A while back Todd and I were at a bachelor party for a very good friend. As is often the case with these sorts of events, different groups of the bachelor’s friends were thrown together under one roof for the weekend. That can be a recipe for awkward tension, but it thankfully wasn’t. Everyone got along. Really well, actually. Anyway, a few of the guys happened to be quite a bit younger than us. And one of these younger guys decided that we all had to do a gin bucket. It was an idea that resulted in enthusiastic nods of approval from the young folks. And complete confusion and bewilderment from us old folks. read more…
JMU beat Northeastern 49-46 in Boston tonight. If you’re a fan of free flowing, up and down the court sort of basketball, then it probably wasn’t a game for you. If you’re all about the W, then congrats. JMU got one. A well deserved and hard earned one. The Dukes are now 8-13 overall and 3-4 in CAA play. The Huskies fell to 7-15 and 4-4. Andre Nation led a well balanced Dukes attack with 13 points. Ron Curry had a pretty good night running the offense and finished with 5 assists. Here a few quick thoughts on the win. read more…
JMU avoided a season sweep at the hands of the CAA’s newest entrant yesterday. With a 58-56 win at home over College of Charleston, JMU ended its four game losing skid and avenged an earlier loss to the Cougars. JMU is now 7-13 overall and 2-4 in the CAA. C of C dropped to 11-10 and 3-3 in league play.
The freshmen took a lot of criticism for their lack of production during the slump. However, with Charles Cooke out recovering from an ankle injury, the freshmen stepped up. Jackson Kent in particular, elevated his play. He scored a game and career high 17 points to go along with 5 rebounds. Andre Nation and Ron Curry also scored in double figures with 15 and 12 points respectively.
Neither Todd nor I were able to catch this game, so we’re not going to pretend to have any insight or takeaways. We are thrilled that the Dukes got the win and that Jackson Kent had a big game though. With the exception of Andre Nation, most of the team seemed to be pressing and playing tight the past four games. Maybe an outing like this will give Kent and his teammates some much needed confidence. And while the Dukes free throw shooting was typically mediocre (16-26), they finally shot well from long range. They attempted fewer threes than they usually do (good), but hit 50% of them (great).
Next up for the Dukes is a road game at Northeastern. The first game between the Huskies and Dukes represented one of the low points of JMU’s season. It would be great to see them avenge the loss and carry some momentum into a big home game against William & Mary next weekend.
Haven’t done an Old Guys Leave roundup post in a while, but it’s a slow week and there’s only so much that we can actually write about the struggles of men’s hoops. Oh yeah, and we aren’t going to do a day-by-day recruiting thing, though we plan to get something solid up after Signing Day.
First, for our senior-citizen and Twitterless crowd, the amazing I’m Schmacked story. Much like when a former JMU women’s soccer player marries a guy from N’Sync, it always amazes us which stories take off and this week was no different. As has been well chronicled on Twitter the last couple of weeks, this great story about the d-bags from I’m Schmacked pretty much says it all. Except for the even better part where JMU told them to piss off, they ranted about how stupid JMU was, only to take their sorry asses to ODuh and promptly get arrested! Beautiful!
Next, get out to see the damn-right-they-should-be-ranked-by-now women’s hoops team take on Drexel tomorrow. And even better, support one of the all-time JMU greats in former star Dawn Evans as she prepares for a kidney transplant. Her story has been well-documented, but we love that Athletics and Women’s Hoops are doing video get-well messages at tomorrow’s game! Good luck Dawn, not that you’ll need it as one of the toughest Dukes anyone’s ever seen.
Finally, it was pretty cool to see both LB Stephon Robertson and OL Josh Wells participating in the NFLPA Bowl last weekend for draft prospects. Tough to find much coverage, but we saw Stephon, as usual, get in on a bunch of tackles even if it was weird seeing him in a more typical LB number like 55. And Josh played a ton as well and worked appeared to be working at at least two spots on the O-Line (and penalty free!). Look for more coverage of their journeys towards the draft and free agency in this space over the next couple of weeks!
The Dukes lost to William & Mary on Saturday. And it wasn’t close. The Tribe coasted to a 78-56 win in Williamsburg. JMU is now 6-13 overall and 1-4 in CAA play. William and Mary moved to 10-6 and 2-1 in league play. After a decent start to the game, the Dukes let William & Mary go on a little run. And then Charles Cooke went down with an ankle injury and things got ugly. The Tribe shot lights out in the first half and broke the game wide open. Despite a terrific game from Andre Nation, JMU never really had a chance after Cooke left. read more…
Whoa. People get married while at JMU? Seriously? That’s um, surprising. I’m married and it’s awesome. It really is. Despite what you might have heard from some formulaic three camera sitcom, marriage is great. But in college? I don’t think so. I’m not talking about married people who make the decision to go back and get a degree. I’m talking about normal 18-22 year olds that tie the knot during their time at JMU. Makes no sense. That would be like waiting years to get a reservation at the French Laundry and then bringing a bucket of KFC with you instead of ordering off the menu. read more…
[polldaddy poll=7719319]
Really getting tired of running this pic.
Vote for as many options as you like. Besides that, there’s just not much more to say so we’ll run the shit-sandwich pic again, say that at least we know Northeastern is equally horrendous, say goodbye and good luck to Daren Stolztfus (what’s with all the Rocktown media members bailing at once?), and give you the following flow chart of how the Dukes can easily tell if they should shoot or not on any given possession:
Are you behind the three-point line? ? Yes ? DO NOT SHOOT (it’s hot lava!)
We’ll get to the newly released football schedule Friday, but we’re not nearly as up in arms about it as some, mainly because we’re old. But also because there are lots of good matchups and LOVE the Halloween Homecoming weekend!
The scuttlebutt Rob wrote about a couple of weeks ago came through today when it was announced that Vad Lee, the starting QB at Georgia Tech this past season, has transferred to JMU to play for Coach Withers and the Dukes. There are multiple angles from which to analyze this, most obviously what it means for Michael Birdsong moving forward but to suggest the infusion of a clearly established BCS-level talent isn’t a positive for JMU is just crazy-talk. Last year the Dukes had exactly zero QB’s on the bench that anyone felt comfortable with in the event the GingaNinja went down for any extended stretch. So long as both guys get a fair shot and the best guy plays, it should be a huge positive for JMU to have two very capable QB’s.
On the Birdsong front, we’ve loved the kid and he’s proven to be tough and a decent team leader, but let’s be clear. The “record-setting” year he had last year was in part a product of former OC Mike O’Cain’s more modern offense replacing Mickey’s sputtering run-run-penalty-run offense. And for those that have been following the program for a while, the Ginger Giant hasn’t even reached Matt LeZotte status. If you’ll recall, LeZotte was a redshirt senior when he was forced to the bench by the transfer in of Justin Riscati from Louisville. That worked out pretty well. No matter what, we’re rootin’ for both guys to play great and we’ll know if Birdsong wins the job, he will really have earned it now.
Lee’s decision raises more questions for us. Obviously it’s a nice statement for Withers out of the gate. And it does seem Lee wants a chance to play in an offense that would give him a chance to not only run, but also showcase his all-around game and passing ability, and was stuck in a bit of a dead-end situation if he has further football aspirations running the pure triple-option under Coach Paul Johnson as a Yellow Jacket. But a couple of things seem curious. First, with Birdsong here it seems highly unlikely that he was promised a starting spot or that such a spot is a sure thing in a competition with a still relatively young starter in place. But second, the thing that’s really not sitting well with us is you’ve got to wonder if he’d really want to transfer to a program that may have very little opportunity for postseason play at either level if it changes classification this spring. In other words, would you want to spend your final two seasons in transitional years with no playoffs or bowls? We certainly hope he wasn’t told the playoffs are likely this year because JMU isn’t moving. That said, it’s important to note that he had to transfer down to FCS if he wanted to play right away so it’s not like a move to another FBS school would have been nearly as appealing. And who knows, we can all hope he’ll play his senior year as an FBS-transitional school no matter what!
In any case, getting a starting QB to transfer from a successful ACC program is no small thing and provides the Dukes with a hugely solidified situation under center and we can’t wait to see the competition hopefully bring out the best in both young men! Also, signing day’s around the corner now and we can only hope this is a sign of things to come.
JMU fell to the Delaware Blue Hens 78-74 in the Convo yesterday. JMU now finds itself at 6-11, (1-2). It was Delaware’s fourth straight win, moving them to 10-7, (2-0) on the season. Devon Saddler and Davon Usher led the way for Delaware, scoring 25 and 21 points respectively. Andre Nation was the high scorer for the Dukes, finishing with 22 points. The Dukes started out hot and controlled the game for much of the first half. Unfortunately, the experienced Blue Hens hung in there all afternoon and battled back to take the lead after the break. JMU made a late run and was in position to tie it late with a Ron Curry drive. He lost the ball (or was hammered, depending on your perspective) and the Blue Hens closed it out. Game over.
The Glass Half Full Perspective
Delaware has a senior laden roster primed to battle for the CAA crown. JMU is the youngest team in the league, and had arguably its most talented player suiting up for only the second time this season. Yet the Dukes could have (and really should have) won. All five starters scored in double figures. Taylor Bessick, a guy we think could be the most important piece for the Dukes in conference play, had his first career double double. He helped JMU control the paint, where the Dukes outscored UD 34-23. After a brutal night rebounding the ball against Charleston, JMU won the battle of the boards 49-40. And Andre Nation. Oh Andre Nation. He showed yesterday that there is very little he can’t do. Jumpers. Drives. Post moves. He’s got all of them. There really was a lot to love about yesterday’s game. Yes, the result was disappointing. If you don’t think the Dukes have potential after watching yesterday’s game though, then I don’t know what to tell you.
The Glass Half Empty Perspective
JMU gave one away by letting UD dictate the pace after the half. And the Dukes couldn’t shoot from long range, going 4 for 20 from three point range. And they shot only 66% from the charity stripe. And they’re bench scored 2 points. That’s it. Jackson Kent went 1-8 and was the only bench player to get a bucket. That’s pretty rough. The Dukes simply need more production from the secondary players. Yes, they’re all freshmen, but they’ve got to step up. Because you simply shouldn’t lose home games when all of your starters score in double figures. At least not if you expect to compete with the top half of the league.
The No Call
Maybe it’s just me, but it sure seems like fans of CAA hoops spend a disproportionate amount of time complaining about the quality of officiating. And I’m talking league wide. Yesterday however, JMU fans were screaming the most. The screams were particularly loud after Ron Curry failed to draw a foul driving to the bucket late with a chance to tie. The refs said he lost it. Fans said he got hacked. It sure looked like he got hacked. But they refs didn’t call it. So get over it folks. Sorry to be blunt, but really, let’s move on. JMU missed 16 three pointers. The Dukes got only 2 points from the bench. They came out flat after the half and let UD go on a 9-0 run to take the lead. Bad call or not, JMU let the game get away.
