JMU got off the schneid with a 74-67 win over Hampton at the Convo tonight. After 3 straight losses and about 2 weeks of miserable play, it was a result the Dukes desperately needed. Hampton made the NCAA tournament last year, but has regressed a bit this year. They are a team that JMU was expected to beat. The same could have been said for Northeastern and William & Mary though, so it’s nice that the Dukes came through. JMU now sits at 8-7 with a couple huge CAA contests set for later this week against VCU and Mason.
It’s Only One Game. Repeat. It’s Only One Game.
JMU didn’t shot well, make smart decisions, or do much of anything to encourage fans for the past 2 weeks. Tonight the team showed signs of life. It reminded me of the team that played so well over Thanksgiving. Better ball movement, a more balanced attack, and increased intensity on both ends of the floor. There were let downs, but the Dukes bounced back and closed it out. AJ Davis scored 21. Humpty snapped out of his funk and added 15. Andre Semenov went 6-8 from the field on his way to 17 points. In his first career start, Enoch Hood struggled offensively, but pulled down a team high 8 boards. The kid is raw and a beanpole, but seems to love crashing the glass. And he’s good at it. It’s only one game against a struggling opponent, but at least we saw signs of life and evidence that this team still has some fight left in it.
Is Brady Getting Through to Davis?
Coach Brady has never been one to mince words. He’s repeatedly stated that AJ Davis has to play with more intensity, particularly on defense, if he wants to play. He’s even gone so far as to pull AJ from the starting lineup and bench him for long stretches of games. Despite the loss, I thought AJ played a little better against Northeastern. Tonight, he played like the talented game changer we all hoped he’d be. Brady must have liked what he saw, because AJ played the full 40 minutes. Davis’ 3 point shooting woes continued, but rather than bombing away he went to the bucket. And while steals alone do not indicate good defense, he picked up 5 and was engaged on both ends of the court. Brady has taken a lot of criticism this season, and put his neck out there with the way he’s managed AJ. If tonight is any indication though, he might be making some headway. I certainly hope so.
The Road Ahead
We’d hoped that JMU would riding high after feasting on couple of the weaker CAA teams last week. Unfortunately, W&M and Northeastern had other things in mind. Now the Dukes need to get ready to play two of the stronger teams in the conference. Wednesday night they’ll head to Richmond to play VCU. The Rams looked to be the class of the conference before coming back down to earth with losses to an upstart Georgia State team and preseason favorite Drexel. The back-to-back losses probably have surely gotten their attention and anxious to right the ship. On Satureday, they welcome George Mason to the Convo. The Patriots have a new coach in Paul Hewitt, but there are just as deplorable as ever. Regrettably, they also are pretty good and currently sit atop the CAA standings. Lose these two and JMU’s chances of finishing in the top half of the league are probably gone. Win one or both though, and the Dukes entire season will change.
The Dukes lost to Northeastern today 68-56. Four games into the JMU’s CAA slate and I’m already at a loss for words. That’s not true exactly. I have plenty of words I could say about the situation with JMU basketball, it’s just that they all would be profane and none of them would be enlightening. We all are aware of the situation. JMU has been playing some terrible basketball and appears to be on the verge of spiraling further downward. It’s right there for all the world to see.
After worrying about JMU’s defense for years, it’s the offense that has been killing them lately. JMU came out of the gate this season shooting well, especially from 3 point range. It was the clear strength of the team. They’ve cooled off considerably after a hot start. And cooled off doesn’t really do it justice. It’s like they’ve got some sort of long distance shooting equivalent of Macky Sasser Disease. Continuing the analogy AJ Davis has gone the way of Rick Ankiel. After being up amongst the national leaders in 3 point percentage, including a crazy 8 for 9 game, he’s missed 15 out of his last 16 attempts. The team as a whole has missed 30 out of their last 33.
Today the Dukes couldn’t shoot from long range, but they were attacking the basket. It was a welcome change from their typical strategy of bombing away regardless of the situation. Unfortunately, it still didn’t matter. The first half was ugly, but I was encouraged by JMU’s effort and style of play. I actually had myself convinced that Brady had gotten through to AJ, who played better D and had some big dunks. Then the entire team just fell asleep for a 5 or 6 minute stretch in the second half. During that stretch JMU couldn’t buy a bucket and couldn’t stop the Huskies at all. Northeastern capitalized with a 11-0 run and that was pretty much all she wrote. For once the Dukes picked up the intensity and tried to press to get back in the game. As soon as they got within striking distance though, they relaxed, gave up some easy buckets, and let Northeastern close it out.
The lone bright spot today was the play of Enoch Hood. The 6’8″ freshman had his first career double-double with 10 points and 11 boards. Hood is still very raw, but he’s got a bright future. With Rayshawn Goins out and Gene Swindle as JMU’s only other post player, Hood could earn a lot of playing time this year. As discouraged as I am with how the season is going, I am just as optimistic about Hood. He needs to improve his free throw shooting, but I think he could develop into a serious presence in the paint.
Anyone who has ever been unfortunate to be on the receiving end of one of our long winded diatribes about JMU basketball knows that we’ve been big supporters of Matt Brady. We like his no holds barred approach and willingness to tell it like it is. We remember just how bad things were under the two coaches who shall not be named. We appreciate how quickly he righted the ship and raised expectations. If you read the blog it’s also probably apparent that we like to avoid any talk about JMU coaches’ job security. It’s just not that fun to question if another man deserves to keep his job (or we’re spineless cowards, it depends on your perspective I guess). I’d much rather make fun of Mason or write something to piss off Liberty fans. But it’s come to a point where the only thing anyone wants to talk about when it comes to JMU basketball is Coach Brady’s job security, so we might as well weigh in.
It is still early, but things don’t look very good. Brady spent the entire off season proclaiming that this was the year that he finally had a team to play his style of basketball. He insisted that Denzel’s departure would be addition by subtraction. He swore that he finally had a leader in Devon Moore, who could help the team play his system of basketball. We’re only 2 games into the CAA schedule, but it appears as if this team suffers from all of the ills that plagued them in the past, plus they have absolutely positively do not have anyone who can score in the paint. They seem to literally have no offensive sets. Instead their “system” seems to center on playing catch 30 feet from the hoop and waiting for someone to get hot from long range. When it works, as it did when AJ Davis went 8 for 9 from long range against Rider, JMU wins. When it doesn’t, they lose to teams as bad as Rhode Island and William & Mary.
Devon Moore, who was supposed to be the veteran leader, has not stepped up and taken control of this team. Worse than that, he seems to have regressed. His shooting percentage is down. His outside shot has disappeared (14% from 3 pt range). He’s not driving to the hoop and therefore not getting to the line enough (his free throw rate is down to 30% after being 60% last year). The team was better off with Humpty running the point. And Humpty has played what seems to be a season’s worth of minutes and it’s the first week in January. He’s been great, but he’s being worked to the bone.
Todd and I have defended Brady for years and still haven’t turned on him, but it really seems like he’s losing this team. He caught a bad break with Rayshawn Goins going down for the season, but he’s failed to recruit any depth down low. Trevon Flores left the team for personal reasons. My heart breaks for the kid who was struggling to deal with the loss of his mother. However, he was a 6’11” junior who lost his starting job 3 games into the season to a big man transfer who had been out of basketball for 2 years. That same big man, a 6’11” 260 pound big man to be precise, only averages 2 rebounds a game. This is a roster with too many holes and a team without any identify.
I like Brady and want him to succeed. He deserves credit for getting the program back to respectability after the damage the 2 coaches who shall not be named did. This loss to William & Mary is bad news though. It either was rock bottom and it will motivate JMU to get it together, or we’re going to look back 3 months from now and point to it as the thing that sealed Brady’s fate and charted him on a course out of town. I really hope it’s the former. I hope people throw this in my face and mock me for writing it years for now after Brady leads JMU to another CAA championship. This just seems an awful lot like the situation with Bruce Boudreau and the Capitals. Brady might be the coach that could pull them out of the basement and right the ship, but someone else might need to be the guy to take them to the next level.
Julius didn't even contribute questionable shot selection tonight and the Dukes still stunk up the joint.
We might suck. Brady has got to be in trouble now. That’s really all there is to say after a game where the Dukes crushed William & Mary on the offensive glass and created a ton of turnovers yet used their typically dreadful offensive gameplan and a doghouse now full of players to get out of town with nothing but another big, fat loss, each one seemingly uglier than the last. A lot of ball to be played, but someday the Dukes will have to learn to beat the dorky white kids and the dorky black kids who play white-kid ball in the green and gold.
The Excuses
Flu’s been running through the team like wildfire. Julius Wells was so sick with some type of virus he ended up in the hospital after Monday’s loss to ODU and couldn’t play tonight or Saturday.
Not sure if Swindle’s knee or his play was the issue, but he hardly played tonight and with the Dukes already down Goins and Wells, the tired legs of the guard-heavy lineup certainly had a lot to do with a 2-23 night from three point land.
Missing Goins in the post is really catching up to them and the young fill-ins are having to learn on the fly and going through some growing pains.
The Truth
For the second year in a row, Brady’s having a pissing contest with his most talented player (Bowles, Davis). And for the fourth year in a row (well actually around the second decade in a row but only the last few under Brady), the Dukes have zippy discipline, creativity, or poise on offense. If Brady’s not on the super hot-seat, he should be.
2-23 is not something you can make excuses for, it’s just bad shooting. And without Wells on the court tonight, they were mostly good looks.
The team has been out of sorts since Moore came back. He’s been rusty, his always dicey jumper hasn’t even gotten back to semi-respectability, and he doesn’t seem to have either the green light or the confidence to try to take over the last five minutes the way he did last year.
This team may have some decent moments against the flashier offensive teams in the CAA like GMU and VCU, but when they face the lockdown zone of Georgia St. and the brutal man-to-man of Drexel, we may witness ugliness the likes of which we haven’t seen since Dean Keener was prowling the sidelines.
I was scouting WVU instead of bleeeding from eyes watching this crap on Madizone the last few minutes. We started tweeting about next years matchup with the (real) Mountaineers and even DURING a close hoops matchup with an old rival, the interwebs showered us with love for the football mentions even on this random, cold Wednesday in a way Dukes basketball can’t even imagine. Just to warm the hearts of JMU Nation, let’s all just remember it’s less than 8 months till Bridgeforth tailgating and the FedEx matchup with WVU is September 15th at 7 p.m. Enormous tailgate plans forthcoming, but no weddings, showers, or other family nonsense. If you or your spouse just conceived over the holidays, you really need to reevaluate your priorities.
By now you know that JMU suffered 67-61 OT loss to ODU yesterday. We apologize for the delay getting this post up, but we’re still working our way out of a holiday fog. We’ve had a chance to let the emotions run their course now though and might be in a slightly better position to look at things rationally than we were 24 hours ago. Maybe. Obviously, this was a tough loss to stomach. JMU blew a double-digit second half lead and had ODU on the ropes ready to be knocked out. A win would have put the Dukes at 2-0 in the CAA with some serious momentum heading into the heart of conference play. Instead, they’re 1-1 and have missed a huge opportunity to get a rare win over an ODU program that has owned them for years.
The Obvious
JMU just got murdered on the boards yesterday. If you had to pick one thing that made the difference in this game, that would be it. ODU pulled down a ridiculous 50 rebounds versus only 31 for the Dukes. Of ODU’s 50 rebounds, 22 of them were on the offensive end. That translated to a lot of extra chances for the Monarchs. They were missing easy put-backs in the first half, which helped JMU get out to an 8 point lead at the half. ODU kept attacking the glass though and eventually started converting on second chances.
JMU’s Offensive Execution
If you weren’t able to see this game, let me do my best to explain how the Dukes’ offense operated. In the first half, they had really good ball movement, attacked the rim, and shot very well from long range. In the second half they played catch 30 feet from the basket and then launched threes with the shot clock winding down. To call it un-inspired would be charitable. It was just lifeless. Thankfully Andre Semenov tried to snap them out of it and managed to get to the line and hit some big free throws down the stretch. Otherwise, it really seemed like a bunch of guys who were completely exhausted, just content to win or die by the jump shot.
AJ Davis vs. Matt Brady
As ODU chipped away at the lead in the second half, JMU could have really used someone who could create his own shot and stop the bleeding. A player exactly like AJ Davis. Unfortunately, Davis was glued to the bench for large stretches by Matt Brady who wasn’t satisfied with his effort on the defensive end. On one hand, you really have to admire Brady for holding guys accountable this season. Brady has never pulled any punches and he’s made it very clear this year that players who don’t work on both ends of the court are going to get benched. On the other hand, we watched for the past 2 years when he let Denzel Bowles play offense only for 2 years. Now he’s trying to play hard-ball with arguably JMU’s most talented player to make sure he commits to being a complete basketball player. I respect Brady for what he’s doing and think it’s the right thing to do. I just wonder if it is some sort of Bruce Boudreau situation where a coach changes his approach after already establishing a specific culture.
The End of Regulation
ODU’s Kent Bazemore tied the game with 6 seconds left and JMU had Humpty, Semenov, Diouff, Wells, and Moore on the floor. I’m not sure how you would personally rank the players you’d most like to get the ball in that situation, but I’m fairly certain that you’d all have Humpty first and you should have Julius Wells last. If that sounds harsh, I apologize. Wells has some good attributes, but he’s not a guy who can go end-to-end quickly. He’s a guy who likes to shoot 3 pointers. And that’s exactly what he did, even though there were still 2 seconds on the clock, he was double-teamed, off balance, and had the opportunity to at least try to pass it to Moore or Semenov who were wide-open streaking down the court. Yeah, I know things are different in the heat of the moment, but go watch the end of regulation and then try to disagree with me. Humpty doesn’t want to inbound it because he wants the ball in his hands. He makes the right pass to Julius to get it up the court quickly, but Julius never makes the next pass. He just jogs up court and launches a trey. That’s not the way you draw it up.
The JMU Dukes traveled 693 miles South to lose to a basketball game to a team from 513 miles to the North in the opening round of the Holiday Classic at the University of South Florida. And the inefficiency wasn’t even the worst part of it. The worst part was that the team they lost to, the Rhode Island Rams, was 1-11 entering the game. And they were without their leading scorer, Jamal Wilson, who was recently dismissed from the team. And this is not a case of Rhode Island being a solid 1-11 if their even is such a thing. They have been every bit as bad as their record indicates. And JMU got blown out by the score of 79-60.
This was a game that everyone expected to be a laugher and it was. We just all expected it would be the Dukes who were laughing. I certainly wasn’t laughing. I was behaving like a jackass shaking my fists and cursing to myself as a listened to the game online. Personally speaking, it was a bit of a lowpoint. The only saving grace was that I’ve been watching this Baylor vs Washington football game, so my eyes were spared from JMU basketball carnage.
It’s usually tough to analyze things in depth based solely on the audio call. There isn’t much to analyze about this one though. JMU just got flat out beaten. Humpty Hitchens wasn’t at full strength due to a bought with the flu. That wasn’t why JMU lost though. They lost because they played sloppy basketball, shot poorly, didn’t rebound well enough, missed too many free throws in the second half, and failed to take advantage of multiple opportunities to get back in the game. Even when URI got called for a flagrant foul and gave the Dukes a chance to close to single-digits with plenty of time left, JMU couldn’t come through. Julius Wells went 1 for 8. Devon Moore was 2 for 9. AJ was 3 for 9. They let URI shoot 50% from the field. They turned it over 19 times. They got outrebounded 38-25. It just wasn’t the Dukes’ night.
If you search for positives hard enough, you’re bound to find them though, right? Well, tonight JMU at least was going to the basket in the second half instead of forcing jumpers. They were getting to the line as a result. They just couldn’t get the shots to fall. And freshman Arman Marks had a decent game, with 10 points on 4-4 shooting. That’s about it though.
JMU will get a chance to put this one behind them tomorrow in the tournament’s consolation game against a 4-7 Stetson team. They follow that up with a game at home against ODU on Monday. If they pull it together and defeat the Monarchs, we can all pretend this little setback never happened.
I work in DC these days, not all that far from crumbling old RFK Stadium. While it holds a lifetime of nostalgia and warm memories for me for reasons well beyond the Skins (’94 World Cup, concerts, DC United games, the Nats inaugural season), playing in, or spectating for, a football game there nowadays against a mediocre opponent during a buttassed cold winter weekday afternoon is really not high on my list of sporting options. This occured to me when a co-worker and I briefly, ok jokingly, entertained the idea of heading over this afternoon to check out Toledo and Air Force in the Military Bowl.
And then another thought chilled me in a way the 40 mph gusts in the city today never could. THIS could be exactly what we have to “look forward” to in the event JMU moves up to FBS football in the next couple of years. In fact, THIS really may be the absolute best we can hope for in the next decade in the scenarios currently under consideration for the Dukes to move up. Look, I really do support the idea of a new East Coast Conference with a great mix of old and new rivals (though geographically sensical unlike other “local” conferences). And beyond that, I absolutely love the idea of being relevant, even if that means an occasional Tuesday night home game for television and early season trips to Baton Rouge, but let’s not kid ourselves that we’d rather be Toledo today in that ridiculous exhibition that most of JMU nation would completely tune out as opposed to North Dakota St. or Sam Houston St. prepping for a championship game, even if it is one taking place at 11 a.m. local time the hungover morning after the Cotton Bowl down the street. But just wanted to point out this chilly reminder to be careful what you wish for. That said, as we’ve mentioned in this space before, current FCS alignment just doesn’t appear to be sustainable and the most likely thing seems to be a parting of the 20 or 30 programs that “care,” of which JMU is clearly one of the top handful, and the rest. In this case, the 20 or 30 top programs would be headed for FBS bantha fodder with the MAC’s, SunBelch’s, and WAC’s of the world, while those left behind would be falling back into something like current D2 status. If that’s the case, I like where JMU is headed. Not to mention if there ever is a more wide-open playoff scenario (not likely with or w/out the NCAA being involved of which we are both staunchly opposed) for FBS down the road….
….well at least that dream can keep a Dukes fan warm on a cold day at the Military Bowl.
In other news, Dukes take on Rhode Island from the A-10 in hoops tomorrow night and HOST ODU next Monday, January 2nd. As this is a holiday for many folks and the trip to the ‘Burg might not be out of the question, take note that admission to the game is FREE for all fans wearing purple. Seriously, this is just awesome so hopefully JMU can turn out a big crowd to watch them finally slay their nemesis.
We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas. We certainly did and we are still laying low and catching up on some much needed quality time with family and friends. The CAA Bloggers Poll takes no holidays though and we had to turn in our ballot this morning. The full results of the poll will be posted to VCU Ram Nation later this week. Here is our ballot. We based the vote on all the games between last Monday and yesterday.
The Dukes' Humpty Hitchens
Well it was a little more nerve-racking down the stretch than we’d hoped, but JMU got out of DC with a 62-57 win over GW last night. It’s always nice to get a win on the road and despite the relatively disappointing offensive effort in the second half, we came away more optimistic about the Dukes’ chances in the CAA. This JMU team isn’t great, but neither is the league this year. I mean, we’re talking about a league where just when a team starts to look like it’s putting things together, they go out and lose to Howard. So it’s a winnable CAA. Anyway here are 3 quick thoughts on the game.
Insert Cliche Here
Sports cliches suck, but sometimes they are unavoidable. I’m going to try to refrain from using them and saying JMU was a different team after the break or anything like that. The fact is that JMU looked amazing in the first half and then they just didn’t in the second half. The first 20 minutes were about as well played as any half of basketball I’d seen by the Dukes in years. JMU shot the ball well and played really solid defense to limit the Colonials. AJ Davis and Humpty had 17 points each and the Dukes had a 20 point lead at the break. They had 18 points as a team in the second half. They couldn’t find good shots and the few they managed to get off weren’t going in. It was dicey for a while, but they managed to hold on and escape with a win.
Mike Lonnergan Does Not Speak Humpty
I have no idea what was said between the two, but Humpty and Mike Lonnergan had a bit of an altercation late in the second half. Humpty apparently was getting a little too close to the GW bench for Lonnergan’s comfort and next think you know people were pulling them apart from each other. Whatever the case, neither guy got T’d up, so it couldn’t have been that bad. Brady and the assistant coaches, particularly Lou Rowe, did an excellent job of getting Humpty out of there and calming him down. What could have been sort of ugly, turned out to be nothing.
Purple Out
This might have been a road game for the Dukes, but JMU fans showed up and eliminated any home court advantage the Colonials could have had. Which was good, because with nearly all the seats in the Smith Center practically hanging over the court, it would be a very tough place to play if it were packed with GW fans. I thought it was a terrific place to watch a college basketball game and obviously loved seeing so many Dukes fans there. Kudos to the Duke Club (and Living Social) for doing such a great job to get JMU fans out in full force. And I’m sure I speak for Todd when I say that it was awesome to meet some more blog readers in person.
Alright, I’m gonna cut this short because the JMUSB post game celebration at Jay’s Saloon has me in dire need of a cup of coffee. Merry Christmas everyone!
VCU continued its reign at the top of the CAA Bloggers Poll this week and deservedly so. Our Dukes moved up a few spots to 4th. I actually had the Dukes in the 6th slot. Before anyone crushes me, I turned in my ballot prior to Monday’s game and was judging them based on the complete stinker of an effort against Kent State. I still think it’s pretty much VCU and everyone else at this point. No other team has been able to play consistent basketball thus far. Well, unless you count Towson and William & Mary which have both been consistently dreadful. Here is my full ballot.
