Think Syracuse in the Big East. Or Maryland in the Atlantic Coast Conference. That's the sort of emotional tie George Mason had with the Colonial Athletic Association, helping launch the mid-major conference in the 1980s and making it part of basketball lore with a Final Four run in 2006. That's why athletic director Tom O'Connor called it a "bittersweet" day Monday when he announced that the Patriots were moving to the Atlantic 10, the latest fallout from the ever-shifting conference alignments in college sports. "That was a difficult phone call to make last night," O'Connor said. "There is a lot of sentiment involved, a lot of personal relationships involved. ... But we have to move on, and we have to move on with business." George Mason will join the A-10 on July 1, the same move made by Virginia Commonwealth last year and by Richmond more than a decade ago, while also forming a subway conference rivalry with nearby George Washington. The CAA isn't what it used to be, so it was worth the $1 million exit fee and the minimum of $1.65 million in conference payouts that the GMU will forfeit, money that university President Angel Cabrera said the school will recoup in the A-10 "in as little as five years."
