Dukes Drop 69-67 Decision at Towson
In the penultimate game of the CAA regular season, JMU lost to Towson by the score of 69-67. The loss dropped JMU to 20-10 (10-7). Towson’s win vaulted them past the Dukes in the standings, moving them to 20-10 overall, but 11-6 in CAA play. Ron Curry had 20 points in the loss to lead JMU. The senior struggled to find his rhythm for much of the night, before getting going late in the second half. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. Tom Vodonavich was very effective, scoring 12 points. Yohanny Dalembert contributed 11 points and a team high 8 boards. Let’s break down the game by the numbers.
48
Seconds JMU had the lead. That’s it. The scoreboard says it was only a 2 point win for Towson, but the Tigers pretty much went wire to wire. Curry got it going in the end, and JMU managed to hit enough buckets in garbage time to briefly turn it into kinda-sorta-exciting time. Towson hung in there and closed it out though. JMU had a shot. Truth be told though, if the Dukes won, they would have been stealing one.
9 and 8
JMU shot 9% better than Towson from the field, and 8% better than the Tigers from behind the arc. Curry was slow to get going, but the Dukes didn’t lose because of poor shooting. To the contrary, they shot the ball pretty well. They hit 49% overall and 41% from long range. Those are percentages Matt Brady would take most nights. Especially on the road.
0
That’s the number of times I’ve mentioned Shakir Brown in this post. He led JMU with 14 points in the seasons’ earlier win over Towson. He’s averaging double figures in scoring. Yet, he was invisible tonight and seems to disappear for games at a time. He’s too talented not to be a factor night in and night out. JMU needs him to step up in Baltimore.
14
How many offensive boards Towson pulled down. Watching the game, it seemed worse than that. If you would have asked me to guess, I would have said that Towson had about 20 offensive rebounds. I wouldn’t have doubted you if you told me they out-rebounded the Dukes by 10+ boards overall. They did not. They grabbed 35 rebounds to JMU’s 31. And despite all those offensive rebounds, they only managed 17 second chance points to JMU’s 14. Not overwhelming, but significant in a 2 point game.
6
If you guessed the number of free throws JMU missed, you are techincally correct. It’s easy to point to that and say its why JMU lost. But that’s not really it. Six is also the number of free throws Towson’s Byron Hawkins hit in the final 45 seconds of play. Let me repeat, he hit 6 free throws in the final 45 seconds. He knocked down 11 of 13 for the game. That’s how you close out a tight game. And it was the difference for Towson tonight.
Great breakdown. You gotta be ready for a super physical game when you play Towson. They toss the ball up and then crash the offensive boards.
You are correct need more consistency from Shakir, said he was hurt but very limited information other than that. And Curry being the leader of this team, he cannot be held scoreless for 30 minutes in a game. He finished with 20 points, but was a non-factor for the majority of the game and he is too good for that. Please, don’t settle for jumpers all the time. If having issues put the ball on the floor and get to the ‘rack’ and/or freethrow line.
The announcers weren’t overly helpful in explaining why, but they did state that JMU would be without Shakir Brown in the second half. After he hit his lone 3 pointer earlier in the game he was visibly wincing.
Things have been tough after losing Cabarkapa. Guys are getting really tired from lack of meaningful bench substitutions lately. Lukic can play some and so can Morgan.
I hadn’t realized Brown was hurt until after I posted this. Thanks for the update. He’s got so much potential, JMU could really benefit from him being healthy and playing with confidence. He either scores in double figures or he’s completely anonymous, with very little in between.
That double technical and ejection on Vodanovich was a cheesy call too.