‘‘I signed about 100 T-shirts,” Campbell said. ‘‘Me and Makan Konate were just surrounded by people asking us to sign their shirts. It was great, though. I enjoy the attention. About two weeks ago, we weren’t getting any. We could walk in there and sit down and eat and make all the noise we could, and nobody would pay us attention.”

Talk about a big fish in a small pond. Such is life for the 6-foot-4 point guard at a commuter school of 29,000 that’s going to the NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.

Campbell, a sophomore out of Springbrook High, scored 15 points in the 11th-seeded Patriots’ 86-84 overtime stunner against No. 1-seeded Connecticut Sunday in the final of the Washington, D.C., Region. After ‘‘three or four hours of sleep,” he walked into English 302 Monday morning, where an appreciative professor had brought celebratory donuts for the entire class. Campbell got a round of applause in his second class, and after finally managing to eat lunch, spent his afternoon patiently answering the same questions over and over for an eager horde of media in front of his locker.

All the attention is because the Patriots are the first-ever school from the Colonial Athletic Association to make the Elite Eight, much less the Final Four. They are also only the second double-digit seed to make it this far, along with Louisiana State, also an 11th seed, in 1986.

‘‘We’re a basketball team, but we’re reaching out to everybody,” said Takoma Academy product Tony Skinn, from a stool across the room from Campbell’s. ‘‘Even if you don’t know about basketball, you know George Mason is doing something special right now. ... To everybody that has ever thought that dreams don’t come true, you never stop believing.”

Dreams, yes, but Campbell and Skinn freely admit that when they chose George Mason coming out of Montgomery County, they were like everyone else — not expecting to make a Final Four. Closeness to home was a factor for both, as for many George Mason players — six are from the D.C. suburbs.

Another factor was Mason’s high level of interest. The Patriots recruited Skinn out of Takoma before he took detours to Blinn (Tex.) Junior College and Hagerstown Community College. Campbell received interest from a handful of Big East programs, most notably Georgetown and Providence. But Mason was his most persistent, and consistent, suitor.

‘‘Mason said early, ‘We’re done evaluating, we’re already offering,’” said Keith Adams, Campbell’s coach at Springbrook and now an assistant at Hood College. ‘‘They were always around, no matter what he did or where he went. They said, ‘You’re a priority to us.’”

That’s how players like Campbell and Skinn end up in mid-major conferences, and why programs like George Mason are no longer thought of as second-class citizens in the NCAA Tournament.

Georgetown, which Campbell said was his first choice, signed 6-3 guard Tyler Crawford the week before Campbell was scheduled to visit. Providence offered a scholarship, but when Campbell didn’t sign right away, the Friars’ interest cooled. Rather than wait around for a last-minute call from a big-conference school with a scholarship to give, Campbell went where he was wanted most.

‘‘I just felt like I was their top priority,” he said. ‘‘I wanted to go where I could play right away and have an opportunity to get to the NCAA Tournament. ... Just to get to the tournament was my main reason for coming here. And to get this far, why stop?”

Campbell said the Patriots didn’t start believing until after their first-round win over 2005 Final Four participant Michigan State. Then they sat and watched their next opponent, North Carolina, struggle to beat 14th-seeded Murray State and figured they could beat the Tarheels, too. After that, their confidence soared.

‘‘I look at it like this: every single person on this team, or in the starting five at least, could easily be playing somewhere else at a big-time school,” Skinn said. ‘‘But we wanted to play right away. We wanted to play closer to home, so we all chose to come here to George Mason.”

Now, the Patriots are the belles of the ball, Cinderella herself, the first team to make the Final Four from outside one of the major conferences since Indiana State and Pennsylvania crashed the 1979 Big Dance.

Campbell and Skinn, two of the team’s three starting guards, are helping to lead the charge. Campbell is averaging 16.8 points in four Tournament games; Skinn, 10.7 in three games.

Next up is Florida, which beat Georgetown in the Sweet 16 and top-seeded Villanova Sunday to win the Minneapolis region. The Gators and the Patriots meet Saturday in Indianapolis to decide who will advance to the national championship game Monday night.

For now, though, the Patriots are just enjoying the spotlight.

‘‘We have Wednesday, Thursday and Friday to focus on the game,” Campbell said. ‘‘Monday and Tuesday are to focus on the media and just enjoy the attention. ... I’m losing my voice a little bit, but that’s mainly from [Sunday] and just having fun.”

Note: The third local to make the Sweet 16, Georgetown Prep grad Roy Hibbert, bowed out in Georgetown’s loss to the Gators Friday. Hibbert had 10 points and seven rebounds, upping his three-game tourney averages to 15.7 and 10, respectively. But Florida pulled out a 57-53 win in the final minute.