Denzel Drops 40 in Win Over Towson

There is no point in burying the lead here, the headline says it all. Denzel Bowles scored a career high 40 points and led JMU to a 72-61 victory over Towson. Bowles was an absolute beast, going 14-20 from the floor and 12-17 from the charity stripe. It’s a good thing he had such a great game, because the Dukes were slow to get it going tonight. Towson entered the game without a single CAA win this season, but they hung around for much of the game. In the end though, they just couldn’t stop Denzel and their entire defense fell apart down the stretch.

Towson was virtually powerless against Bowles from the get go, but the rest of the Dukes shot so poorly in the beginning that they went into halftime tied at 33-33. Bowles was able to get position down low and make easy bucket after easy bucket all night. After he scored 20 points in the opening half, you’d assume Towson would make some defensive adjustments in the locker room. You’d be wrong though. The Tigers appeared content to try to guard him straight up most of the night and quite frankly it did not work. At all. And then in the closing minutes with Towson so concerned with stopping Bowles, Chad Jackson and Devon Moore were able to penetrate for easy lay-ups. It went from a nail biter to a comfortable margin of victory in about 3 possessions.

Before all the haters jump in with reasons why the sky is falling, let’s just relax and enjoy the win. Yes, Towson is winless in the CAA, but any conference win is a good win in my book. And conference wins on the road are especially nice. The Dukes did have an all too familiar slow start, but they played with poise in the second half and calmly closed out the win. And please save your complaints about the Dukes’ offense being too reliant on Bowles tonight. JMU had no reason to stop feeding him the ball. Towson could not stop him. It would have been foolish not to run the offense through him all night, especially when Towson failed to adjust defensively. So yes, it was closer than we might hav expected, but it was a nice win and one that was sorely needed after Saturday’s disappointment against Mason.

This win also gets the Dukes back into 5th place because  UNCW came up big tonight and knocked off Drexel. Plus it assures the Dukes of finishing at least at .500 in the CAA. The Dukes can’t get a bye, but they will have 2 more shots to knock off a top 4 team before the tournament, with games remaining against VCU and ODU. After last season’s 11th place finish, things are definitely looking up.

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