Mason cherishes moment of parity

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The at-large bid that went to the George Mason Patriots prompted a question that doubled as an indictment: "What are they doing in the NCAA tournament?"

That was the chatter before the Patriots upended Michigan State and then North Carolina yesterday.

That was before the Patriots, among others, went about reminding the bracket heads that college basketball is not nearly as orderly and predictable as it was a generation ago.

Parity, for better or worse, has descended on the sport in compelling fashion.

You can tell by the ascent of George Mason, Wichita State, Gonzaga and Bradley. You can tell by the high number of games in which the prohibitive favorite merely outlasted the no-name school from some unknown place.

That is how it was for the Tar Heels in the first round of the tournament against a nondescript Murray State team.

The Tar Heels escaped with a 69-65 victory and had to believe that their potential nightmare scenario was behind them. And they had to believe that this day in the second round was theirs after they built a 16-2 lead on the Patriots in the opening minutes.

And then, as so often happens in the tournament, an underdog team comes out of its starry-eyed funk and begins to discover that it can play with the celebrated team on equal terms.

This is the new college basketball order. The brand-name schools still secure the top talent. But that talent is neither as deep nor as special as it once was because of the precocious ones in a rush to play in the NBA.

In fact, George Mason's so-called upset of the Tar Heels had its beginnings last April, when the Tar Heels hoisted the national championship trophy and Raymond Felton, Marvin Williams, Sean May and Rashad McCants all decided it was time to improve their quality of life with a trip to the NBA.