By Ed Morrone

A lot has happened in the Hofstra basketball world since last March, the month that the world watched in astonishment as George Mason pulled a Hickory High multiple times to earn the most improbable Final Four berth in decades.

For starters, Hofstra won two postseason games-the first of those in program history, even if they did come in the dreaded NIT, the tournament everyone and his mother will tell you Mason, and not Hofstra, belonged in.

Antoine Agudio and Carlos Rivera reached the 1,000-point milestone, and by the time your eyes find this column, Loren Stokes will have scored his 2,000th point and Tom Pecora will have coached his 100th Hofstra win.

For Mason, well, almost everything has changed since they shocked the college basketball world. Jim Larranaga, the Norman Dale of the 2006 Patriots, is back with a new contract, but his roster is drastically different than the one that knocked off NCAA basketball giants Michigan State, North Carolina and Connecticut. Jai Lewis, Lamar Butler and the most hated opponent in Hofstra basketball history, Tony Skinn, are all gone, and the Patriots mediocre 13-10 record reflects that fact.

So, with Saturday’s Hofstra at Mason game lingering on the horizon, what has remained the same for these two teams after last year’s startling turn of events in March?

Well, despite the fact that Mason won four games in March, Hofstra still has the Patriots’ number. Ask any Hofstra basketball fan what they think of George Mason, and after the string of incoherent profanity, odds are that person will tell you the Pride won both games over the Patriots last season by convincing margins.

Both coaches that have saved these programs from the CAA doldrums return as well. Pecora inked a new five-year contract in March to keep him in Hempstead through the 2010-11 season, spurning a chance to join the Big East and coach at Seton Hall. Larranaga, meanwhile, became America’s darling overnight as the architect of the ultimate Cinderella overnight and probably would’ve had the chance to coach anywhere he wanted to should he have made himself available.

But these two guys care too much about what they have built to go anywhere else. Hofstra never would have recovered from the post-Speedy Claxton era had Pecora not had the patience to stick it out during the rebuilding years after Jay Wright left, and George Mason would still only be known in history as the writer of the Virginia Declaration of Rights if it wasn’t for Larranaga. The casual college basketball fan knows who these two teams are because of what Pecora and Larranaga have done, and that’s taking into account more than just what Hofstra and Mason accomplished last year. Both are class acts and ambassadors of the game, and even if Saturday’s game doesn’t come close to the hype and hoopla that both teams received last year, Pecora and Larranaga will make sure their teams play like the CAA Championship is on the line.

Finally, the bitter taste in Hofstra’s collective mouth is still as strong as ever. Pecora has maintained that Hofstra belonged in the NCAA Tournament (“I’ll take that to my grave,” he’s said numerous times), and as much as he or any of the players will tell you it’s just another game, it’s not.

Maybe a few years down the road it’ll just be another game, but these two teams haven’t faced each other since the soap opera that is last March unfolded. Hofstra wants to show Mason that they are still the superior team that beat the Patriots twice in 11 days last season, and deep down, after the dust settles over the euphoria that they felt down in Fairfax 10 months ago, Mason fans will remember that before losing to Florida in the Final Four, the team’s last two losses came to Tom Pecora’s bunch.

And let’s not forget, both teams need this game as they jockey for position in next month’s CAA Tournament.

So yes, a lot has changed for both teams, but those facts remain unchanged, as does this: last year probably won’t ever be topped, but George Mason and Hofstra will sure try.