I was in the nosebleed section for this game as a 15 year old from Fairfax, VA. I'll never forget the moment of silence during UConn's final 3 point attempt, followed by the final buzzer, and everyone in the arena went absolutely crazy over what we just witnessed out of GMU. I might be biased as a Fairfax kid, but this will go down as one of my all time favorite sport moments. Thank you for uploading an absolute gem of a game.
I was watching this game as a 7 year old kid in Naples Florida as a Gator fan I didn't care who won but this game was easily 1 of the Best NCAA tournament games I've ever watched and it was even better because as an a seven-year-old kid watching my Florida Gators win their first of back-to-back national championships and I've been a Gator fan ever since thanks for the upload
That season got me as a Mason fan. The semifinal....well....what had been Mason's strength all tournament was the money ball. Up until the semi final, they had shot 42 percent on those. Against UF? They were 1 of 11.....and UF had at that time what was the most accurate money ball shooter in tourney history-Lee Humphrey. Not to mention Green, Brewer, etc. Just a bad matchup for Mason, and a terrible time for a team's strength to disappear.😬
I remember watching the live broadcast of this. George mason was definitely the “Cinderella story” of that year’s tournament, kind of like St. Peter’s this year.
Not only did George Mason win, but they came back from being down 9 at halftime and kept it up in overtime to do so. This is still a better run than Loyola-Chicago even though that one is the only one I’ve been old enough to actually pay attention to and even though I enjoyed it more
That UCONN team was disinterested and passive they should have beaten Mason by 20 they let them hang around... They had so many draft picks, three big men and a star point guard....
This was definitely the best run, also better than 2011 VCU even though they won one more game. Imo it’s because this was the first time a mid major pulled this off. Now every year we are saying who is this years George Mason so it never comes as much of a surprise as this
yeah i dunno how this experienced veteran laden team lost to george mason but that 2011 team with a bunch of youngers and cardiac kemba won the tournament.
I'm a GMU grad from before this happened, now a full time faculty member at another mid-major. Every time I have students in my class on the basketball team, I direct them to this video.
I remember sitting at a bar and a UCONN fan was running his mouth with a Duke fan about who was the better team that season. I remember thinking to myself how I wished I could be a part of that conversation being a George Mason fan. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined we would end up beating UCONN later that year.
Coming back to this game after seeing what St. Peters has done and Jim Larrañaga leading Miami to their first elite 8. Who would've thought he led George Mason to the original Cinderella story, and during the greatest Cinderella story ever with St. Peter's, he leads Miami to the their best year ever. Even from a Noles you gotta love it.
This UConn team hit a wall late in the season and never came out of it. They were ranked #1 for most of January and February but suddenly started barely beating losing teams like Louisville, Notre Dame and South Florida, lost to a middling Syracuse team in the Big East tournament, then struggled big time in the NCAA's. Trailed the 16 seed by double digits in the second half before coming back to win, barely scraped past a substandard Kentucky team, then needed some fortunate calls in OT to get past Washington the game before this. Credit to George Mason for sure but something was off with this UConn bunch toward the end.
Denham Brown is one of the most underrated huskies in program history. I feel like if they just let him shoot 25x, he'd be a 34ppg game. He'd have dominated. That was really the main issue with this team. I mean you can say they could have been better defensively, better from the line, sure, but ultimately they just had too many options offensively, they never let one guy take over. Denham Brown could've taken over.
Greatest Final Four run by a mid-major in recent history, even with VCU and Loyola later following suit... had to beat 3 blue blood programs with Hall of Fame coaches and top recruits/NBA prospects (MSU, UNC, UConn) in the same tournament.
One of my favorite stories about that run is that offseason, Jim Larranaga was at a youth camp in the with those same 3 hall of fame coaches, and they had to give speeches to the kids. Izzo and Roy were all like "My team had a great season, we went to the NCAA Tournament and we ended up losing to George Mason. Congrats Jim (Larranaga)", and when Calhoun had to speak, his speech was basically " Jim Larranaga ruined my life. He cost me thousands of dollars and I get hate mail because of him."
True. Tony officially was the point guard on that squad, but he was ahead of his time. Back then, point men were still pass first. Tony was a scoring point. Folarin was a sneaky, unselfish all around player. He wasn't the most well known, or the highest scorer, but he had the best all around skills.
Can you re-upload this game with the minute and a half that you cut out in the late parts of the 2nd half? It's not the full game unless every bit of the game is on here. It's like the Virginia-Auburn game you uploaded. There a whole 4 minutes missing from the game.
Look at the teams George Mason beat to get to the final four that year: Michigan State, North Carolina, Wichita State and Connecticut. Three out of those four were juggernauts in every word. They made it possible for Cinderellas to exist the past two decades.
That's what I like about the internet I can see season games an hour road too the final four tourny that the years I missed u can watch Ed it like u been there so cool thanks
UConn had the best team in the tournament but they struggled from the jump. Barely got past Albany, weathered a storm from a feisty Kentucky team, and had to make a comeback against Washington. Their magic ran out here.
Meh, excellent team sure, but a hard sell considering what Florida did going back to back. People at the time just didn’t realize how loaded Florida was back then. Horford, Noah, Brewer etc. just loaded.
People loved UConn's size, and the Big East back then still got a lot of rep....but offensively, they relied far too much on Marcus when they needed to score big. If his shot was shaky, they struggled to put teams away. Mason crashing the glass here so well early on was a bad sign for them, because that was supposed to be a big strength with UConn's size advantage.
36:43 Seriously? "That could be a dagger". There was a whole half of ball left, glad Verne got cut off. That comment looks even dumber in hindsight, but at the time it was still bad.
And people like Bob Huggins wish to tell me that the P5 leagues should separate and have their own NCAA college basketball tournament? Why do college basketball coaches not understand the business of their own sport better? 25% of all office workers participate in a pool. You have all the betting action in Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere. This tourney is about GAMBLING. Unlike college football, the majority of college basketball fans do not view the sport until the NCAA tourney. They want to see the George Masons in the field because picking the upsets drives the pools. CBS and Turner know this. They call the shots. Not the coaches, schools, boosters, or athletic directors. It's all about the NCAA and the money they get from TV. College basketball has a different financial structure than NCAA football. Take George Mason away and the NCAA tourney goes bankrupt. They are ESSENTIAL. But moreover, there are too many people who just don't get that non-BCS teams being in a postseason tourney drives the popularity of college basketball and its economics. Whereas Cincinnati making the college football playoff is more about FAIRNESS.
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I was in the nosebleed section for this game as a 15 year old from Fairfax, VA. I'll never forget the moment of silence during UConn's final 3 point attempt, followed by the final buzzer, and everyone in the arena went absolutely crazy over what we just witnessed out of GMU. I might be biased as a Fairfax kid, but this will go down as one of my all time favorite sport moments. Thank you for uploading an absolute gem of a game.
One of the best tournament games of all time.
until the ucla and gonzaga game.
Verne Lundquist’s call at the end was a good one
Loved Verne Lundquist’s call: “By George, the dream is alive!”
Cheesy af though
What a perfect game, perfect setting, perfect duo on the mic. By George, the dream is alive…
This happened my second semester @ GMU. Surreal to say the least. Still have the GMU jersey and Final Four hat. Helped put GMU on the map!
Nearly 20 years later and i still dont understand how this Uconn team lost this game. 9/10 times this is a 20 point blowout. Insane upset.
I was watching this game as a 7 year old kid in Naples Florida as a Gator fan I didn't care who won but this game was easily 1 of the Best NCAA tournament games I've ever watched and it was even better because as an a seven-year-old kid watching my Florida Gators win their first of back-to-back national championships and I've been a Gator fan ever since thanks for the upload
Thanks for sharing your memories. Glad you enjoyed it!
That season got me as a Mason fan. The semifinal....well....what had been Mason's strength all tournament was the money ball. Up until the semi final, they had shot 42 percent on those. Against UF? They were 1 of 11.....and UF had at that time what was the most accurate money ball shooter in tourney history-Lee Humphrey. Not to mention Green, Brewer, etc. Just a bad matchup for Mason, and a terrible time for a team's strength to disappear.😬
I was 18, I remember watching it too
I remember watching the live broadcast of this. George mason was definitely the “Cinderella story” of that year’s tournament, kind of like St. Peter’s this year.
Loved this GM team. My favorite March Cinderella
This may have been UConn’s most talented team.
And the thing was, this may've been the best game they played. We were just a little better.
Definitely was the most talented team
The Dream is Alive!!!!
Not only did George Mason win, but they came back from being down 9 at halftime and kept it up in overtime to do so. This is still a better run than Loyola-Chicago even though that one is the only one I’ve been old enough to actually pay attention to and even though I enjoyed it more
That UCONN team was disinterested and passive they should have beaten Mason by 20 they let them hang around... They had so many draft picks, three big men and a star point guard....
This was definitely the best run, also better than 2011 VCU even though they won one more game. Imo it’s because this was the first time a mid major pulled this off. Now every year we are saying who is this years George Mason so it never comes as much of a surprise as this
still can't believe we lost this game. This Uconn team was absolutely STACKED! 6 future NBA players
yeah i dunno how this experienced veteran laden team lost to george mason but that 2011 team with a bunch of youngers and cardiac kemba won the tournament.
I'm a GMU grad from before this happened, now a full time faculty member at another mid-major. Every time I have students in my class on the basketball team, I direct them to this video.
I was in the Mason Pep Band for this game. Still an amazing memory.
"By George, the dream is alive!"
Gotta love ol' Verne Lundquist
I remember sitting at a bar and a UCONN fan was running his mouth with a Duke fan about who was the better team that season. I remember thinking to myself how I wished I could be a part of that conversation being a George Mason fan. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined we would end up beating UCONN later that year.
1:35:14 after 17 years, Jim Larrañega’s dream is still alive
Coming back to this game after seeing what St. Peters has done and Jim Larrañaga leading Miami to their first elite 8. Who would've thought he led George Mason to the original Cinderella story, and during the greatest Cinderella story ever with St. Peter's, he leads Miami to the their best year ever. Even from a Noles you gotta love it.
great game I love the NCAA's..March Madness is one of my life's pleasure
And now Tony Skinn is the head coach and GMU
A lot of Political Science and Communications majors in the game lol
& Sports Mgmt :P
Today it'd be Gender Studies or General Studies.🥴
This UConn team hit a wall late in the season and never came out of it. They were ranked #1 for most of January and February but suddenly started barely beating losing teams like Louisville, Notre Dame and South Florida, lost to a middling Syracuse team in the Big East tournament, then struggled big time in the NCAA's. Trailed the 16 seed by double digits in the second half before coming back to win, barely scraped past a substandard Kentucky team, then needed some fortunate calls in OT to get past Washington the game before this. Credit to George Mason for sure but something was off with this UConn bunch toward the end.
Denham Brown is one of the most underrated huskies in program history. I feel like if they just let him shoot 25x, he'd be a 34ppg game. He'd have dominated. That was really the main issue with this team. I mean you can say they could have been better defensively, better from the line, sure, but ultimately they just had too many options offensively, they never let one guy take over. Denham Brown could've taken over.
Facts
03/26/2006 - 18 years ago
Greatest Final Four run by a mid-major in recent history, even with VCU and Loyola later following suit... had to beat 3 blue blood programs with Hall of Fame coaches and top recruits/NBA prospects (MSU, UNC, UConn) in the same tournament.
It's a great resumé!
Plus a really good Wichita State team.
Yeah, and don't forget they beat Sparty in the opener without Tony Skinn. He was suspended.
One of my favorite stories about that run is that offseason, Jim Larranaga was at a youth camp in the with those same 3 hall of fame coaches, and they had to give speeches to the kids. Izzo and Roy were all like "My team had a great season, we went to the NCAA Tournament and we ended up losing to George Mason. Congrats Jim (Larranaga)", and when Calhoun had to speak, his speech was basically " Jim Larranaga ruined my life. He cost me thousands of dollars and I get hate mail because of him."
Even nearly 20 years as a Virginia Native I still vividly remember this run one of the great tourney runs 🖤💯
02:19 BILL RAFTERY SAID AND VERNE LUNDQUIST GEORGE MASON GOES MMMMMPPPPP
01:35:08 DENHAM BROWN FOR THREE NO GOOD BY GEORGE THE DREAM IS ALIVE
Communications and sports management seem to be very popular majors for athletes at GMU 😀.
1:35:05 Who here thought the last UCONN 3 pointer was going in?
How about the off-air conversation between Raf and Verne at 1:28.22 and later? "This is just incredible, isn't it?"
Still exciting to watch
Man those uniforms are awfully baggy.compared to today's game lol
Great memory even today did not see GM BLINK just were every bit the equal to Uconn that day.
An incredible, courageous upset!!!
Tony Skinn addressed himself as the point guard in the intros, but it was Folarin Campbell who actually played the position.
True. Tony officially was the point guard on that squad, but he was ahead of his time. Back then, point men were still pass first. Tony was a scoring point. Folarin was a sneaky, unselfish all around player. He wasn't the most well known, or the highest scorer, but he had the best all around skills.
Bill Raftery is so great in this game.
One of the best games in the modern era.
Gabe Norwood 🇵🇭🇵🇭
No one asked.
@@TheYoubook why u reply my comment?
LOL
That is basketball 🏀 in its purest form.
The state of virginia is amazing
Goes to show the best team doesn’t always win the tournament
March Madness has this name for a reason. The game is played and the catfish is fished
gmu alum here. was a junior that year. the slipper fits!!!
Must have been an awesome time on campus.
Can you re-upload this game with the minute and a half that you cut out in the late parts of the 2nd half? It's not the full game unless every bit of the game is on here. It's like the Virginia-Auburn game you uploaded. There a whole 4 minutes missing from the game.
Saint Peters brought me here there run reminds me of George Mason's
George Mason got all of the foul calls in this game. That was a bullahit call against Hilton Armstrong on Jai
who was best cinderella in the last 20 years?
its either george mason or the first time butler made their run
Loyola Chicago or vcu for me
St Peters PEACOCKS
@@theballer4150 Amazing game. It’s a instant classic.
Look at the teams George Mason beat to get to the final four that year: Michigan State, North Carolina, Wichita State and Connecticut. Three out of those four were juggernauts in every word. They made it possible for Cinderellas to exist the past two decades.
That's what I like about the internet I can see season games an hour road too the final four tourny that the years I missed u can watch Ed it like u been there so cool thanks
1:14:39 Gabe Norwood
By far the most successful player in that George Mason’s line up.
can you up[load the 2006 florida georgetown game
Jeff Adrien might have tipped it in...Marcus Williams got some tough calls late...
30 min away from my house
This was 18 years ago!?
By George! What a ballgame
The 1st double digit seed to the final four
Not quite. LSU did it before them. GM was second
At 4 mins exactly how does George Mason go up magically by 4 when the previous break they were only up by 2??? Scorekeeper error???
4:02 left in game when commercial starts, when this video picks back up 3:07 left in game. Video isn’t complete
This isn’t the full game. It went from 17.6 seconds to 7.9 in the #nd half.
UConn had the best team in the tournament but they struggled from the jump. Barely got past Albany, weathered a storm from a feisty Kentucky team, and had to make a comeback against Washington. Their magic ran out here.
Meh, excellent team sure, but a hard sell considering what Florida did going back to back. People at the time just didn’t realize how loaded Florida was back then.
Horford, Noah, Brewer etc. just loaded.
@@KompressorV6 and the way Florida won their games in both tournaments says something, only struggled against Georgetown.
@@SonicTheo and the next year the only team Florida struggled against was butler
@@jakebuchsbaum3348 yeah them coming back was unfair to the other teams lol
People loved UConn's size, and the Big East back then still got a lot of rep....but offensively, they relied far too much on Marcus when they needed to score big. If his shot was shaky, they struggled to put teams away. Mason crashing the glass here so well early on was a bad sign for them, because that was supposed to be a big strength with UConn's size advantage.
36:43
Seriously? "That could be a dagger". There was a whole half of ball left, glad Verne got cut off. That comment looks even dumber in hindsight, but at the time it was still bad.
Gabe Norwood from Gilas Pilipinas played here!
The worst loss in UConn history
Just wait until Saturday when Jimmy L gets another W against UConn
And people like Bob Huggins wish to tell me that the P5 leagues should separate and have their own NCAA college basketball tournament? Why do college basketball coaches not understand the business of their own sport better? 25% of all office workers participate in a pool. You have all the betting action in Vegas, Atlantic City and elsewhere. This tourney is about GAMBLING. Unlike college football, the majority of college basketball fans do not view the sport until the NCAA tourney. They want to see the George Masons in the field because picking the upsets drives the pools. CBS and Turner know this. They call the shots. Not the coaches, schools, boosters, or athletic directors. It's all about the NCAA and the money they get from TV. College basketball has a different financial structure than NCAA football. Take George Mason away and the NCAA tourney goes bankrupt. They are ESSENTIAL. But moreover, there are too many people who just don't get that non-BCS teams being in a postseason tourney drives the popularity of college basketball and its economics. Whereas Cincinnati making the college football playoff is more about FAIRNESS.
College Football Playoff is the complete opposite of fairness.
Nothing but the truth
So Matt do you think this game was fixed?
I don't think GMU even won their conference.
We won the Regular season but lost in the tourney to Hofstra.
True, lost CAA tourney, but won CAA season and was even ranked #25 that season.
George Mason Virginia 2021 "Nice and creative Videos，I can see A lot of thought has been put into the content and editing of the video， This is really my favorite channel.:) .🌴🌴🌴excellent 👍👌👍👌👍 🌴🌴🌴 🌴🌴🌴 🌴🌴🌴 🌴🌴🌴.
Thank you very much! Keep tuning in for new content.
I wanted GMU to win as much as the next guy, but there was quite a lot of bad officiating down the stretch of regulation and OT.
GO LOBOS ALL THE WAY