Dukes Play Hard, but Lose Tough One to Tribe
Before we get to hoops, we’re going to quote none other than PrimeTime himself, Deion Sanders, who said on NFL Network pregame today: “When is Charles Haley going to get the Hall of Fame call?!…I feel this is a continuous slap in the face.” Neon – we couldn’t have said it better. Hopefully last year.
Now on to basketball. We’re not ones for moral victories, and those certainly don’t exist in a wide-open CAA, but we were definitely able to walk away from today’s 81-79 loss to William & Mary feeling that the Dukes recent surge isn’t a mirage and that anything can happen in Baltimore in five weeks! The Dukes were surprisingly a little too amped up and nearly let the game get away from them with sloppy, overanxious play in the first half. But we’d rather have them pressing when screwing up then slacking, and the boys brought solid effort throughout the game. That fight brought them back from a huge first-half deficit, a second double-digit deficit in the last ten minutes, and nearly a seemingly impossible deficit in the last twenty seconds. When the ball left Semenov’s hand off the intentional miss late in the game, I was already rising off the couch for a full leap. Alas, it wasn’t to be today thanks to what’s become routinely poor free throw shooting, a few too many clutch turnovers, and another blazing shooting performance from behind the arc from the pantless Griffins. But even after all of that, the Dukes nearly rode the re-developing chemistry and defensive swagger of the Cooke, Nation, Curry trio and a vintage performance from Semenov that hopefully will serve to remind the whole team how valuable he can be, especially since he’s really the only threat from deep, to a comeback victory over a solid team. Overall, a good showing from the Dukes on National TV today and we share Coach Brady’s postgame optimism, at least for today.
One note from the “beating a dead horse” brigade: Seriously, Jeff Bourne and company: for the love of everything rational, please find a way to switch out these deadbeat STH’s on the side of the court we see for tv games for students. Students that we could hear on tv, but couldn’t see. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to get the following text from an old friend (Providence grad/fan). “Hey TD – watching the Dukes play W&M on national tv and NO ONE is in the stands. What’s up. There’s your topic for your next JMU fanboy blog.” Ugh.
Finally, our favorite tweet of the Super Bowl came from our buddy @Dukie95, who said at the start of the 4th quarter: “Bobby Wilder on the phone for John Fox….he has an idea.”
Signing Day this week, Go Dukes!
For televised games we need to have the lowers seats filled. Why can’t the administration declare open seats a “ticket holder no show” a few minutes before game time and allow other fans to get a closer view? As a season ticket holder I am okay with this as it will bring more energy and excitement to the game.
I get what you are saying but you have to at least wait until halftime to make that ‘ticket holder no show’ statement. I go to every basketball game and am usually rushing to get there for the week night games.
The NBC Sports commentators were much too blatant in their love for William & Mary … to the point that they carried on about how wonderful their recruiting program is. You see, ‘they only accept the most up-standing, bright student-athletes into their school’ !!
Yes, either move the cameras to the other side of the court or move the crowd …
I drove 3 hours to go to this game. My first home game in years – mostly to get out of the winter doldrums and give my kids something fun to do. I wasn’t disappointed in the environment. JMU Pep Band is awesome and it’s a nice family atmosphere.
Given the drive, we paid extra and were seated right behind the William and Mary bench. We had gone to the W&M game in Williamsburg to watch the blowout several weeks ago. Tony Shaver is a very good coach, and it was interesting to see the ways in which I thought coaching played a part in the game outcome.
The technical foul turned out to be the difference in a tight game. Since I wasn’t watching on tv, I couldn’t tell if it was called on our coaching staff or on a player.
What I didn’t like about Brady’s handling of a couple possessions late in the game – with JMU down only two, I thought he should have called a time-out. Instead with four players all better than him on the floor, Tom Vodanovich shot a 3 pointer and missed. Then with JMU still in the game down three, Brady again let things play out instead of a time out and a well designed play, and Nation turned the ball over trying to drive the lane. I don’t blame the players for this – these were hectic moments late in a game where they were tired and had given everything to come back.
That’s the other thing I noticed…..Shaver has recruited some good interchangeable parts and he was able to go to his bench frequently to give rest and perspective. I had a feeling JMU might run out of gas – as the four main scorers played most or all of the second half. If you’re going to use scholarships on guys that just ride the bench, you aren’t recruiting the right players.
Nice post and I agree with pretty much everything you laid out.
The only thing I disagree with is Vodanovich taking that shot. He is as good a 3 point shooter as we got after Semenov and JMU made the pass and he was wide open and squared up. It was a good look and rattled out. If Vodanovich does not pull the trigger on that type of open shot then he does not need to be out there in that situation.
That is my problem with Jackson Kent he seems too hesitant at times to pull the trigger when he is open. I guess that is part of being a freshmen, but he needs to get over that quickly.