In April 2006, an 11 seed from Fairfax, Virginia, did the unthinkable: George Mason beat Michigan State, North Carolina, Wichita State, and UConn in succession and crashed the Final Four, becoming the first true mid-major to reach college basketball's final weekend in the modern era. Jim Larrañaga's Patriots lost to eventual champion Florida in Indianapolis, but the run rewrote what the sport believed possible — and it set the standard that still hangs over every George Mason season. Twenty years later, the program is chasing that feeling again, and for the first time in a long time, it has the coach and the roster to make the chase real.
That coach is Tony Skinn, and the symmetry is almost too perfect: Skinn was a starting guard on the 2006 Final Four team, and since taking over in March 2023 he has authored the program's best three-year stretch in nearly two decades. The Patriots have won 70 games over the past three seasons — 20-12, then 27-9 with a first-place Atlantic 10 finish, then 23-10 — and they are one of just three A-10 programs to post a top-100 NET ranking in each of those campaigns. Back-to-back postseason appearances, the first since 2007-09. A 2025 Atlantic 10 Coach of the Year award for Skinn. The 2024-25 team went 15-3 in the league, reached the conference tournament final, and earned an NIT second-round berth; last year's 23-10 group finished fifth and went back to the NIT. The trajectory is unmistakable: George Mason is no longer rebuilding. It's contending.
The 2026-27 roster is Skinn's most talented, built around a returning star and a transfer class that addresses last season's exact weaknesses. Senior guard Brayden O'Connor, a 2025-26 Preseason All-Atlantic 10 First Team selection, is the engine — a 6-foot-6 Ottawa product who runs the offense and defends at an all-league level. The headliner addition is 6-foot-8 forward Elijah Jones from UTEP, an All-Conference USA honorable mention who averaged 13.1 points, 5.4 rebounds, and 1.1 blocks while shooting 38.6 percent from three — the floor-spacing, shot-blocking combo forward Skinn targeted all offseason. Guard Makhai Valentine arrives from Northern Illinois, where he led the Huskies at 13.3 points per game with 69 made threes; his 35.8 percent stroke and downhill athleticism give Mason the volume shooter it lacked. And Baraka Okojie is a fascinating homecoming: an Atlantic 10 All-Rookie pick as a Mason freshman who left, earned First Team All-SoCon honors at Mercer, and returns as a proven high-major guard.
The supporting cast is deep and versatile. Forwards Emmanuel Kanga and Malik Presley, both 6-foot-8, bring athleticism and defensive switchability. Seniors Dola Adebayo, Nick Ellington, Fatt Hill, Jahari Long, and Masai Troutman supply experience and toughness. Freshman guard Isaiah Skinn of Alexandria and sophomore guard T.J. Prosise add backcourt depth, while 6-foot-8 freshmen Ryan-Preston Mendy and Emmanuel Kanga and 6-foot-10 sophomore Stas Sivka give the frontcourt international flavor and rim protection. But the name that has Fairfax buzzing is Shane Pendergrass, the Upper Marlboro freshman rated the second-highest recruit in program history, joined by fellow freshmen Bryton Barrett — a 6-foot-8 Archbishop Carroll wing who led his team in rebounding and blocks and was praised by Skinn as "the ultimate glue guy" — and guard Peyton Miller. The pipeline is officially flowing.
EagleBank Arena, the 10,000-seat on-campus home in Fairfax, has started to feel like a fortress again. The 2024-25 team was nearly unbeatable there during its 15-3 league run, and the student section that once roared the 2006 team into legend has found its voice. The Atlantic 10 schedule makers noticed the product: the 2026-27 league slate features what the school is calling a historic national television lineup, with January and February dates against VCU (twice, including a February 26 home date on the ESPN family), Dayton, Saint Joseph's, Loyola Chicago, and George Washington all ticketed for national windows. The home-and-home with VCU remains the league's fiercest rivalry — the two programs have spent a decade trading haymakers — and the Revolutionary Rivalry with George Washington always delivers.
The history here demands ambition. Beyond 2006, the program owns the 2008 CAA tournament title, a 26-8 season in 2010-11 that ended in the NCAA second round, and a lineage of pros and program legends — from the Final Four core of Jai Lewis, Lamar Butler, and Will Thomas to more recent standouts like Josh Oduro and Tyler Kolek-era battles. Larrañaga's fourteen seasons built the foundation; the A-10 move in 2013 raised the ceiling; and Skinn, the Final Four hero turned Coach of the Year, is the bridge between the program's greatest moment and its next one.
The goal for 2026-27 needs no translation: win the Atlantic 10 and get back to the NCAA Tournament. Mason hasn't danced since 2011 — a drought that feels absurd for a program with its resources, its arena, and its recruiting footprint in the talent-rich DMV. The league won't make it easy: VCU and Dayton reload every year, Saint Louis and Loyola Chicago are perennial problems, and the A-10 tournament in March is a four-day war. But Skinn has the deepest roster of his tenure, a preseason all-conference star, a top-shelf transfer class, and a freshman class headlined by a program-record recruit. The 2006 team taught George Mason to dream bigger than its seed line. Twenty years on, the Patriots finally look ready to dream again.