Sports Talk: Last Chance to Get Back

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WHEN WILL THOMAS LEAVES George Mason, his best memory of his time at school will not be of cutting down the nets after making the Final Four.

It will be of a night during winter break his freshman year when no one was in the dorms except the basketball players and the freshman ran around from room to room playing pranks on each other.

For Folarin Campbell, it's similar moments that he'll think back on.

"We've been roommates for four years, and we're going to be friends for life," Campbell says. "Hanging out with these fellows, we're going to laugh every moment."

On Friday, Campbell and Thomas will head into their final CAA tournament needing a tournament win not only because it is the only way this year's team (20-10, 12-6 CAA) will make it back to the NCAAs but also because it's seemingly the one goal they have yet to accomplish in four years at George Mason.

"I think that would define this class, this team — how hard we worked this year and how hard we worked all four years," Thomas said.

By making the Final Four, Campbell and Thomas have helped make George Mason a hunted program. "Down at Ohio University, they were saying, 'Come see our team take down Mason,'" Campbell said.

They came to George Mason four years ago as a part of what people called the best class coach Jim Larranaga had ever brought in, and they proved themselves along the way by winning 80 games over four years, giving Larranaga two of his three 20-win seasons at George Mason and, of course, beating Michigan State, UNC and Connecticut to make the Final Four for the first time in school history.

"When you think of George Mason, you think of the Final Four, and you also think of Folarin Campbell and Will Thomas," Larranaga said. "A new generation of players will come in and they will learn about the tradition, and there's a great responsibility on the next generation of Will Thomases and Folarin Campbells."

Photo by Travis Lindquist/Getty Images