Spiders Foul, Fall at George Mason

Wednesday, January 8

Fairfax, VA

7 PM

University of Richmond

7-9,2-1Atlantic 10

George Mason

11-5,2-1Atlantic 10

Richmond

George Mason

01/08/2025 | Men's Basketball

Box Score

FAIRFAX, Va. — The Richmond Spiders committed 22 fouls Wednesday at George Mason, leading to 23 points from the foul line for the Patriots in their 64-58 win over UR at EagleBank Arena. The loss dropped Richmond to 7-9 on the season and 2-1 in the Atlantic 10.

"It certainly seemed like a physical game, but they were better at getting to the line than us tonight and it's something we'll look at and try to improve upon," said Richmond coach Chris Mooney.

George Mason finished the game 23-28 from the foul line while Richmond, averaging an A-10 best 23 free throw attempts entering the game, went just 7-8 from the charity stripe. It was the first time Richmond shot at least 20 fewer free throws than its opponent since Nov. 26, 2019 vs Auburn in the Legends Classic.

"They got to the free throw line an awful lot, and we've been the best I've ever had since I've been the coach at that, and we weren't able to get to the free throw line," said Mooney. "Those are critical points to get."

Richmond led 32-28 at intermission after shooting 6-13 from three-point range in the first half and holding the bigger Patriots to just four points in the paint. But Mason made a point early and often in the second half to make its size an advantage, throwing the ball repeatedly into the low post and attacking the offensive glass during a 13-0 run over the half's first seven-plus minutes.

"The offensive rebounds, that was probably the biggest factor," said Mooney of the Mason run. "If they didn't make the shot they really got a large majority of the rebounds on the offensive glass."

A free throw by Mike Walz with 12:20 remaining was UR's first point after halftime and cut George Mason's lead to 41-33.

"Then their pressure was turned up and we were just a little less fluid and a little less aggressive offensively. … It was hard for us to snap out of that," said Mooney.

The Spiders battled back, cutting their deficit to two (54-52) on a three-pointer from Walz with 2:46 remaining. But Mason's leading scorer Darius Maddox, scoreless over the game's first 34 minutes, registered a pair of layups and three key free throws in the final two minutes to secure the win, Mason's sixth in its last seven meetings vs Richmond.

Dusan Neskovic led Richmond with 16 points. He was joined in double figures by Apostolos Roumoglou, who scored 11.

Richmond was without starter Jason Roche, recovering from a broken nose, and played the final 3:24 without leading scorer and captain DeLonnie Hunt, who left the game with a left foot injury.

"We're hoping for the best. I can't imagine many people more valuable to their team than him," said Mooney.

Following a two-game road trip, Richmond will return to the Robins Center Saturday to face Rhode Island at 6 PM on ESPN Plus.

"We've taken some significant steps here in the past couple of weeks and we need to keep going in that direction and just keep looking more and more like the team that we feel like we can be," said Mooney.