Props to the Patriots:

For the first time in school history, the George Mason Men's Basketball team has cracked the Top 25 after beating Wichita State on Bracketbuster Saturday (I've been a season ticket holder the past few years so I take some pleasure in this). We're not quite there with Orin's guys across the river yet, but with three key starting seniors we could scare someone come March.

More generally, as more mid-majors keep their guys for four years while the power conference teams lose their guys early, it seems like the shrinking of the gap between the power conferences and the mid-majors has accelerated this year, as evidenced by the number of mid-major teams in the rankings (not to mention the extraordinarily high rankings of GW and Gonzaga).