James Madison coach Matt Brady likes the effort he's gotten from his team this week, in back-to-back wins at home.

But he still needs to see a similar performance away from the Convocation Center.

"In our building, we have momentum. But we have not demonstrated the ability to do this on the road yet, where we can play for 40 minutes on the road," Brady said Friday, before his team boarded a bus and headed to northern Virginia for Saturday's matinee against George Mason.

"But I'm certainly hopeful that we've learned our lessons here, and we've learned them well," Brady said. "And we're ready to play better basketball on the road."

Monday's win over Radford snapped a four-game JMU losing streak. The Dukes followed that with another win Wednesday over CAA rival William & Mary.

"We got a big weight lifted off of our shoulders, getting these two wins after that little losing streak," said sophomore guard Julius Wells. "We're going up there with a lot of confidence after beating William & Mary and Radford."

"I feel like we're playing a lot harder on the defensive end," explained senior guard Pierre Curtis. "Actually, during the games, period. We're playing a lot harder."

But Curtis admits that may not be enough to win at the Patriot Center.

"They don't lose at home. I don't think they've lost at home (in CAA play) in a couple years," he said. "So we going to go down there and try to be the first team to knock them off in a couple years."

The Patriots can match a school record with their 17th straight home conference win by beating the Dukes on Saturday. JMU hasn't won at the Patriot Center since February 22, 2003.

Mason has also won its last six games overall.

"They're playing as well as anyone in the league on their homecourt," said Brady. "But I think now is a good time for us to play them. We're coming off two wins. We've strung together a couple of games with full effort on our part."