Dukes Compete, But Cannot Shoot
Well, the men’s team went on the road to Towson’s nice new arena to take on the CAA Preseason favorite Tigers and the conference’s best player Jerelle Benimon. Ultimately, the results were about as expected as the Dukes fell 80-71.But we did learn a few things about both teams in advance of Towson basically hosting the CAA tourney in Baltimore in five months (by the way, with Delaware and Towson shaping up to be the CAA’s two best teams and likely top two seeds, the location change may really work out for the league this year). And it was a lot of fun to have a real Comcast A-Team on the mics with Smokin’ Al Koken and Glenn Consor! We’re guessing Buckhantz has been giving Consor the hard sell given how much he loves the Dukes and Nation in particular.
For Towson, we were just reminded that Benimon is as good as advertised. Nice all-around pro’s game and if his teammates don’t screw it up, they’ll be a really tough out. Secondly, the Tigers hair game is very strong.
For our Dukes, even in a sizable defeat, we saw some things we liked including pretty much everything from Nation, Curry’s aggressiveness, Brady’s early use of the Bench, their competitiveness and intensity, and the way the freshman are even learning from half to half (Dalembert and Kent both looked in over their heads early but stepped up to the speed of the game their second time out). The Dukes also started the game well and generally are doing a decent job of trying to share the ball and find good shots. Unfortunately, they can’t make a single one of those good shots.
Just hoping Brady can keep them playing the right way and that sooner or later, especially for three (we hope not four) days in Crab City, they’ll start going in. Brady’s also got to find a way to remind Cooke of the aggressive stud he was before Nation came back and find a way to get them both going together. Oh yeah, and we’ll leave Bessick alone on the misses as he’s still pretty raw offensively, but he’s got to stop falling asleep on D.
Last item: No idea what happened with Semenov tonight. Considering his multifaceted game has always been necessary for JMU to even compete, it’s odd that I am actually beginning to wonder if using him offensively as more of a pure outside threat might be the best role for him on this year’s squad since he really is the only one capable of filling such a need.
Great job, Yohanny! I’ve been a fan since day one. 7 pts is a season high and he showed great skills throughout.
Idea: get Kirby fake beard, sneak onto men’s team.
Jeff – Really liked Dalembert’s effort and he was an upgrade at least last night!
Luke – GREAT idea. Need to make this happen!
The men’s basketball team has good guards … end of story.