If you want the good news, just skip to the Good News section below. So, men’s hoops went on the road in the ATL to visit this year’s CAA surprise team, Georgia St., and the now familiar scrit repeated itself. Again. I’d link you to the game story, but let’s be honest, you don’t care. The undermanned Dukes played scrappy, smart, passionate basketball through the under 16 timeout in the second half, when they held a 5-point lead. And then the wheels fell off under an avalanche of lazy fouls, bad turnovers, and awful shots. Devon Moore’s wrist injury, suffered late in the loss to Hofstra on Saturday, made the Dukes look like the JV scrimmaging the varsity when the Panthers turned up the heat defensively in the second half. In fact, JMU was one more player fouling out away from having to turn to walk-ons, burning a redshirt, or Ollie from Hoosiers. With Goins, Wells, and Moore, the heart of last year’s team, all out now, it’s really almost unfair to jump on the players. But tonight’s game brings two questions to the forefront and gives us a chance to give a piece of advice.
1) Who is going to be the next coach? And how much will that decision be impacted by the new JMU President and his feelings on Jeff Bourne? Needless to say, more on this at CAA tourney time.
2) What in the sam hell was Julius Wells doing tweeting about watching “his girl” Skylar Diggins at 7:20 p.m. tonight?! You know, when the Dukes were playing. I mean, I guess I understand he’s not traveling now, and I guess I can even believe he’s not used to firing up the MadiZone broadcast, but seriously, someone should remind him how much tuition he paid during his four-year barrage of Dray Blatche shot selections.
3) If you plan to watch Thursday’s game on Comcast (8 p.m.) or even worse, to attend the Mason game this Saturday, this is a public service announcement: Drink heavily before viewing. You’re going to need spirits, maybe even corn liquor, for these and do not fool yourself into thinking beer or wine will do the job.
Good News!!!
Really could say great news for two JMU alums (warning: one is non-sports but it’s really cool).
First, former JMU soccer star and recently crowned MLS Rookie of the Year C.J. Sapong was capped Saturday night in the USA’s victory over Venezuela! A “cap” in soccer, for anyone who still hates on the beautiful game, is when you actually get playing time for your national team. Yes it’s a friendly and largely a young, inexperienced group that will not comprise the “A” team for a few years, but this is enormous. Rob’s going to cover this in detail later in the week, but seriously, a Duke Dog on the National team is pretty damn awesome. And he earned a solid 6 to 6.5 from commentators for his performance for those who know soccer ratings!
Second, JMU alum and friend of JMUSB Matt Bondurant’s book, The Night Swimmer, came out this week to a great bit of fanfare. Having read my fellow JMU English department product’s third novel over the weekend, I’ll offer that this San Francisco Chronicle review does it fairly good justice, though I’d have liked to see a nod to the outstanding and eclectic music references in the book. Oh yeah, and his last book, The Wettest County in the World, is awaiting release of the film adaptation this summer with a few actors you “may” have heard of! Click that link and check out the company Wettest County is keeping these days (Hunger Games). Better yet, read it, preferably while listening to a Drive-By Truckers album with a glass of Early Times. After all, it’s kind of the mood of the hoops season.
Devon Moore falls down, Alioune Diouf is oblivious to the game clock, and the Dukes never get a shot off. Hofstra wins.
— Mark Selig (@MarkRSelig) January 21, 2012
We’ve written thousands of words on the Dukes this year, yet the DNR’s Mark Selig was able to tell the whole story of the 2011-2012 JMU Basketball season in less than 140 characters. Yeah, the Dukes lost to Hofstra today at home by the score of 71-69. It was Hofstra’s first CAA win of the season. JMU kept it close all game. They had a chance to win in the end. But alas it was not meant to be. See the above tweet. I don’t know what else to say. Todd and I aren’t even pissed. We’re numb. And as fans that might actually be worse.
The above video was put together by JMU as part of the Come to JMU campaign to recruit students. And it’s awesome. I can’t do anything but smile when I watch it. Well, that’s not true exactly. I also can’t help but wonder what else they are not showing us. There has to be some unintentional comedy gold on the cutting room floor right? Because I promise you that if someone put a camera in front of me back when I was in college and asked me for 3 words to describe JMU the results would be cringe worthy. I don’t know exactly what I would have said. It’s a safe bet that it would have been about booze and women, ironically enough two things that I absolutely could not handle.
Because I am ancient however, technology was not as advanced when I was a student. Yes, there were draw backs. We had to actually walk to the library to look things up instead of Googling them. And we had to register for classes over the phone (land line) by entering ridiculously long codes (only to have the pre-recorded voice inform us the section we wanted was full) instead or signing up for classes online. And we never could have put together such a great video like they did here. It would have taken a team of 14 people 75 hours in the AV lab to create something half as good. So while there might be a 5 by 7 glossy or two featuring yours truly in flannel shirts, baggy jeans, wool socks and Birkenstocks, you’ll find no incriminating videos of college me on the VAX, a laptop, or smartphone. But that can’t be the case nowadays. And while we the above video warms our hearts with good memories of our alma matter, we’d really like to see the awful stuff that didn’t make the cut. Just doctor it up and make it a Mason video if it’s truly that bad.
H/T to @RealFrankBio and others for the video
Oh yeah, and the Wizards held off the Thunder. Maybe should all get shootin’ lessons from the Nuge and move to Montana. Before getting to the Dukes, a quick question: Would it have been inappropriate for Wiz fans to storm the court tonight? Never even occured to me at the pro level, but just felt right at the end this evening.
That kinda night!
Ok, we can finally celebrate snapping this miserable JMU losing streak, stop hearing about how their only CAA win was largely based on a miracle shot at Hofstra, and overlook the typically awful incidents in tonight’s game (blowing an 11 point lead midway through the 2nd, Semenov missing two techs that would’ve stopped UNCW’s run, and genearlly trying desparately to give away a game in which they appeared to be both more talented and better coached).
The Good
Darn right I said better coached, and no one is more surprised than we are after finally testing the waters of the #firemattbrady pool these past couple of days. But tonight’s gameplan of mixing up the defenses with some first-half zone and then constant double-teaming from every angle on Seahawk’s star Keith Rendlemen was definitely worthy of high praise.
Humpty’s career high 27 were enormous and the return of his three-point touch was a site for sore eyes.
The ball in Devon Moore’s hands throughout the last few minutes with no question who’s show it was in crunch time!
Enoch Hood chipped in with 14 points, great effort on Rendlemen, and consistent work on the glass. His development is the high point of the season so far. He even drew some love from UNCW reporter Brian Mull. (seriously, if you care about the CAA, there’s not a better, more reasoned voice anywhere than Mull – follow him on Twitter @BGMull and enjoy!)
The Bad
We’re skipping this tonight in celebration of snapping the streak, but continuing to miss Julius is tough when the inevitable offensive droughts come.
The Ugly
One word: MadiZone. We hate you, you cheap, low-rent piece of crap. The jmusports website may look better, but this remains sickening, especially on a night when I’m fairly confident that only the two of us and a couple more shut-ins with their cable out were tuning in.
Billy Cosh.
It’s been rumored for a few weeks, and today Mike Barber from the DNR and Rivals tweeted that Billy Cosh has left JMU. According to Barber, Cosh has transferred to Butler Community College in Colorado Kansas and will play football there.
Cosh came to JMU last spring as a transfer from Kansas State, where he redshirted his freshman year. He had some ridiculous high school stats and was one of the most prolific passers in Maryland high school history. His senior year in high school he threw for 3,913 yards and 56 touchdowns, both state records. He was the 2009 Washington Post Player of the Year. Those numbers and accolades, plus the fact that he was coming from a BCS program, had JMU fans eager to see him rise up the depth charts. Unfortunately for Billy, that never happened.
Cosh was firmly 3rd in the pecking order behind Justin Thorpe and Jace Edwards, and even got passed by Andre Coble on the gameday depth chart late in the season. I don’t know if his skills made him a bad fit for the JMU offense, if the other guys on the roster were just better, or if it was something else entirely. The fact that he’s transferring down to a JUCO program leads me to believe he was pretty confident he was never going to see the field at JMU. His departure just makes the pending arrival of 6’6″ 245 lbs QB Ian Fisher that much more exciting. By all accounts Cosh is a great kid though and we certainly wish him well.
JMU lost to George Mason 89-83 yesterday. Again. For the 6th straight time. For the 17th time in the last 18 games between the two schools actually. Yesterday was a very ugly game in which the Dukes were down big only to mount a furious late rally that left them just short of victory. A moral victory that is. And quite frankly, we’re over moral victories. We need some real wins to inspire some confidence in this team. It’s not even February and we’ve pretty much thrown the towel as fans already.
At this point I guess I should just come right out and say that I didn’t have the stomach to sit through this game. I tuned in for the first half with my old man. Neither one of us could take it though. He finally screamed uncle after yet another hideous offensive sequence beginning with the Dukes aimlessly tossing it around the perimeter and finishing with Devon Moore bricking a mid-range jumper. At that point my Dad just grunted and demanded we switch over the Saints vs Niners. I had no will to argue with him, nor any desire to watch any more. I switched the channel.
I know the players are giving it their all. At least most of the time, they appear to be. Other times, it kind of seems like they’re not to be honest. But the fact of the matter is, JMU plays an incredibly frustrating style of basketball. It’s just not any fun to watch. And it’s not just because they are losing. It’s more because they have no apparent system or signature style of play. And that makes me feel helpless. When a team doesn’t have a system, then to me it means you’re basically just waiting for the players themselves to become better basketball players. There is no real benefit to experience because there is no system to become more comfortable or develop expertise in. Case in point is Devon Moore. We all assumed that he’d be better this year because he’s an upperclassman with 2 years of experience running this team. Well there is nothing to really run, so we’re not seeing him get anything extra out of his teammates. As my dad said, it’s like watching a team play pick-up ball. A team play bad pick-up ball.
Regardless, I’m going to stick with this team. It might not be fun to watch and I might not have much hope, but I’m not completely giving up. I’ll try to focus on the positive and cheer like hell for upsets. And then if Brady is let go, which seems inevitable at this point, I’ll try to muster up some enthusiasm and convince myself that the next coach will turn it around next year.
Seriously, actually dookie is better to watch on your television than our beloved Dukes right now. There’s just no excuses remaining and no redeeming quality to this squad. Four minutes into the second half at VCU tonight, the Dukes were down just 45-41 and had us all thinking they just might steal one, or at the least finish off a respectable performance on the road against a tough squad despite the recent struggles. If you had the unfortunate pleasure of walking in from work at about that point in the rare 6:00 start however, you would only get to see the Dukes make a single field goal the rest of the way and you likely would have considered gouging your own eyes out with a spork. The problems our too many to list, but the utter lack of effort to create good shots and a seemingly ironclad belief in the certainty of their own defeat (and Devon Moore’s hideous shooting) made the blowout loss a foregone conclusion despite the early mirage.
I really wish there was something better to say, but honestly, nothing can be said here except the team appears to have quit on Brady, has zippy confidence, and actually misses Julius Wells. I’ve harped on Wells’ shot selection for years, but things have gotten so bad that JMU actually misses his irrational confidence and odd ability to make a couple of those terrible shots at just the right time. Get your first night tickets for the CAA tourney if you want to see the zillionth straight one and done showing from the purple n’ gold!
Plus wouldn’t you rather scroll down to our previous post and laugh your ass off at Mike Fratello rocking out with full-on male toe!
Todd drew the short straw and is on the hook for writing about the loss to VCU. That gives me a free pass to ignore the debacle and do my best to pretend it never happened. And I can think of no better way to distract myself from the struggles of the 2011-2012 JMU basketball team than by looking at pictures of random JMU hoops teams from the 1970s. Fortunately, this little beauty of the 1973 JMU Men’s Basketball team was sent to us. And yes, that is TNT basketball analyst and former JMU assistant coach Mike Fratello on the far right. I’m not sure who the others are, but their pants are pretty fly. And I’m fairly certain we could slip Gene Swindle into the picture and nobody would notice.
Huge H/T to @bpmarkowitz for sending us this picture and a few more we’ll post later.
No. Not that Paterno, his son. And not the “lawyer” who tries to coordinate impromptu press conferences via Twitter. We’re talking about Jay Paterno who announced this week that he was leaving the Penn State program after 17 years on the coaching staff. Jay was the quarterbacks coach for the Nittany Lions. It was the same position he held at James Madison University prior to joining his father in Happy Valley. Which obviously leads to this, would you want JMU to hire Paterno to coach JMU’s QBs next season? Because we have it on good authority that the move could be in the works. (Ed. note – Not true. Literally nobody on earth is considering this. We’re bored and desperate to talk football.)
With Justin Thorpe, Jace Edwards, Billy Cosh, already on the roster, and wonder recruit Ian Fischer on the way, JMU could use an experience QB coach to mold them. Paterno might be just the guy to do it. He was JMU’s QB coach under Rip Scherer in 1994. The Dukes starting QB that year was Mike Cawley. Cawley was the team MVP and threw for more yards than any other QB in JMU’s history. He led an explosive JMU offense that year and guided the team to a 10-3 record. They were awarded the Lambert/Meadowlands Cup as the top 1-AA team in the East. The Dukes knocked off Troy State in the playoffs before falling to Marshall in OT in the second round. As someone who watched that JMU team closely, I can assure you the offense was like nothing you’ve seen from JMU the past few years. Cawley could sling it. If Paterno could get similar production from any of the QBs on JMU’s roster, next year’s team would be sick.
This move wouldn’t only benefit JMU, it could be great for Paterno as well. He’d get to step back from the glare of the spotlight, the media scrutiny, and quite frankly from the black cloud that has been hanging over Penn State. Instead he’d get to join an elite FCS level program with a chance to compete for a championship. It might be a great chance for him to focus on football and recharge the batteries. Then he could make a move and start somewhere fresh when the smoke clears in a few years. Seems like a no brainer to me.
After a rough week in which the Dukes lost to ODU, Northeastern, and William & Mary, they plummeted in this week’s CAA Bloggers Poll. JMU finds itself in the 9th slot now. VCU surrendered the top spot to George Mason after holding onto it for the previous four weeks. After losing to Georgia State and Drexel, the Rams fell to third. As you can see from below, I dropped them a bit further. As far as the Dukes go, I’m not giving up hope, but they deserved to be dropped down near the bottom. Thanks again to Mat Shelton from VCU Ram Nation for allowing us to vote in the poll. Here is my ballot.