JMU Rights the Ship With Win Over CofC
JMU avoided a season sweep at the hands of the CAA’s newest entrant yesterday. With a 58-56 win at home over College of Charleston, JMU ended its four game losing skid and avenged an earlier loss to the Cougars. JMU is now 7-13 overall and 2-4 in the CAA. C of C dropped to 11-10 and 3-3 in league play.
The freshmen took a lot of criticism for their lack of production during the slump. However, with Charles Cooke out recovering from an ankle injury, the freshmen stepped up. Jackson Kent in particular, elevated his play. He scored a game and career high 17 points to go along with 5 rebounds. Andre Nation and Ron Curry also scored in double figures with 15 and 12 points respectively.
Neither Todd nor I were able to catch this game, so we’re not going to pretend to have any insight or takeaways. We are thrilled that the Dukes got the win and that Jackson Kent had a big game though. With the exception of Andre Nation, most of the team seemed to be pressing and playing tight the past four games. Maybe an outing like this will give Kent and his teammates some much needed confidence. And while the Dukes free throw shooting was typically mediocre (16-26), they finally shot well from long range. They attempted fewer threes than they usually do (good), but hit 50% of them (great).
Next up for the Dukes is a road game at Northeastern. The first game between the Huskies and Dukes represented one of the low points of JMU’s season. It would be great to see them avenge the loss and carry some momentum into a big home game against William & Mary next weekend.
I was able to travel back to the `Burg for the game. Lots of positives to take away: 1. Jackson Kent’s coming out party. He couldn’t hit his ads with both hands over the last month, but yesterday you could see his confidence return and his play improved dramatically. 2. Team attitude. Thus was by no means a perfect or even the prettiest game the Dukes could play, but they seemed to have a refuse to lose atmosphere.
A couple of troubling points: 1. Free throw shooting is atrocious on this team. I hope that can get fixed quickly. 2. Lack of size on the middle. This team is just overpowered in the paint. They really need to play more up tempo, but the don’t have the players to play a true run and gun style. For now they are relying on a lot of freshman bodies and just using up everyone’s fouls. I hope continues to work like it did yesterday. If it does and if they can get any offense on the low block (I’m talking to you Taylor Bessick and Yohanny Camembert) this team can still make some noise come CAA tournament time.
Thanks for sharing your perspective 92Grad. As much as Kent was struggling the past 4 or 5 games, I actually liked the fact that he continued to take the ball to the rim and kept shooting. It’s nice that some of those shots finally dropped yesterday. I was very high on Bessick (and still think he’s got a high ceiling), but was expecting more out of him on the offensive end by this point. It’s concerning that JMU can’t count on him for at least 6-8 points and rebounds a game. I actually love Dalembert. He’s so raw, but has made strides already. I think he could be real presence in the paint defensively if he works hard.
How about a Women’s team vs. Men’s team foul shooting contest … it could be a fund-raiser for our impending move to the “Big Time” ( FBS ). I’m thinking the _______’s team would easily win!
Of course, of all the games we choose to both miss, the one where Cooke is out injured and they have no chance is the one they get it turned around. I was thrilled to hear this!
dad – I’d take the women’s team in a landslide in that contest. In fact, I’d take Rob’s 6-year old’s team in a landslide against our men’s team at the stripe too.
Jackson Kent just got his second Rookie of the Week award.
How does one “fix” free throw shooting?
If these kids have been playing b-ball for 8-12 years and are still going 10% from the stripe, that doesn’t sound fixable.
To be fair they are not shooting 10%, I know it feels that bad sometimes. But to be successful and not lose games at the free thrown line you need to be up about 70% as a team. Typically to do that you have a couple of guys that are just ‘money’ on the free throw line and unfortunately JMU does not have any of those guys right now to offset the bulk of the guys shooting in the 60% range or worse.
Going into the season I counted on Semenov being one of those guy above 80% and he is not. Also your PG needs to be one of those guys and he is not either this year.
Free throw shooting is largely a mental exercise at this level of play. These guys know how to shoot from a form standpoint. Now they can “fix” the dismal shooting percentage with lots of repetition, and once the shots start falling in games they will build confidence. Once they have confidence in their free throw shooting, they will stop thinking too much at the line and the shoots will start being more automatic.
What’s the status of Charles Cooke?