In case you didn’t know, and honestly you didn’t, Kenny Brooks’ team had a huge OT comeback win against Wake Forest last weekend and is now set to host South Florida in the Women’s NIT Sweet 16 this Friday. Game’s at 7 p.m. and admission for students is free. You even get schwag and to see the band fine-tuning Start Wearing Purple, which apparently is finally catching on! Additionally, the winner gets the Cr(App) St. at UVa winner with the home team between JMU and UVa likely determined by whoever gets more attendance in this round in the event they each win. Would be pretty sweet to host UVa for a chance to go the NIT Final Four so best of luck to the women’s team!
[Interesting thought on the women’s team: Cooler from a casual JMU fan’s perspective to win the WNIT or lose a first-round NCAA game/get blown out by a Baylor/UConn type in the second round?]
On a personal note, as some of you who follow us on Twitter may know (@JMUsportsblog) I dork out, I mean really dork out, occassionally, about adventure racing. Thanks to an old JMU friend of mine, I’ve fallen in love with this fun, difficult, but admittedly over-indulgent, first-world, fringe sport. But this week I actually have a JMU sports angle on my pricey masochistic hobby! Our female teammate this weekend (“elite” division teams are coed) was none other than the absolute best athlete in Harrisonburg, Dukes Field Hockey Coach Antoinette Lucas. In her very first race, in this case a 12-hour race in Shenandoah River State Park between Luray and Front Royal, she was a rock-star and only us boys held her back from a better finish. Seriously, nothing like having a former Olympian on the team to remind the rest of us of our “amateur” status. Also, the race was the very first event produced by a new company, Adventure Addicts Racing, owned by JMU grad Andy Bacon! Having done a ton of these the past few years, I am happy to report that in true Dukes style, this was a top-class event. If you’re interested in the sport at all, check out the Adventure Addicts website or read our team’s race report from this weekend. Thanks to Coach L and now you all know why we often and inexplicably skew radically towards Field Hockey on an otherwise football/hoops/Sapong-centric blog.
JMU announced today that Coach Matthews suspended four members of the JMU football team. The four players are Jace Edwards, Anthony McDaniel, Wyatt Johnson, and Corey Davis and the suspensions were for a “violation of team rules.” Edwards is the biggest name of the group. Last year as a redshirt freshman he started 5 games for the Dukes. Of course he started those games because the #1 QB, Justin Thorpe, was suspended for a violation of team rules himself. Edwards had shoulder surgery and was not scheduled to participate in spring practice anyway. He will serve his suspension by missing the first game of the season against St. Francis. Corey Davis’ suspension will keep him out of 7 Spring practices, while McDaniel and Johnson will be held out for the entire Spring.
Matthews and the administration were typically tight lipped about things and offered no details about what the players did or what rules they violated. Without jumping into baseless speculation, when we read the news our assumption was that these suspensions are related to the fight that Edwards was involved in at a fraternity house last year. The Daily News Records’ Matthew Stoss pretty much confirmed that via Twitter earlier. If you recall, the police investigated the alleged incident and even went so far as to seize certain individuals cell phones. No charges were ever filed against Edwards or anyone else as far as we know.
The timing of the suspensions is a bit curious. The alleged incident took place last year and there hasn’t been any police action taken for months. Maybe something was going on behind the scenes or the football program was looking into things on their own though. In any case, Edwards is the only player who will miss any game action. And while the game he’ll miss is only against St. Francis, it could be costly for him and have an impact on the program.
JMU will be heavily favored against St. Francic and the game is likely to be a blowout. If the Dukes build up a big lead, then Justin Thorpe will surely be pulled early for another QB to come in for mop up duty. Were he not suspended, Edwards would probably get those reps. Now they’re up for grabs. And with a number of big QB recruits coming in, is there a chance we see one of them impress the coaches enough that they get the mop up duty in week one? Given Matthews’ history, it seems unlikely that he’d pull the redshirt of a QB like Ian Fischer in week one. Crazier things have happened though. And if Matthews did do it, and the QB looked good against St. Francis, could he pass Edwards on the depth chart? This little guessing game is probably all for naught. JMU will probably just throw Andre Coble back there and run the wildcat if they build a big lead. You never really know though. This suspension might make the competition for back-up QB a whole lot more interesting.
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
