Dukes Drop Longwood

Senior Pierre Curtis had 25 points in the win.

The Dukes put up a whopping 96 points in a 10 point victory over Longwood at the Convocation Center. For any Longwood folks reading this, that means JMU won by the score of 96-86. The victory gave the Dukes a season sweep over Longwood and Radford. I’m pretty sure they don’t give out any trophies for that, but at least is spares us from whatever monosyllabic trash talk fans of either school would hurl at us if the Dukes lost.

All wins are nice, particularly in a season like the one JMU is having. It’s just tough to get too fired up about defeating a team like Longwood, which is only in its third year competing in Division 1. That’s not meant as a knock on the Lancers, who defeated JMU last year. This is just one of the few games on the schedule that the Dukes were expected to win. The pain and disappointment of losing a game like this might have simply outweighed the joy derived from winning it.

The Dukes went into the half down 8, but had a big second half to turn things around and salvage the win. Pierre Curtis paced the Dukes with 25 points and 10 assists. Julius Wells and Denzel Bowles had typically productive games, with 22 and 19 points respectively. Ben Louis had a huge night and chipped in 17 points. The 96 points was the most the Dukes have scored in a game all season, but the victory was just JMU’s second in the past 8 games. They’ll get a chance to face the other team they beat in that stretch, VCU, in a rematch Wednesday night in Richmond.