We Still Cannot Believe JMU Is Going Dancing

One of the downsides to having a blog when your team ends a 19 year NCAA tournament drought is that people sort of expect you to write about it. And when you can’t stop smiling or giggling to yourself, it’s kind of hard to write. It’s even harder when you’re not a particularly talented writer to begin with. But we know all too well that bids to the dance don’t come around every day, so we figured we better come up with something. Last night we decided that if we still couldn’t get it together to write tonight, we’d just post a whole bunch of cool pics from the game and call it a day. But Agent Steinz beat us to it and quite frankly did it much better than we would have anyway. And for the record, we have the weirdest passion about our dog mascot because Duke Dog is awesome. He just is.

Again though, it’s been 19 years since JMU went dancing. Thousands of current students weren’t even alive back when Kent Culuko hit “the shot” and won JMU’s last CAA Championship. 19 years is a long time. College girls wore Keds and flannel shirts to parties and didn’t find me old and creepy (well, not old at least) back then. It was a different world. And now we’re here and the drought is over. JMU is going dancing. And with five more days until the bracket is released we can take our time to let it sink in. Or even milk it a little bit. And that’s what we’re gonna do.

Last night we had a very smooth trip back up 95 from Richmond to NOVA. It was a quick drive, but I’m sure it would have felt like another 19 years on its own had the game turned out differently. Instead we spent the whole trip speculating on the Dukes’ draw and recapping the game, less to relive it and more to convince ourselves it actually happened. Todd and I followed that up by each settling in at home to promptly watch (and re-watch) highlights of the very game we just attended. And yeah, we were texting back and forth the entire time like a couple of teenage girls who ran into Biebs at the mall.

Just about 24 hours later and the game is still fresh in my mind. I can still see Big Ray coming flying out of the gate and making it clear his pre-tourney “championship or bust” statements weren’t just talk. I can still hear the pep band playing “Start Wearing Purple” to the delight of the JMU dominated crowd. A.J. Davis is still doing A.J. Davis things on a continuous loop in my head. I can also remember how my sister and I started fiddling with our phones to distract ourselves as Northeastern chipped away at the lead. And I recall the feeling of complete dread overtaking me when the 22 point lead shrunk all the way to 8. But most of all, I remember how that feeling left my body not when Andre Nation swatted a Huskie attempt into the seats, but immediately afterward when I noticed the smiles return to his teammates’ faces as if they realized at that very moment that they were going to close it out. And they did. And now we’re going dancing.

photo courtesy of jmusports.com