It is estimated that Americans fill out approximately 40 million brackets each year for the NCAA Tournament. While I can’t find any statistics for the number of CAA Tournament brackets completed, it’s probably slightly fewer than that. And we’d like to change that by running our first ever CAA Basketball Tournament Bracket Challenge. Unfortunately, even though there is a virtually limitless number of websites hosting NCAA bracket challenges, we can’t find a single one that hosts a CAA bracket (shocking I know). But we’re nothing if not adaptable. We put on the ol’ thinking caps and came up with a work around. Actually we just realized that with an abbreviated tourney field, we could probably track things manually. It’s a 3 round tournament with 7 teams after all. We’re not splitting atoms here. read more…
It’s tournament week everyone. And for the first time in a long time, it isn’t a virtual lock that the JMU hoops season will be over in a matter of days. The Dukes are the 3 seed and have as good a shot as any team of getting hot and cutting down the nets next Monday night. It was an odd regular season in the CAA and this tournament is set to be just as weird. A full 30% of the league’s 10 teams won’t be competing in Richmond. ODU is headed to CUSA and thus ineligible per league rules, and Towson and UNCW are facing APR penalties prohibiting them from participating in the post-season. So it comes down to a lucky 7 teams. And you could make a case for practically all of them to win. Even an undermanned Hofstra squad is capable of elevating it’s game and pulling an upset or two. read more…
I’d imagine a better writer would start off by stating that a team’s character is only revealed when its back is against the wall or some such nonsense. Whatever. I’ll just say this. That. Was. Awesome. JMU had a comeback for the ages in Williamsburg tonight. After being down by as many as 19 points, the Dukes stormed back to win 69-67. The game concluded the regular season and moved JMU’s record to 17-14, (11-7). William & Mary fell to 13-16, (7-11). Most importantly, the victory secured the 3 seed in next weekend’s CAA Tournament for the Dukes. And it set up a rematch with the Tribe in the first round. read more…
Steve Buchantz is not only one of our favorite broadcasters, he’s a JMU alum, and has been nothing short of a great guy every time we’ve had the pleasure to interact with him. But last night his eyes played tricks on him resulting in the ill-timed and unnecessary use of his signature “DAGGER!” call. And it was kind of funny. But in a strange way it’s also one of the most Wizards things ever, considering the organization has given fans like us approximately six and a half hours of collective joy in the past three decades. Factoring in both team’s histories, when you combine our unabashed affection for the Wiz and Dukes and it’s really a testament to exactly how much Todd and I love the game of basketball.
Now former JMU Guard Earl Watford participated in the NFL Draft Combine last weekend. He clearly turned some heads and got some love from the commentators on the telecast. Despite all our thrashing about concerning the state of JMU football as a whole since ’08, it still makes us smile just how much of a pipeline the ‘Burg has become for potential pro talent during the last decade. Although we know it can be better for guys to sign as undrafted free agents, it would be cool to hear Earl’s name called during the draft this year.
And despite our continued excitement for the CAA Tourneys in Richmond and Upper Marlboro (seriously, Upper Marlboro) over the next few weeks, we would be remiss if we didn’t point out that spring sports are now in full swing and before we know it, the offseason and football hype will be upon us (with or without anyone running the offense). But in the meantime, make sure to cruise over to JMU Sports and check out the Diamond Dukes.
Coolest nugget of the spring so far is that the Softball team has received a vote in the Top 25 for the first time in program history, but baseball, women’s lacrosse (sorry Rob), tennis, and golf are all off and running now.
Oh yeah, and assuming the spring game isn’t rescheduled for lack of coaches, it’s set for April 20, which also happens to be the same day as the Rocktown Beer and Music Festival, which could make for a great day in the Valley!
Lastly, check out the buy one, get one deal for the CAA Tourney over at the CAA site. Without VCU or ODU and with a mediocre Mason team, no reason JMU shouldn’t turn the Mausoleum into their home court!
JMU lost another close one, falling 64-62 to Georgia State at the Convo. The loss dropped the Dukes to 16-14 (10-7). Georgia State got back to .500 and now sits at 15-15 (10-7). JMU let Georgia State get out to a lead out of the gate and then let them pull away with a run to open the second half. Fortunately, they were able to rally back and erase a double-digit deficit behind the play of A.J. Davis. Davis had one of his best games in a JMU uniform and finished with 22 and 10. The best the Dukes could do was tie it up however. After knotting it up at 58-58, Georgia State calmly hit free throw after free throw. And JMU didn’t, hitting only 1 out of its final 4 attempts from the stripe. And that was pretty much all she wrote. read more…
We’ve been drawing a line between hopeful, excited tweets and actually going crazy covering the Hal Mumme to JMU as OC story here on the blog for a month out of fear it wouldn’t work out. Something just seemed fishy, we hoped not Lennay Kekua fishy, but today we found out what it was. According to Matthew Stoss’ enlightening article in the Daily News Record today, Mumme literally left an assistant sent to pick him up waiting at the airport and forced JMU to look like the second-rate outfit they’re rapidly becoming by reannouncing the job posting for Offensive Coordinator. Apparently, Mumme, the offensive innovator behind the pass-heavy Air Raid offensive attack, will be announced next week as the OC at a BCS school. Presumably this is for significantly more money and obviously this comes with more prestige. (But we’re still damned skeptical that it will be a non-BCS FBS school in which case this rant will be back with a whole new level of venom aimed at our own folks).
As always, there are two ways of looking at the story, but I’m afraid in either case, on some level JMU looks like a bunch of buffoons. There are no words for the levels of incompetence displayed here and how silly it makes us fans feel for hoping the Dukes have better days ahead.
You could choose to look at this story as the dude pulled a huge but financially understandable dick-move, and that JMU’s only mistake was leaking this thing out before everything was signed, sealed, and delivered. But that’s still a huge mistake in and of itself. And even if a few of the truest believers in the power of the purple koolaid would like to revise the last few weeks and claim Mumme’s track record is considerably less stellar than we’ve all made it out to be, no one can deny that this is a program in need of a major injection of different. Just different. And now Mickey’s last hail mary has failed miserably. (Doesn’t seem out of the question that there are those in the administration and in the fanbase who aren’t sad about this by the way)
Or….you could react like most fans already frustrated by JMU’s utter lack of leadership in athletics and find yourself torn between delirious laughter and shaking your fists. It’s nearly impossible to understand how a large, growing state university with nearly a decade of ascendancy fading quickly in the rear view would invest millions in facilites upgrades and unjustified hype while remaining unable to handle basic infrastructure decisions required to run a decent athletic program including but certainly not limited to closing a deal with an exciting assistant coach, holding Mickey accountable, and charting a course for conference stability. (This list might also include having the stones to not leave coaches in lame-duck status by actually making a decision and not losing bids to host playoff games in your new football palace to Eastern f*ckin’ Kentucky, and deciding not to hold a large graduation ceremony in your new stadium after that was a huge selling point for building it, but we’re trying to keep this focused on football in its current state).
Hope all those freshmen wide receivers the Dukes just signed don’t mind a larger set of shoulder pads so they’ll be ready to block on 3rd and long!
Oh yeah, one more thing, don’t have the Duke Club calling alums to solicit more money tonight when you just looked like an idiot. Needless to say, those calls were not well-received in either of our households this evening. Get it together you clowns!
Yes, the Dukes lost. JMU fell by the score of 66-64 to Northeastern on the road. The win clinched at least a share of first place for Northeastern and got them to 18-10 (13-3) on the season. After the loss JMU dropped to 16-13 (10-6). It was a close contest all night and Northeastern’s David Walker put the Huskies ahead with 2.4 seconds left. A.J. Davis got a decent look at a winner, but his three point attempt in the closing seconds fell short and Andre Nation’s put back didn’t beat the buzzer. Instead of returning home with back-to-back last second CAA wins on the road, the Dukes head back to the ‘burg wondering what could have been. Strangely, as disappointed as we are right now, the loss didn’t discourage us about the Dukes’ chances in the CAA Tournament. Not even a little bit.
Nobody likes losing and we’re no different. Judging from the reaction of friends and the majority of people we interact with on Twitter however, we’re not the only ones who aren’t too down after this loss. It stings, but this was a fun game to watch. And it definitely could have gone either way. If JMU fell apart at the end, completely broke down on defense, or lost due to some other preventable mistake, we’d probably be sick right now. They didn’t though. They played a very tough team essentially to a draw on the road. And we would really, really like they’re chances in a rematch in Richmond. And I think anyone who watched this game would love a rematch to. Both teams played solid defense all night. JMU was outstanding on the boards, resulting in a 19-2 advantage in second chance points. Northeastern was lights out from the line, going 18-20. It was a really great game. It just sucks that JMU lost.
We’ve made it abundantly clear that we want a JMU vs. NU rematch and that we’d like JMU chances in one. But the Dukes still have work to do before Richmond. They need to win out and have GMU lose to secure the #2 seed in the tourney. They can take a huge step toward doing that with a win over a dangerous Georgia State team in the home finale this Saturday at the Convo. And then they close the regular season with a game in Williamsburg against William & Mary. Neither game will be easy, but they’re both crucial. And after years of virtual irrelevancy, that’s pretty much what we all wanted.
As you undoubtedly are aware of, it has been a long time since JMU played in the NCAA Tournament. You’d have to go all the way back to Lefty’s time. It’s been 19 years in fact, which seems like a lifetime. In fact for some of you reading this, that might literally be a lifetime. The Dukes currently find themselves in second place in the CAA standings with a huge game at first place Northeastern looming. The Dukes have had their share of highs and lows this season. If the season ended today though, they’re probably be a lot of people who give them good odds to win the CAA tourney and punch a ticket to the big dance. read more…
Men’s hoops wins in the last 15 years don’t get much better than last night’s stunning, buzzer-beating alley-oop win at Delaware. And beyond the thrilling win on its own, there’s almost no way to overstate what the win means for the season and how it sets up an exciting stretch run for the Dukes (side note: hard to believe I just typed “sets up an exciting stretch run” about this team!). People were so excited that our friends over at Mister Irrelevant even threw JMU their own post today. We’d also heard rumors this was on SportsCenter in many markets under the sidebar heading (and misnomer when it involves two large state universities) “small-school buzzer-beaters.”
Here are the highlights. THE highlight is around the 2:00 mark:
JMU “Nation” takes on a whole new meaning and the difference between 16-12, 10-5 CAA and 15-13, 9-6 is enormous. With three games to play, the Dukes have assured themselves a winning record overall and in the conference. The sweep of Delaware also pulled them away from one of their closest competitors in the morass that is the race for the 2 seed in the CAA tourney. And don’t look now, but the Dukes are only two games back with three to play from CAA-leading Northeastern. And guess who they play on Wednesday at 7 p.m. on Comcast SportsNet?! That would narrow the gap to one game with only a home rematch against fake GSU and a road game at W&M to finish while Northeastern still has to travel all the way to Atlanta for a tough game before finishing at home against ODU. Not that crazy. In any case, a 2 seed matchup with struggling Hofstra to start the tourney is a lot more favorable than possibly playing Drexel or GMCC or even W&M to start. Not to mention one Andrey Semenov may be back soon!
A few quick notes on the game: First, somebody tell the training staff to lay off mixing Ambien with the Gatorade before games and at halftime. The first five minutes of each half have become consistently atrocious for the Dukes. They combined to go 0-16 from the floor to start the two halves last night and dug themselves a huge hole to climb out of. Of course, climbing out of that hole seems to happen rather quickly when AJ Davis enters the game these days. He’s playing unbelievably well and while still out of position occasionally on D, the effort is there on both ends. As much as we love the stability Bessick’s presence has given to the starting lineup, when he’s catching the ball at the top of the key in the offense, it just stalls everything out and allows the defense to sag into the lane on Goins and to defend against Devon Moore’s drives.
Speaking of Devon Moore, he is playing at a CAA POY level right now. That wasn’t a misprint or an overstatement. When he shoots reasonably well like he did last night, he is simply unguardable in this league. He’s too tall and too quick for guards in this league and his passing and court awareness make everyone better. He is a CAA version of Rondo or Wall and we’d love to see him take over the Richmond Mausoleum in a couple of weeks!
Lastly, this is anecdotal, but the social media explosion last night suggests the buzz around this team is growing both on and off campus. Part of that has to be based in consistent television availability. Credit where it’s due to the CAA for making the deal with NBCSN that seems to have led to Comcast slots as well. (That said, some decision-makers “might” look at this and say “you know what, even in the smaller, non-BCS conferences, consistent television coverage raises the university’s profile and engages alumni and supporters”)
And here’s an incredible still shot of the moment from the crowd! (full credit to @Max_Goldstein04 and thanks for getting that out to JMU Nation so fast)
