FAIRFAX- With the clock winding down on preseason, the time for fine tuning is finite. But as George Mason Women’s Basketball learned last March, a single detail can be the difference between victory and defeat. Perhaps that’s why nearly 45 minutes of practice last Wednesday was devoted solely to defensive sets and fighting through screens: every single detail counts.
“Every second, every second, every minute, every play, everything matters,” said Head Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis. “Because once it’s taken, once you have it no more,” she corrected, “You gotta live with it for the whole summer and that’s what they’ve been sitting on. We move in a space this year where we’re no excuses, we’re not worried about anybody else, we gotta come show up and do what we have to do to put ourselves in a position every single night to not leave it in someone else’s hands.”
The echoes of Mason’s heartbreaking and controversial loss to Duquesne in the Quarterfinals of the 2024 Atlantic 10 Tournament are clearly present to anyone in Cage Gym.
“It’s still a sensitive topic,” said graduate student Ta’Viyanna Habib. “The thing about last season, yeah we made a lot of history, I’m pretty sure I can say this for everybody, we definitely should’ve taken it home.” But as Habib explained, last season is just the start of the new standard for George Mason Women’s Basketball.
“It just showed ones that were here that we can do this, and how to do it. We’ve been in different positions, now we went to the WBIT. Being on that stage it could be a little nerve wracking, but we’ve been there. We’re of course trying to go to the NCAA, but when we get there, it won’t be a surprise. Like, we’ve been here, we’ve played these teams. Last season was great, it was great to go that far and have that winning season, but now it’s just extra to the fire, we got to almost there, let’s get there.”
For the 2025 Patriots, the goals for the season are clear: to win their first ever conference title and reach the NCAA Tournament for the first time in program history. A non-conference slate featuring three Power 5 schools (at Georgetown, at Wake Forest, and a neutral site game against Maryland in Annapolis), as well as rising mid-majors Towson and Marshall, certainly sets Mason up to have a fighting chance for an at-large bid. Although, as mid-major schools know all too well, finding P5 schools to schedule you is often a very challenging task. Mason’s matchup with Maryland, a team that the Patriots took a lead well into the fourth quarter a season ago in College Park, is almost certainly the headliner of the schedule. The meeting certainly appeared to almost come about by happenstance.
“Oh it was definitely a challenge,” said Blair-Lewis about the neutral-site match-up. “Because [Maryland] didn’t have really anything to do with it, you know, it’s Navy’s tournament. So I think they were already in with someone else, and Navy had a spot open or someone dropped out, so I don’t think they could have dropped out…we were like ‘oh yeah, yeah we want this matchup.’”
George Mason isn’t the only A-10 school scheduling up in non-conference play this season: Richmond was able to draw neutral site contests against Oklahoma State, Clemson and Tennessee, while getting home games against Georgetown and Texas. Saint Joseph’s will be travelling to face Syracuse and Utah, and hosting Villanova and possibly Northwestern depending on the opening round results of the Hawk Classic.
“You know when you wanna go to the next level with your program you wanna play the best and Maryland has been that in our backyard,” said Blair-Lewis. “We wanna play the best, we wanna beat the best to do that.”
With elevated stakes comes elevated exposure, as George Mason will be featured in a record four national television games this season, including an ACC Network appearance against Wake Forest, as well as conference matchups on CBS Sports Network, Peacock, and ESPNU respectively.
George Mason’s rise from a winless 2021 A-10 campaign to a top four finish in 2024 has been well documented (at least, I certainly have tried to do so!), but even I had to stop and do the mental math when VBL described to me that Paula Suárez is the lone player on the Patriots’ veteran roster to ever experienced a losing season.
“The expectation for the rest of them is to win, because that’s all they’ve done,” said Blair-Lewis. “I think if this was two or three years ago, to go from worst to third would’ve been really shocking, but I think these young women who have played in this program besides Paula have only known the come up, the winning part.”
She’s right, of course, but it bears repeating just how impressive this turnaround has been. The 2021 Patriots posted a 3-19 overall record, and an 0-14 A-10 mark. VBL’s first year in Fairfax produced a 10-19 record, 3-12 in league play, but still produced a last-place finish. That season, however, was highlighted by a landmark victory over Florida. It was the beginning of the renaissance of George Mason Women’s Basketball. 2023 produced the first winning season since 2019, and we all know the story of 2024 by now. What lies ahead in 2025, if the trend continues, might just be nothing short of historic.
The overwhelming sense, on that sunny afternoon in Fairfax, was that this is the roster that can, and they believe will, put Mason over the top. Sure, it’s common to find when interviewing athletes that they’ll tell you that they want to win championships, because who doesn’t? But looking into the eyes of the players and coaching staff in Cage Gym last Wednesday, there is a fire and a hunger that I’m not sure I’ve seen in an interview before. The returning pieces of this lineup speak for themselves. Reigning Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year Zahirah “Zaza” Walton was named Preseason All-Atlantic 10 Second Team, while three different players, Ta’Viyanna Habib, Nalani Kaysia, and Kennedy Harris, were named Preseason All-Atlantic 10 Third Team.
Kaysia, in particular, will be one to keep an eye on this season. She appeared in the first five contests in the 2024 season, before missing the remainder of the season to give birth to her beautiful daughter, Xéla. Truly, their story could (and should) be an article all on its own and is really one of the more heartwarming stories I have ever seen in college basketball. Balancing motherhood with high-level Division I basketball is no easy feat, but Nalani makes it look like a breeze. She has tremendous support from the entire program, from the coaching staff all the way down the roster. Nalani Kaysia was one of the first in the gym last Wednesday, carrying her baby in her carrier. While dressing for practice, Graduate Assistant Riley Childs, former teammate of Kaysia could be found laying at midcourt playing with Xéla. Come practice time, Strength and Conditioning Faith Brown rocked Xéla to sleep, carrying her while keeping a close eye on practice. I was as impressed as anyone that an infant could sleep through a practice as intense as this one was, but I guess you could say Xéla has the poise and composure of her mother. Kaysia didn’t miss a single beat during practice, as she vocally led the team through drills and defensive sets. Her baby has become the opposite of a distraction for the team: she has become their blessing that they all share a little part of.
“Nalani, even with her year off, she was never a year off from the team,” said Blair-Lewis. “She was there, she was cheering, she was instructing, she was directing. I think she definitely has the players vote of confidence that we can believe what she’s saying,” And if you ask anyone in Cage Gym who the leader on this team is, the first name out of everyone’s mouth is Nalani Kaysia.
Talking about leadership, Coach Blair-Lewis said there are easily seven or eight players on this team who could have been captain, before ultimately deciding on Kaysia and four-year Patriot Paula Suárez. Suárez was surprisingly left off the preseason accolades list, despite being one of the most efficient scorers in the Atlantic 10, shooting 45% from three a season ago.
But when looking at the returners in Fairfax, it’s not just the wealth of talent coming back, it’s also finally being able to use players in the most efficient way.
“Losing [Nalani] last year, we had that deficit inside in the post. Jazmyn did a phenomenal job, but with all the players we had hurt in that position, it just was a strain,” said Blair-Lewis. “We had to start Zaza, at 5’11, most nights at the five, which, you know, rookie of the year, she did what we asked her to do. But we wanted to make sure that we had some depth at that position, and we wanted to be able to play some inside-out to make our outside shooting that much more effective, if we had an inside presence.”
And so, the coaching staff set out in the offseason to fill in gaps they felt existed in their roster, and by all accounts, it certainly looks like Mason has done just that.
“Being able to have Faith [Okorie] and Trinity [Massenburg] in that lineup, and then recruiting Sarah Oduro, to be able to have that depth in that center spot is going to be really key for us,” said Blair-Lewis.
The center position wasn’t the only place that the Patriots have added depth in, as two-time transfer Khamya McNeal could be a major factor. McNeal began her career at Syracuse in 2021, before spending her last three years at Stetson. As VBL described to me, McNeal offers quite a bit of versatility, as she can be a true shooting guard, while also taking over at point guard when needed. That could also allow for players like Paula Suárez and Kennedy Harris to be able to attack the basket from off the ball and providing defenses with a different look.
Fellow newcomer, Louis Volker, also looks primed to make an instant impact in the lineup. A local product from Purcellville, VA, Volker spent last year at Missouri State where she appeared in 31 games. She is a hungry player who has been described to me as the player who is always on the floor after loose balls and goes aggressively after rebounds.
Rounding out the lineup, Page Greenburg is back from injury, and has very clearly put in a lot of time in the gym this offseason. She was the first on the floor before practice getting shots up, and you can see her hunger. Jada Brown will see minutes off the bench, where she has proven to be a spark plug for the Patriots, while Nekhu Mitchell is as rebound-hungry as ever. VBL described her as relentless on the glass, while also adding that Nekhu, “runs the floor like a deer.” LeAire Nicks is the other true freshman on the roster, who at 6’2 has a very solid inside game, especially for a freshman.
A lot is on the table this season in Fairfax. Arguably, for the first time, George Mason has shifted their role in the Atlantic 10 from the hunters to the hunted. But, don’t tell the players that.
“That makes us the underdog,” said Ta’Viyanna Habib on being picked third in the A-10 preseason. It wasn’t quite the answer I was expecting, but all the same, perhaps it should have been. Ever since Vanessa Blair-Lewis arrived in Fairfax, this team has thrived on being the underdog. It has allowed them in the past to, perhaps, sneak up on some teams that didn’t expect the dogfight they were in for. There is a drive that this team has, and especially after the debacle of last March, these Patriots want to leave nothing on the table. Nevertheless, picked third in the A-10 preseason is an honor, and something that was unfathomable just a few years ago. Now with expectations at an all-time high, time will tell how well these Patriots stand up to the test.
“I think that they understand the discipline of it is all of those goals that you want, you can’t get there in a day,” said VBL. “So it’s just the next thing.” Blair-Lewis and her staff have talked a lot over the last few years about wanting to build this program the “right way.” There’s no doubt that they have achieved that goal, and there’s a new banner hanging in EagleBank Arena to prove that. But their goals now are must loftier. The stakes are about to get a lot higher, and the pressure will begin to mount. But that’s the beauty of college basketball, isn’t it? Programs spend years, decades even, trying to get to the exact position that George Mason Women’s Basketball presently finds itself in. These players have now tasted the postseason for the first time and know what it takes to get there. They know how bitter defeat tastes, and the level of compete they need to have to succeed.
The bar has been raised in Fairfax, and a new standard has been set. We all get the privilege to watch it unfold in real time.
Daniel Frank is an alum of George Mason University. The 2025 season marks their 10th season at A10 Talk, where they are proud to be the content lead for Women’s Basketball coverage, as well as a senior contributor for Men’s Basketball content. In addition, this season will be Daniel’s 26th year following GW basketball, and their 8th following George Mason. You can follow Daniel on X, formerly known as Twitter, @n1a2v3y4.
Posted In: General Discussion