Game! Of! The! Night! Dec 27: Holy Cross at George Mason

Grab your funny tricorner hat and your flute, we've got the Patriot League regular-season champions against the Patriots at the Patriot Center. Both teams have toiled in the shadows of preseason favorites early on (Bucknell and Old Dominion, respectively). But a convincing win here, against relatively equal non-conference competition, may elucidate one team's chances to turn the tables come conference time.

Homestanding George Mason is still explaining away their 20-point loss to Creighton last month, but their near-miss against ODU two weeks ago helps. It looks like Mason coach Jim Larranaga is getting his patented Scramble Defenseâ„¢ back on track - the Patriots have the 44th most efficient D (88.7 rating) in the land this year.

Holy Cross has struggled to find themselves in the early going, but may be better than their 5-6 record indicates. They're led by a three-man backcourt that's ranked nationally in steals per game (No. 52, 9.3 spg), a troika highlighted by senior guard and recent MMBOD Kevin Hamilton (17.6 ppg). Patriot fite!