Curse Broken! JMU Women beat ODU for CAA Title!

So there was more than one raging bull in the ‘Burg this past week.  While it took the Virginia State Police to take the first down on Thursday, Dawn Evans, Lauren Jimenez, and Nikki Newman handled their business on Sunday just fine by finally knocking off Larry Wendy’s, err, Wendy Larry’s team from Nawfuck.

WBB CAA Champs

Defeating ODU kicked a gorilla-sized monkey off the Lady Dukes’ back.  First, they locked up the CAA Championship and finally took advantage of hosting the tourney before it’s move next year to the ghettofabulous Showplace Arena in Upper Marlboro, Maryland.  Second, and maybe most importantly, they locked up their NCAA berth and can watch Monday’s Selection Show with nothing but joy and expectation of a seed as high as 5 or 6.

But for Lady Dukes past and present, this also had to ease so many tough memories of past collapses, near misses, and general misery against the Monarchs, including the Smokin’ Al Koken in-game documentation of 8 past CAA Title game heartbreaks against Ferdinand Wendy Larry’s long-time CAA juggernaut.

As for the game itself, Dawn was Dawn, turning in a dominant performance and clearly showing herself to be the best player on the court.  She faced some tough second-half defense from ODU’s Parker, but as usual when defended tough, she checked her ego and repeatedly set up her teammates in great positions.

But this was an all-around great effort from every Duke on the floor (official JMU Sports wrapup here), with some scrappy first-half play from freshman Nikki Newman setting a great tone.  But the real difference from the early-season fast-paced-but-one-dimensional team to what is now going to be one of the toughest outs in the big dance has to be the emergence inside of Lauren Jimenez.  ODU had no answer for her on Sunday and she worked the pick and roll with Evans to perfection.  If teams load up on Evans in the tourney and Kenny Brooks can get this kind of play from Jimenez again, there’s only one team in the nation (UConn) JMU won’t have a chance against.

Here’s to avoiding the UConn Bracket!

Selection Show is Monday Night at 6:30 so we’ll be back with more info after that.

Also look for a Sweet 16 of Harrisonburg food legends (circa 1998) coming later this week.