Louis Birdsong to be honored Saturday

Louis Birdsong, the lone senior for Mason this season, will be honored tomorrow as he will play his last home game as a Patriot. His was highly touted coming to George Mason in 2006 after he was named the Baltimore Sun's player of the year during a high school season in which his team was ranked nationally #5 by USA Today. I always thought Birdsong could have been so much more of an impact player here but was held back by being a tweener in terms of true position. At 6-6, he often went up against much bigger forwards and struggled to provide interior rebounding and low post scoring. He was athletic enough to defend against guards when he had to and hit the outside shot but you could tell that was never really his game. The coaching staff this season asked him to play a small forward roll and it didn't work out which eventually led him back to front court rotation. His best games this season were when he was playing at the power forward spot.

Despite having a drop off this season he actually will finish at Mason with impressive career stats:

-5th all-time in school history in blocked shots with 97

-5th all-time in school history in career games played at 125

-Shot over 49% from the field for his career

[Photo credit: Flickr Off Wing Opinion]