JMU Loses to Norfolk State in OT

The Dukes dropped a home contest to Norfolk State last night. After rallying to send the game into overtime, JMU managed to hit only 1 of 8 shots from the field and fell 74-71. The loss left JMU at 7-5 on the season. Norfolk State on the other hand, moved to 9-5. The Spartan’s Jeff Short led all scorers with a career best 30 points. Jackson Kent and Yohanny Dalembert led the way for the Dukes with 17 and 15 points respectively. JMU has now lost 3 of its last 4 contests.

29%

That’s the difference between both teams second half shooting percentages. After a solid opening 20 minutes in which they hit 50% from the field, the Dukes managed to shoot just 32% in the second half. Things continued to get worse as the game continued, with JMU hitting only 13% in the extra period. Norfolk State on the other hand was OK in the opening half, but lights out after the break. The Spartans managed to hit 61% of their field goals in the second half. Here is the obvious kicker, that’s very good for Norfolk State and very bad for JMU. Teams don’t win a lot of games when they can’t hit the side of a barn and they let their opponents basically fire away at will.

Two Schools of Thought

On one hand, you could say that this loss doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. The CAA is a one bid league in every sense of the term. There are some talented players in the conference, but based on what we’ve seen so far the title race will be a race to see who can sustain slightly higher than mediocre play over the course of a weekend in Baltimore (Ed. note: the CAA should make that its conference tourney slogan.) In that sense this out of conference games mean very little and really serve as nothing more than a warm up for CAA play.

On the other hand, this schedule seemed tailor made to let the Dukes iron out a few kinks, rack up a bunch of wins, and hit CAA play brimming with confidence. The opener against UVA (a team that looks scary by the way) was a legit test, but otherwise the calendar has been filled with winnable dates. Some folks might complain about the lack of big name teams, but there’s something to be said for inexperienced teams playing a schedule like JMU’s. Of course the benefit of such a schedule sort of goes out the window when a team drops games to the likes of ECU, High Point, and Norfolk State.

So here we are. Again. Matt Brady is attempting to fill holes left by departing players. He’s got some young, but raw talent on the roster, and a few talented upperclassmen who have yet to reach their potential. The team has shown that it can win games when playing its best. It also has shown that it can fall asleep during games, forgetting to play defense and looking lost on offense. We’ve seen this movie before. It’s only one game and there’s no reason to give up hope. We’d just love to see a little more consistency from this team. The Dukes need to take care of business against the weaker teams on their schedule and play to their potential against the better ones. They’ll get a chance to bounce back and test themselves against a good team next Monday when 12-2 Valpo comes to town.