You say, "What's up, Williams? I thought we're talking about GMU basketball!" For GMU's basketball team, knocking off several of the nation's top-ranked teams is in itself a stellar performance. Going from no one's guess to being in the Final Four is indicative of some of George Mason University's entrepreneurship. Coach Jim Larranaga and his staff used what my colleagues, Professors Peter Boettke and Alexander Tabarrok, in their Slate.com article "The Secret of George Mason," called the Moneyball model of recruitment. Larranaga knows that he can't compete for freshmen players with the likes of UCLA, Duke, Wake Forest and other top-ranked teams. Boettke and Tabarrok say he overcame that obstacle by hunting "for the undervalued players -- the ones who everyone else thought were too short, too thin, or too fat -- and then building them into a team. In its astonishing defeat of UConn, GMU's players were giving away 4 inches at nearly every position."

After this season, it's just possible that the GMU Patriots will be able to hold its own against top schools, as does the economics department and law school, in recruiting basketball players. Singer Ray Charles pointed to the problem in his hit song, "Them That's Got," which says, "That old saying them that's got is them that gets is something I can't see. If you got to have something before you can get something, how you get your first is still a mystery to me." George Mason University basketball, as well as law and economics, has solved Ray Charles' mystery. We have something.