The announcement is set for Monday afternoon.
Both George Mason University and the Atlantic 10 Conference have scheduled Monday afternoon press conferences to make "major announcements," and the Washington Post is reporting that the Fairfax, Va. university is indeed set to join the league on July 1, 2013.
Steven Goff of the Washington Post reported Sunday evening that George Mason will leave the Colonial Athletic Association — of which it was a founding member in 1985 — and join the Atlantic 10 in all sports beginning next season.
The Atlantic 10 has scheduled 1:45 p.m. press conference Monday to make the addition official.
The addition of George Mason will help to offset what the league is set to lose in Butler, Xavier, Temple and Charlotte after this season. Those losses brought the league’s men’s basketball membership down from 16 to 12.
With rumors that Dayton and Saint Louis could be out the door in 2014, there could still be more expansion on the league's horizon. Schools such as Davidson and Siena have been mentioned as potential future targets.
The Patriots leave the Colonial Athletic Association, which has now recently lost four schools. Virginia Commonwealth joined the Atlantic 10 this season, while Old Dominion is set to join Conference USA next season and Georgia State is headed to the Sun Belt.
George Mason brings men’s and women’s basketball, cross country, soccer, swimming and diving and tennis teams to the Atlantic 10 along with baseball, men’s golf and women’s rowing, lacrosse and volleyball.
The school has reached the NCAA Tournament in men’s basketball six times in its history (four since 2001) , and is best known for its magical run to the Final Four in 2006, when now-Miami coach Jim Larranaga led the Patriots to the NCAA Tournament's final weekend as a No. 11 seed before losing to Florida.
The school boasted a fall enrollment of 20,067 full-time undergraduates across its four Virginia campuses, and offers 75 undergraduate, 122 graduate degree programs along with a law school.