Great Season Ends for Women’s Hoops

The JMU Dukes women’s hoops team fell to #3 Texas A&M 85-69 in a game that was much closer and more competitive than the final score would indicate.  We could complain forever about the officiating in this game (and how much we’d rather watch players play than refs act the fool), but really we should begin by paying tribute to an incredible team that made us all proud to be Dukes and represented all the great things about JMU. And of course give a huge shout-out to the Pep Band, that sounded amazing on the four-letter and got lots of love from TAMU fans all night.

Thanks for five memorable years!

So thanks ladies and thanks Kenny Brooks for a fantastic season! Round of 32 after the ninth straight year of 24+ wins is nothing at all to hang your head about! In particular, a huge thanks to the Valley’s own and JMU seniors Nikki Newman and Kirby Burkholder for your outstanding careers. Also, in looking ahead, the cupboard is far from bare, in fact it’s bursting with talent and JMU should be in great shape moving forward.  Jaz Gwathmey really was the revelation of the postseason after being an unheralded offensive player all year.  Between, her, Giggetts, Mickens, and Hall, there will be no shortage of talent and excitement back in the ‘Burg next year.

From a game standpoint, the ladies actually played pretty darn well tonight.  Shot well in the first half and played relatively smart considering the “overzealous” zebras. But TAMU just shot lights out, including bank threes and ridiculous off-balance shots and proved too big for the Dukes once the fouls mounted up on our post players.  The real shame in the insanity of the officiating (which appeared to treat women the way the International Olympic Committee does) was that this was such a high-quality women’s game when the teams were allowed to play the game.  Full credit to the Aggies though, who played great and whose fans seemed legitimately kindhearted and seemed to be in love with JMU’s team, fans, and especially the band. The tweets from Aggie fans thrilled and blown away with the PepBand’s way-too-risky-for-Texas repertoire were fun all night.

As always, you can get much better in depth coverage from a much more knowledgeable source over at the JMU Women’s Basketball Fan Blog once he returns home from College Station.

Now we’re signing off for the winter season.  We’d root fer Softball this spring, but the truth is we’d rather have a conference move announcement between now and the Coaches Caravan April 23. Not that we’re holding our breath or much hope at this point.