Flour, eggs, sugar, frosting.
Guard, forward, center.
The first group of ingredients is for baking a cake. The second is for putting together a basketball team.
George Mason women’s basketball head coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis strikes the connection between the two and likens a college basketball team and season to baking a cake.
“The exciting part comes from when you get them all in the bowl and you start mixing it,” Blair-Lewis said. “That’s what non-conference is. You start mixing this together. We’re
going to learn some things about ourselves, maybe some lumps we got to kind of bang out and get the batter smooth.
“Come conference time, we’re going to put that cake in the oven. You’re going to have the temperature all set, and then it’s going to bake. You’re going to find out what you have. This part of it is the exciting part. You have all the ingredients, and you’re just starting to stir it up to find out what this cake is going to look like. And then in March to be able to take it out of the oven and celebrate.”
Blair-Lewis has fine-tuned the Patriots’ recipe.
George Mason won its first Atlantic 10 championship in 2025 and earned its first NCAA Tournament berth. GMU won a share of the A10 regular-season title last season, another first for the program.
That’s a far cry from the three-win team Blair-Lewis inherited when she took over the program in 2021.
“We just went to work,” Blair-Lewis said. “We believed big enough that we weren’t surprised by the results, and that’s where our hashtag comes from, ‘believe big.’ If you’re going to believe, you might as well believe big. There’s no limits on believing. That’s a part of my faith. That’s a part of being faith-based. We believed big, and we did it. We did the thing that we said we were going to come here to do. It’s still a giant that can be woken up. We still have so much more to do here.”
Listen to the full interview with Blair-Lewis on the “Anything But Mid” Podcast
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The job is far from done for Blair-Lewis and her staff. The Patriots lost all five starters and seven of their top eight scorers from last season’s team that went 26-10 and 16-2 in the Atlantic 10.
Despite the change, Blair-Lewis has a positive outlook on this upcoming season due to GMU’s handful of holdovers and transfer portal additions.
“I am probably more excited than I’ve ever been,” she said.
Mary Amoatang is the lone returning scorer from that top eight from last year and gears up for her sophomore season after garnering All-Rookie and All-Defensive team honors as a freshman. The Columbia, Md., native averaged 8.5 points per game, which ranked third on the team. He 2.2 steals per game tied for third in the A10. Amoatang also pulled down 2.8 rebounds and dished out 2.3 assists while shooting 39% from 3-point land.
“We’re so excited to have her back,” Blair-Lewis said. “Her fire, her gutsiness, how she plays and her relentlessness out there on the court are contagious. It’s infectious… Mary is definitely a leader. She’s going to be why we’re really successful.”
The Pats’ portal haul includes nine players coming into the program.
“The portal has been great,” Blair-Lewis said. “We have been able to put on the board every single thing we wanted in a player, and we were able to get it in the first shot. So, I’m so excited about this team.”
One major addition from the portal for George Mason was guard Anovia Sheals. The junior led Austin Peay in scoring (14.1 points per game) and was second in rebounding (5.9 per game) while she earned Second Team All-ASUN honors last season. Sheals began her career with the ASUN Sixth Player of the Year award in 2025.
“She definitely plays both sides of the ball,” Blair-Lewis said. “She is fast. I’m telling you, she can be on one end of the floor and the next minute you blink, and she’s making a layup on the other end. She not only adds offense to us. I think that’s what most people know about her: she can put the ball in the hole. But defensively, she is going to be a nightmare.”
Other notable additions for the Pats include Tia Dobson, who spent the last two seasons at UNC Wilmington; Lourdes Da Silva Costa, who transferred in from Alabama; and Summer Yancy from UCF.
Dobson played just two games last season for the Seahawks before suffering a season-ending injury but averaged 5.8 points, 3.3 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.4 steals per game as freshman the previous year. Da Silva Costa played in 26 games with the Crimson Tide. Yancy posted 6.4 points, 2.1 assists, and 1.0 steal per game while making 16 starts for the Knights.
Mason opens the season with home games against Temple and Akron before facing Maryland on the road. The Patriots will also visit Army and Princeton in the non-conference before a home game with James Madison. They will compete against Vermont and Providence in the Puerto Rico Clasico Thanksgiving weekend. Trips to Liberty, Navy and Florida Gulf Coast highlight December’s slate.
