There is another game to focus on, so this is gonna be quick. JMU beat William & Mary for the third time this year to win its opening round game in the CAA Tournament last night. The seniors led the way as the Dukes hung in there in a close contest, before closing it out with a late run to win 72-67. A.J. Davis had a great game once again. The senior started instead of coming off the bench, and responded by scoring 20 points and grabbing 5 boards. He and fellow senior Devon Moore played as if their college basketball lives were on the line, which of course they were. Moore started off red hot, hitting his first 7 shots from the field. He also finished with 20 points to go along with 8 assists and 5 rebounds. Rayshawn Goins struggled for much of the game against the always strong Tim Rusthoven. After being pulled from the game in the second half, Rayshawn returned with new energy and sparked a Dukes rally with a couple big buckets down low. The Dukes nearly gave the game away on the line. JMU shot only 9-18 from the stripe. Typically, when a team shoots free throws that poorly in a close game, they lose. JMU overcame the week free throwing shooting by punishing the Tribe on the boards and scoring 17 second chance points.
The important thing is that JMU won and is moving on to the CAA semi-finals. The Dukes face a red hot Delaware team that many are picking to win it all. Like they did against William & Mary, JMU swept the Blue Hens in the regular season. At this stage that doesn’t really mean much though and it’s bound to be a close contest. Tip-off is at 4:30 and the game is going to be televised nationally on NBC Sportsnetwork. If you’re within driving distance of Richmond & you’re free though, you might as well make the trip. A big purple crowd could make all the difference.
Here at JMUSB we’re more excited about the Dukes chances headed into this weekend’s CAA Tourney than any time in the last decade. By a country mile. Of course, every eligible team (except Hofstra, but “go Flying Dutchmen!” – we’d love to see you in the second round) likely shares that excitement.
The Soul-Crushing Possibility
Let’s just address the thing that would be the Dukesiest, Bradiest, Dillardest, Keenerest, Bournest outcome this weekend. Something that we’ve seen over and over (and over) the last twenty years. JMU could easily be one and done by losing to William & Mary. Likely missing countless free throws, letting Thornton take over again, having bigs get into foul trouble with lazy, disrespectful defense on Rusthoven (Beasthoven), and being outcoached down the stretch. Honestly, if you’re W&M or Delaware and you avoided the NU/GMU/Drex bloodbath side of the bracket, you’re dancing you’re little jig the same way we are right now and writing very similar things. If you’re wondering, go check out Gheorghe the Blog (WM supporters usually but also have a cool tribute to UD senior badass Elena DellaDonne) or gohens.net and see exactly what we mean.
Even our homer-heavy prediction contest only has 8 folks picking the Dukes, with plenty going with NU or UD and even a WM from the aforementioned Gheorghe The Blog folks. We’ve all just been conditioned to whimpering exits from Richmond and the setup this year could portend even deeper despair. But that setup! Oh, that setup!
The Road is Short and Smooth
Seriously, everything, and we mean everything, has fallen into place for the Dukes to make a serious run at this bid. First, a quick refresher on why only seven teams are playing this weekend. VCU smartly left the conferecne they would have otherwise made a mockery of. ODU and fake GSU are on their way out and thus ineligible under CAA rules (which we can only hope JMU will be violating soon). And finally, UNCW and Towson are on postseason probation due to the same APR issues that are keeping UConn out of the Big East tourney. The important note here is that Towson, with likely CAA POY Jerelle Benimon, and GSU, with likely CAA ROY RJ Hunter, really played JMU better than anyone this year.
On the other hand, JMU swept BOTH W&M and likely semis opponent Delaware this year. They split with Drexel (though Drexel has been getting better and healthier lately) and played top seed Northeastern tough in Boston in their only matchup. The Dukes were swept by Mason, but the Patriots have a really tough draw in Drexel (one of the only teams with the manpower to clamp down on GMCC’s all-everything Sherrod Wright). In general, every team in this thing has a matchup or two that scares the crap out of them just based on personnel. For the Dukes, those teams are Drexel and Mason, but by the time JMU takes the floor Saturday night, one of them will already be on the bus home. Good times.
Another quick note on Delaware. While they carry the highest RPI/BPI rankings and have a tough threesome of Saddler, Threatt, and Hagins, the Dukes are actually their hideous matchup. Goins has been able to pile up fouls on Hagins inside while Moore’s toughness and quickness matchup well with Saddler. While JMU really needs Devon Moore on the floor, they’re surprisingly one of the deeper teams in the CAA this year and sloppy games with high foul counts have often played in their favor.
What The Dukes Have to Do
Honestly, JMU’s toughest opponent this weekend is itself. The Dukes have shown they are capable of beating all the potential opponents (well not really Mason, but again we don’t like their odds or mediocre coaching as sweet as it would be to have an old-school southern bias, all VA final). The keys are really to break the frustratingly habitual slow starts, defend without stupid fouls (especially Devon Moore who HAS to be on the floor), and occasionally slow down and run the offense through Rayshawn Goins when the game is tight. Oh yeah, and there is no bigger question in the entire conference than which AJ Davis shows up. If it’s anything like the AJ who singlehandedly beat the pantless Griffins from W&M last weekend, we love the Dukes’ chances.
Beer of the Weekse
We’re breaking out our football tradition for the tourney. With this being a budget tourney in a budget building, and of course with the hopes of needing “champagne” to celebrate on Monday, we seriously considered going with the ole’ Lady in the Moon High Life, but we’re just too old to even fake it. Plus it’s gonna take something big to break the curse of the Lefthander, so we’re going with Firestone Walker Double Jack Imperial IPA. You’ll be hard pressed to find another huge (9.5%) double that both hides it’s ABV and is widely available year-round.
Official JMUSB Prediction
Just so we have an entry in our bracket:
Game 1 – Drexel over GMU
Game 2 – Delaware over Hofstra
Game 3 – JMU over WM
Game 4 – Northeastern over Drexel
Game 5 – JMU over Delaware
Game 6 – JMU 61, Northeastern 60 with Andre Nation playing the Kent Culuko role! Devon Moore wins Tourney MVP. See you in Dayton!
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.
