.”

Connecticut was done in by its inability to get stops, particularly inside against the burly Lewis, who had 20 points and seven rebounds, and Will Thomas, who had 19 and 12.

The smaller Patriots out-rebounded Connecticut by three, and the perimeter players did their work, with Butler making four of six three-pointers and Tony Skinn and Folarin Campbell adding two each.

As the game came down to the wire, George Mason steeled itself, determined that Connecticut would not pull out another victory the way it did against Washington after Rashad Anderson made a three-pointer with 1.8 seconds left in regulation.

“I was not going to let him catch the ball. I saw what happened the other night,” Butler said.

George Mason took Connecticut’s best shots, and won -- though it took overtime.

The Patriots led by four with 18 seconds left in regulation after Butler made two free throws after coming up with a steal after Connecticut’s Marcus Williams tried to drive and dish off.

Williams cut the lead to two when he drove the lane and sank a shot with eight seconds left.

Then Skinn, an 81% free-throw shooter, went to the line with six seconds to play.

“Honestly, I thought we had them when I went to the free-throw line,” Skinn said. “But obviously I missed.”

That gave Connecticut the opening it needed to get to overtime, and Brown drove underneath the basket with a second left for a reverse layup that bounced on the rim and then dropped.

George Mason went up five in overtime, but Williams cut the lead to two with a three-pointer with 10 seconds left.

Then Lewis missed two free throws with six seconds left, giving Connecticut one more shot at survival. Then Brown missed, setting off pandemonium in an arena only 20 miles from the George Mason campus.

Add to the lore of title-game upsets such as Villanova over Georgetown in 1985 and North Carolina State interrupting UCLA’s run in 1974, a vision of the Patriots making it to the Final Four.

Anderson, whose guarantee of victory irked George Mason players who didn’t know he’d been guaranteeing an NCAA title for more than a year, sat quietly in his locker afterward.

“You’ve just got to take your hats off to them. They played a great game,” he said. “Life goes on.”

Yes, but only for four teams.