Curry and YoYo Earn All CAA Honors

The CAA basketball awards were handed out last night and a few Dukes were honored. Junior Ron Curry was selected as All CAA Second Team and Yohanny Dalembert made All CAA Third Team. Both players were clearly deserving of the honor. Curry had a legitimate argument for the First Team, which he just narrowly missed, receiving the 6th most votes of any player in the league. He took a huge step forward this season and averaged 13.8 points per game and had an assist to turnover ratio of 1.9. His long range shooting was night and day from last year. As a sophomore he shot 24% from behind the arc, but improved to 42% this season. Perhaps most importantly, he established himself as the Dukes’ leader after Andre Nation was dismissed from the program. We’ve got no beef with any of the guys who made the league’s First Team, particularly Player of the Year Marcus Thornton from William & Mary or Damion Lee from Drexel. The reality is that you probably could swap Curry and anyone other than Thornton or Lee from the First Team and nobody would scream too much. Ron had a great year and has probably positioned himself to be in consideration for All CAA First Team and even Player of the Year next season.

YoYo made All CAA Second Team and the conference’s All Defensive Team. While Curry was an honorable mention All CAA selection in the preseason, Yohanny wasn’t really on many people’s radar. Of course after watching him his freshman year, most JMU fans saw the tremendous potential. As charter members of his fan club, it was awesome to see him take a huge step toward reaching that potential this season. He’s not done yet though and definitely has the chance to become a downright dominant CAA player as an upperclassman. In his second year at JMU he averaged over 11 points and nearly 6 boards a game. He also eclipsed the 20 point mark twice.

While it tends to be less celebrated by fans than the other All CAA honors, the All Academic team is a huge honor. And the Dukes were lucky to have Dimitrije Cabarkapa selected. He came out of nowhere late this season to make an impact on the court and become a fan favorite. It’s great that he’s also leading the way classroom as well.

Overall, this was a season of exceeding expectations for the Dukes. They took a share of the conference title and earned the 4th seed for this weekend’s tourney, despite being picked to finish 5th in the league. And they did it without the services of the most talented guy on the roster, Andre Nation. Four of the five players picked to the preseason All CAA First Team ended up making the final team. The only exception was Andre Nation, who was selected to the First Team in the preseason, but dismissed from JMU’s program by Matt Brady during the season. While that’s disappointing and almost tragic in some ways, it also makes JMU’s accomplishments this season more impressive. The Dukes jettisoned their most talented player, but instead of packing it in and going home, they kept playing. They played better actually. And now they’ve got a shot to return to the Big Dance with three wins in Baltimore.