The 2011-2012 JMU hoops season is in our rear view mirror. Now we’re staring straight down the barrel of a 166 day dry spell until football starts. An absolute blogging desert. We can’t even ride the CAA coattails of another VCU tourney run. Sure, there the Lady Dukes are still playing in the WNIT, and we’ve got a full slate of spring sports to cover, but we’re pretty much just waiting for football to start now. I’m happy for Coach Brady and excited to see if he can turn things around next season. A coaching change would have at least given us something to talk about though.
We’ve made it through the past 2 Spring-Summer stretches just fine and I’m sure we’ll manage again. If I had to guess, I’d say we’ll probably try to mix it up with a little bit of coverage on various spring sports. And we’ll jump squarely on the bandwagon if some team gets hot. We’re also pretty fortunate that we’re both soccer fans and C.J. Sapong is playing a key role on an impressive Sporting Kansas City team (he scored again last night). And there will be some sort of bizarre bracket again (topic TBD). But you might as well count on some posts that have absolutely nothing at all to do with JMU. There’s only so many posts we can squeeze out of the game at FedEx after all.
If you have any suggestions for things we should post about, please let us know. We’re all ears. And while we’re soliciting input, feel free to give us any other feedback you’ve got…likes/dislikes, blog theme/look & feel, how we utilize Facebook & Twitter, etc. We’re always talking about making changes (particularly to the theme or template) but we never get around to it. If we know folks are anxious for change, it might motivate us to get to it. And if we don’t say this often enough, thanks for reading. We sincerely appreciate it.
What, you thought VCU reppin’ the CAA tonight was the only tangential good news for the Dukes tonight? (Actually it was nothing more than a reminder of just how overmatched JMU is in terms of athletes and recruiting and the coaching ability to maximize those assets, but we digress)
There really are two Friday roundup bits of good news this week:
First, women’s hoops won their opening game in the WNIT 64-49 over Davidson and will host Wake Forest at the Convo at 2 p.m. Sunday. (We do realize this doesn’t move the meter even for dorks like us, but it’s another reminder how great it can be when a program matures properly and is well-coached on and off the court from recruiting right through X’s and O’s)
And second, full-blown MLS Superstar and former Duke CJ Sapong (@BigAfrika88) got a new contract to match his burgeoning status! One of my co-workers who occassionally checks in our little JMUSB project says we’re overriding the coattails of our alums (mainly Sapong, Julien, and Moats but seriously, what the hell else are we going to talk about?!).
See a whole post of positivity! (except for the parens portion thanks men’s hoops!)
JMU alum C.J. Sapong started off the 2012 MLS season with a bang last weekend. After entering as a late second half sub, he headed home a corner kick in stoppage time to secure a 1-0 win for Sporting Kansas City in the season opener. As DC United supporters, the goal was a bit of a dagger for us. The fact that it was scored by a fellow Duke definitely took the edge off though. As you can see from above, it was a well earned goal. Whether or not it was a smooth as this more famous Sapong video is up for debate.
Not a ton to say on another craptastic weekend. My favorite co-worker/blogger from Paperlicious told me Friday “your blog is so down lately, you guys need to perk up.” First, thanks for reading! But after a weekend like this one, it’s really tough to fire up the mojo. First the Women’s team goes down to Drexel (hate) in the CAA semis on Saturday, although an NIT bid in the first year of the post-Dawn Evans era ain’t that bad at all. Then the baseball team goes and gets absolutely violated by UNCW in getting swept.
Then today, when we even found it in our hearts to to pull for Drexel getting an at-large bid (love) in the interest of #2bids4CAA, the committee, which oddly had a western bias this year, went and left the CAA regular season champ Dragons out of the field. Yes, we feel bad for Drexel. And yes, the CAA is waaaayyyy better than the MAAC, and yes, Iona lost to Hofstra, whose level of suckitude was right on par with our very own Dukes this year. And yes, it just ridiculously typical of the committee to select Iona and turn all of us in mid-major land against each other. But really what killed Drexel is St. Bonaventure and Colorado stealing bids, not necessarily Iona, BYU, and USF getting them. So it is a little tough to get overly worked up. Oh, but wait, there’s more. Another thing to fire up the #CAAHoops crowd is VCU getting shipped to Portland to take on another mid-major in Wichita St. That is at least 2nd degree Mid-on-Mid Crime by the committee, who had a Bonnie-and-Clyde type killing spree in this regard this year. VCU/WSU was even topped by the New Mexico/Long Beach St. matchup which was an all-time capital offense.
That said, Wichita St. must be developing a HATRED for the CAA that rivals the way we feel about Delaware football, GMU hoops, and Judas Larranaga (Miami getting left out was at least some consolation after his backstabbing of the CAA and mid-majors over the last couple of weeks). The Shockers lost Bracket Busters and Sweet 16 games to Mason in 2006 and to VCU at home in Bracket Busters last year. Needless to say, a CAA team taking advantage of the Shockers has proven to be strong move lately, leading to even more mind-blowing actions!
Of all the CAA football programs, Villanova is probably the one that we dislike the least. Todd is married to a Nova alum. I was actually all set to go there until I visited JMU on a beautiful Spring day, and well, the rest is history. We like the school and respect its football program. But we have a little rule around here that whenever a dance video featuring a CAA football players in neon jacket and plenty of cringe-worthy dance moves, we need to post it. It’s in our by-laws. So here you go. According to VU Hoops, the above video features Villanova wide receiver Joe Price in the jacket, along with teammates Brennan Erbeznik, Chris Halcovage, Pat Haggerty, Dan Shirey, and Josh Bucci. Ouch.
The Ultimate Cure for What Ails JMU Fans!
Well, it’s come to this. We can only grind our gears on the Brady situation for so long, so now we’re just going to give you a few items to be excited about that thankfully do not have anything to do with men’s hoops.
First, the women’s tourney is up here near DC this weekend at the ShowPlace Arena in Upper Marlboro. The only question remaining to be answered in this CAA season is can anyone of the contenders (with the Dukes qualifying as the #1 contender) knock off all-world Elena DellaDonne and Delaware. The Blue Hens are ranked in the top ten nationally so the best thing in the world for the CAA is actually for JMU to win the tourney and earn #2bids4CAA like the men have a shot to do. JMU plays it’s first game Friday at 5 p.m. against the winner of tomorrow’s 7/10 matchup. (What a novel concept, a top four seed and a bye for JMU basketball team!) Also, Nikki Newman won the CAA Defensive Player of the Year award tonight!
Speaking of #2bids4CAA, let’s all put our general Philly hatred aside and pull hard for Drexel’s name to show up in an NCAA bracket as opposed to an NIT come Sunday night.
Lastly, since even the Diamond Dukes are in a slump right now, we’ll go back to the DEEP well that is the 2012 football expectations. Spring practice starts in two weeks and tickets to JMU/WVU @ FedEx are on sale now!
Coach stays.
By now you’ve probably heard that Matt Brady will be retained as JMU’s head basketball coach. This morning we published a post stating that it’s probably time for Brady to move on and then hours later Jeff Bourne says he’s retaining him for next year. It’s like some sort of JMUSB reverse jinx. Or maybe it’s a regular jinx if you were in the camp that wanted Brady fired. To be blunt, this news is rather shocking. I had been sitting squarely on the fence when it came down to deciding if Brady should be fired or not. My indecisiveness aside, I was pretty sure he was going to get canned. Todd thought agreed and seemed to think it was the right move. To be fair, that put Todd squarely with the majority of the fanbase. A seemingly shrinking and increasingly apathetic fanbase if we want to get technical about it.
The Extension (or lack thereof)
Just because Brady is not getting fired, it doesn’t mean there is great stability in the world of JMU basketball. Based on what we’ve read, Jeff Bourne mentioned nothing about offering Brady a contract extension. Brady’s current contract has one more year on it. That means that he’ll enter next season as a lame duck coach. In many people’s eyes (including mine) this is not an ideal situation. At best it’s a distraction that hangs over the program all year. At worst, it’s a severe hindrance to Brady’s recruiting efforts due to the fact that some players might be less likely to commit to a coach who might not even be there to coach them. I certainly hope that some sort of extension is in the works and it very well may be. Without one, we could be in for another long season of speculation and uncertainty.
read more…
Brady
Well, it’s that time again. Rob was at JMU the last time the Dukes won the CAA and went to the Big Dance, but anyone from my class (’99) on down has never known anything better than what’s about to happen. The firing of a men’s hoops coach, the boring and disappointing “search committee,” the hiring of some new guy not even on anyone’s wishlist, and the inevitable positive buildup to accompany all of us convincing ourselves things can only get better while really knowing deep down we’ll be right back here 3-5 years from now.
In the aftermath of another quick, quiet Friday exit from the CAA tourney, we set the over/under on Coach Matt Brady’s firing at two weeks. After a weekend to think about it (and read the Boards), we’ll take the under and say Brady’s gone by Wednesday. By now, you probably know the particulars (one year left on his contract so they’ve really got to buy him out and fire his ass or extend him to avoid a lame-duck recruiting situation). The idea of extending Coach Brady just seems ridiculous at this point. We’ve been measured in our approach this year and have a great deal of respect for guys like @MarkRSelig who think Brady’s a better X’s and O’s guy than anyone JMU is likely to attract, has actually gotten the program on the right track and is closer to success than the record indicates. It’s also foolish, yes foolish, to not consider what might’ve been but for all the injuries this year.
Do plugs fall out afterwards?
But excuses and X’s and O’s aren’t going to be the death of Brady. Recruiting and an AD already on thin ice working for a new President will be the factors that finish him off. Putting everything else aside, the one thing we keep circling back to is the fact that Brady has struggled mightily in recruiting and retaining quality players. A lot of things go into this, but other than the first class he brought with him from Marist (potentially illegally – that’s a joke, settle down), every other major contributor brought into the program during his tenure (Bowles, Hitchens, Goins, Davis, et al) has been a transfer rather than a high school recruit). Transfers do count, plus the Convo, the lack of success, and the meteoric rise of other nearby CAA programs all factor in, but the only word for that recruiting record is “shabby.”
Next
If Brady gets canned, there will be ample opportunities for gnashing on potential replacements, but for those of you calling for “a big name” or “a shady guy who’s fallen from grace,” just get your head out of your ass. JMU will have to buy out Brady and the job’s just not that good. Those are facts. We think the potential for a rapid rise is there and of course we all love JMU, but the money, facilities, recent “tradition,” and the competition all make this a tough sell. I’ve got someone I like who falls somewhere between the two catergories I mention, but hey, we’re gonna need more material soon, so we’ll wait for all that.
Good News for the CAA!
With VCU thankfully holding off a huge rally from Mason and Drexel easily disposing of ODU in the semis today, a Drexel/VCU title game tomorrow night definitely sets up great for the conference as the loser in either case should have a great arguement for #twobids4CAA
March Madness opened with a bang for the JMU Dukes today. As the highlights above show, they came out of the gate flying. Three pointers, back door cuts, and wide open dunks helped them build up a 13-4 lead. The Dukes were rolling. And then they weren’t rolling. They stopped making good cuts. They stopped hitting shots. They stopped getting to loose balls. They couldn’t stop Keith Rendleman. There isn’t much to analyze. They just got beat in every aspect of the game of basketball. At one point they were down by 23 points only to mount a furious rally. A late game, purely cosmetic, garbage time rally that fell short anyway. Forgive me if this all sounds harsh. Facts are facts though. JMU got beat pretty easily by a 9th seeded UNCW team that they had defeated in their only previous contest.
Results aside, I’m still glad I made the trip down. Yes, it would have been a whole lot more fun if JMU won and there were more than a few dozen fans in the stands, but I enjoyed myself anyway. And I’m not exaggerating too much when I say there dozens of fans there. At one point my son looked at me and said “Not a lot of people came to cheer for the Dukes today.” And he doesn’t even turn 4 until later this month, so it’s not like he’s got a ton of experience when it comes to judging crowd size. It was a sparse crowd and even worse game, but I still was watching college hoops in March. And that’s not a bad way to spend a Friday. The loss effing sucked though.
The Brady Question
Todd and I have been avoiding the subject of Matt Brady’s employment status all season on this blog. JMU wasn’t going to make a move in season, so we figured it would be best to let things play out before we weighed in. Plus it’s just not that fun to talk about and we started this blog to have fun. Now that the season is over and it was unquestionably a disappointment, we probably need to get on with it. But, and there’s always a but, I honestly haven’t made my mind up yet. Todd has made up his mind and I’ll let him state his case. I’m still on the fence though. And with the overwhelming majority of fans ready to show Brady the door yesterday, simply being undecided makes me one of his staunchest defenders by default. So we’ll probably give Brady’s job status it’s own post later this weekend. Hopefully I will have made up my mind by then. At work, I’ve had to sit across from people and tell them they’re not good enough for promotion or even that they need to move on. It sucks, but I’ve been able to do it because I analyzed all the facts and was prepared to deal with the consequences. In this case, I haven’t analyzed all the facts and I’m not really sure that I’m prepared to deal with the consequences of Brady being let go. By that I mean that I’m not confident that there are tons of better options lining up to lobby for this job. And I’m even less sure that Jeff Bourne and the administration will do what it takes to secure a decent replacement if necessary. Plus, I’m still not even convinced Brady deserves to lose his job. He’s had 2 decent years and 2 disappointing years. Two very disappointing, injury plagued years.
I realize I’m on an island here and most of you are already convinced he should be gone. I respect that. Todd and I vehemently disagree on a lot of things such as politics, pro football, baseball, and even aspects of JMU sports. He’s still one of my best friends though. So I’m not going to take it personally if you think I’m crazy for sitting on the fence, of even if you want to blast me for not seeing what seems so obvious to you. If it comes across differently here or on Twitter, I apologize. That’s not my intent at all. Please feel free to weigh in the comments here or wait until we address the topic in its own post. Or go have a good beer and try to put this season behind you. That’s what I’m going to do.
We received the above Tweet last night and it got us thinking. Kyle is absolutely right. Insert your favorite cliche, but it really is a whole new season, anything can happen, etc. We’ve definitely struggled to remain optimistic about JMU hoops this year and even ventured toward cynicism. That seems sort of dumb when you think about it. Sports are not life and death. They are supposed to be fun. They are a lot of fun when you let them be. So while this season has unquestionably been disappointing, there is no reason we shouldn’t get excited for today’s game. Yes, JMU is a long shot to win the CAA. A very, very long shot. They’ve still got a chance though and it’d be a shame to ignore a great weekend of CAA basketball. I’m headed out the door to drive to Richmond as soon as I post this. In a few hours, I’ll either be celebrating an unlikely tournament win or ready to move on to next year. We can choose to be downers about things or we can choose to be optimistic. It’s more fun to go with the latter.
