Dukes Hold On For Win Over GW
The Dukes' Humpty Hitchens
Well it was a little more nerve-racking down the stretch than we’d hoped, but JMU got out of DC with a 62-57 win over GW last night. It’s always nice to get a win on the road and despite the relatively disappointing offensive effort in the second half, we came away more optimistic about the Dukes’ chances in the CAA. This JMU team isn’t great, but neither is the league this year. I mean, we’re talking about a league where just when a team starts to look like it’s putting things together, they go out and lose to Howard. So it’s a winnable CAA. Anyway here are 3 quick thoughts on the game.
Insert Cliche Here
Sports cliches suck, but sometimes they are unavoidable. I’m going to try to refrain from using them and saying JMU was a different team after the break or anything like that. The fact is that JMU looked amazing in the first half and then they just didn’t in the second half. The first 20 minutes were about as well played as any half of basketball I’d seen by the Dukes in years. JMU shot the ball well and played really solid defense to limit the Colonials. AJ Davis and Humpty had 17 points each and the Dukes had a 20 point lead at the break. They had 18 points as a team in the second half. They couldn’t find good shots and the few they managed to get off weren’t going in. It was dicey for a while, but they managed to hold on and escape with a win.
Mike Lonnergan Does Not Speak Humpty
I have no idea what was said between the two, but Humpty and Mike Lonnergan had a bit of an altercation late in the second half. Humpty apparently was getting a little too close to the GW bench for Lonnergan’s comfort and next think you know people were pulling them apart from each other. Whatever the case, neither guy got T’d up, so it couldn’t have been that bad. Brady and the assistant coaches, particularly Lou Rowe, did an excellent job of getting Humpty out of there and calming him down. What could have been sort of ugly, turned out to be nothing.
Purple Out
This might have been a road game for the Dukes, but JMU fans showed up and eliminated any home court advantage the Colonials could have had. Which was good, because with nearly all the seats in the Smith Center practically hanging over the court, it would be a very tough place to play if it were packed with GW fans. I thought it was a terrific place to watch a college basketball game and obviously loved seeing so many Dukes fans there. Kudos to the Duke Club (and Living Social) for doing such a great job to get JMU fans out in full force. And I’m sure I speak for Todd when I say that it was awesome to meet some more blog readers in person.
Alright, I’m gonna cut this short because the JMUSB post game celebration at Jay’s Saloon has me in dire need of a cup of coffee. Merry Christmas everyone!
Worst officiating I’ve ever seen.
Disagree about Brady pulling Humpty away…he stood there shaking his head and did nothing to extract his player from a potentially disastrous outcome.
To me it looked like Brady immediately got someone off the bench to check-in for Humpty. Then he had Rowe walk Humpty down by the baseline away from the rest of the team and calm him down. I thought that was the right way to handle things. Had Brady run down there himself there is a chance the rest of the bench would have followed him and things could have escalated.
Fun game last night and very nice to meet both Rob and Todd.
Just sorry I missed it! Twitter and radio don’t cut it for a game like that.
it was awesome, felt like a home game. i think brady did the right thing in letting a coach who clearly had a stronger relationship with humpty go over and get him instead of brady doing it himself. oh, and worst officiating ever
also i saw a guy wearing a jmusportblog.com shirt that i can only assume is one of you two
I agree that it seemed like great venue – can only imagine what it would be like packed to the gills. The JMU turnout was great, with some Dukes even infiltrating the seemingly upscale “Colonial Club” lounge and visibly cheering for the Dukes behind one of the baskets. The team played solid d pretty much all night, even though they couldn’t get the offense going in the 2nd half and had some trouble reacting to GW’s switch to a 1-3-1 defense. But hard to complain about this game. Hitchens was a sparkplug and a team leader all night, so no harm no foul on the hijinx at the end of the game.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t share that my trip home from the JMUSB postgame celebration in Arlington culminated with a drunk guy on the Orange Line projectile vomiting twice. Both times for distance. I came away unscathed, but that probably merited a technical foul and possibly an ejection. If I had a whistle handy, I would have teed him up myself.
Good meeting you to. Thanks for introducing yourself.