The next George Mason? Seek and you shall never find

The search is on for the next George Mason. Look for yourself. Go to Google, plug in the phrase "the next George Mason," and see what you get. Me? I got 974 references on Sunday. It was up to 988 on Monday. The search is probably growing as we speak.

Let me help with it. Actually, let me end it.

There won't be a next George Mason.

Folarin Campbell's Patriots obliterated a psychological obstacle that no mid-major will face again. (Getty Images)

Not this year, not next year, not ever. In something like this, there can only be one. And George Mason, which attracted national skepticism after receiving an at-large bid to the 2006 NCAA Tournament -- and then reached the Final Four -- was the one. Let's not diminish what George Mason accomplished by suggesting it will be done again. It won't. It can't.

Even if one of this season's chic candidates to become "the next George Mason" -- Akron, Creighton, Winthrop -- reaches the 2007 Final Four, it won't be the same. Why? Because college basketball isn't the same. George Mason changed everything.

Put it this way: Was there another Jackie Robinson? Of course not. There could only be one Jackie Robinson, one player to go where nobody in baseball had gone before. Now then, he integrated baseball. Historically and socially speaking, that is infinitely more significant than the line George Mason broke.

But the point remains: George Mason broke a barrier in college basketball, and there is no putting that barrier back together. A mid-major team will again reach the Final Four, perhaps even one as unlikely as the Patriots, but it won't be the same as when George Mason did it in 2006. Knowing it can be done is a monster psychological wall to climb, and George Mason climbed it. The next mid-major to reach the Final Four will have run one heck of a race, true. But George Mason ran the race first -- and George Mason ran it with hurdles.

What George Mason did in March was inconceivable. Entering the tournament, could you have identified two George Mason starters? Or its mascot? To get to the Final Four, George Mason was going to have to wade through four of the last seven national champions: Michigan State (2000), North Carolina (2005) and Connecticut (1999, 2004).

Not possible. Every game brought another upset, and more doubts. Even after watching George Mason beat up Michigan State in the first round, after watching George Mason out-skill North Carolina in the second round, after watching George Mason out-scrap Wichita State in the Sweet 16, there were still people who didn't think the Patriots could beat Connecticut for the region title.

One idiot actually wrote, "George Mason can't beat UConn. Not on Sunday at the Verizon Center for the region title. Not on Halloween in an empty gym. Not tomorrow at the playground. Not ever."

OK. I was the idiot who wrote that. That's not the point.

The point? No. 11 seed George Mason was lugging decades of bad history onto the court against Connecticut. Darling little teams make NCAA Tournament runs every year, but they never make it all the way to the Final Four because eventually reality arrives, dressed like the four eventual first-round 2006 NBA Draft picks on the UConn roster. George Mason walked onto the court on March 26 and faced NBA point guard Marcus Williams throwing passes to an NBA frontcourt of Rudy Gay, Josh Boone and Hilton Armstrong. The only pro on the George Mason frontcourt was squatty center Jai Lewis, who soon would be trying out for a team in the NFL, not the NBA.

George Mason had the right to doubt. None of the Patriots could have started for that UConn team, and no underdog in NCAA Tournament history had waded through a series of teams like the ones facing George Mason. The Patriots had to play a No. 6 seed (Michigan State), a No. 3 seed (UNC), a No. 7 seed (Wichita State) and a No. 1 seed (UConn). The closest team that compares is 2002 Kent State, which beat a No. 2, a No. 3 and a No. 7 before falling in the region title game to fifth-seeded Indiana.

That's what teams like No. 10-seeded Kent State or No. 11 George Mason do. They run out of steam or gimmickry or luck or whatever it was that got them to history's edge.

Since the NCAA Tournament began seeding the field in 1979, only one double-digit seed had reached the Final Four, No. 11 LSU in 1986. And that was five years after LSU had been to the 1981 Final Four. Before last season, George Mason had been to the NCAA Tournament just three times, ever, and had never won an NCAA tourney game. There is no comparison from George Mason in 2006 to LSU in 1986.

There is no comparison to any team, ever, which is why there will never be another George Mason. Whoever does it next will have the advantage of knowing it can be done at all.