Fairfax, Va. ? George Mason guard Tony Skinn stood under the basket at one end of the Patriot Center, holding a black-covered foam bat with a yellow plastic handle. The bases were loaded. He did a Babe Ruth and pointed to the seats.
Then he swung and launched the oddly shaped ball of tape-covered paper deep to right center, toward Section 110.
“Grand slam! Grand slam!” Skinn said, rounding the bases.
Welcome to unityball, perhaps the king of coach Jim Larranaga’s upbeat motivational ploys. Thanks to Coach L, the Patriots not only will be the surprise team in the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament this weekend, they also probably will be the loosest.
“Everybody in the country that I’ve heard from – in voice mails or e-mails – has recognized a significant difference in our approach,” Larranaga said. “We’ve always been this way, but it’s just now that some other people are recognizing and wondering maybe, ‘Is that a good way to be?’ We don’t judge other programs, we judge it for ourselves, and we like who we are.”
Unityball is guards vs. forwards, and this was the third straight Tuesday the game has been played to wrap up a practice. The big guys won before the team left for the first- and second-round games in Dayton, Ohio, but the little guys got even last week before the regionals in nearby Washington.
In retrospect, the Patriots had to make the Final Four – because the tie had to be broken. In fact, Larranaga’s final message before leaving the locker room before Sunday’s game against Connecticut was, “I want to be playing baseball on Tuesday at the Patriot Center.”
For the record, the guards won the rubber match. The big guys never recovered from Skinn’s slam.
“We have fun with it,” guard Lamar Butler said.
