ODU and VCU did all CAA fans proud the other night. They played a hell of a game and proved to a national tv audience that the CAA is a league to be taken seriously. And while all of this #3Bids4CAA excitement has been fun, I’m ready for JMU to return to the NCAA tournament. It has been a long time since the Dukes went dancing. A really, really long time.
JMU last played in the NCAA Tournament 17 years ago. They lost 64-62 in the first round to Florida and haven’t been back since. The game took place on March 17, 1994. It was a different world back then. The top story in the papers that morning was that Tonya Harding plead guilty to avoid jail time for her role in the attack on Nancy Kerrigan. Bryant Gumbel was the host of the Today show and didn’t even know what the internet was. I didn’t either, but I was a freshman at JMU and my roommate had a computer with a modem so we could dial-in to the VAX. I can’t remember being able to do anything other than try to register for classes once we logged in though. And that always took so long, that I bailed and just used the phone. It was a landline. You see, I was one of of only 10,825 undergraduates at JMU and I’m fairly certain not a single one of us had a cell phone. I think a couple rich kids had car phones though.
I must admit that I don’t remember exactly what I did that day. Campus was seriously buzzing for the game, especially after the way Kent Culuko got the Dukes into the tournament. It was a heck of a shot he made. It probably helped that he was wearing Reebok Pumps. Maybe I went and played ball or worked out. In Godwin Hall of course, because UREC didn’t exist. Before the game, I’m sure I ate at D-Hall or Dukes for dinner though, because there were no other options. Unless you count the steakhouse, but that was for special occasions. And I know I didn’t check my email, but I almost definitely ducked into the post office in Warren Hall to see if I had any letters in my mailbox. Maybe while I was in the building, I picked up a blue-book from the bookstore for an upcoming exam.
I wasn’t yet 21, but I know that a lot of people who were probably pregamed by drinking dime drafts at JM’s. Others probably went to Gus’s (not Dave’s) for $1.85 pitchers. And I’m sure a lot of folks partied after the game on Greek Row and got their fill of beer from kegs that cost $27 at Mike’s Chevron. Maybe some people didn’t watch the game and instead tuned into Seinfeld, the number one show on television. Others might have watched In Living Color instead. Being a college campus there was music playing everywhere. Unfortunately it might have been The Sign by Ace of Base because it was the #1 song in the country that week. And there is a good chance it was being played on tape. But for those not interested in the game, or tv, or music, the movies were an option. And quite an option it was with smash hits like Naked Gun 331/3 opening in theaters that week.
I didn’t do any of those things though. I just watched the game. In Hillside Hall. On a 19 inch color tv. I remember paying attention to half-time so that I could find out who won the day’s earlier games. There wasn’t any other way to find out, since ESPNet.SportsZone.com wouldn’t launch for another year. I don’t recall many details about the game other than Clayton Ritter played like a beast and Andrew DeClercq got away with a kicked ball near the end. Even though JMU lost, it was still a great tournament. And how could it not be, guys like Dean Smith, Denny Crum, Bob Knight, John Thompson, and JMU’s Lefty Driessel coaching. And in addition to great coaches, there were some outstanding players like Grant Hill, Jason Kidd, and Glen Robinson playing in their final college games (ed. note – I’m sorry if this puts to rest the urban legend than Robinson ever played in the convo. He didn’t. JMU defeated Purdue at home the next season though after he left.) I wonder if Denzel Bowles remembers that game. Probably not. He was only 5 years old.
Here’s the game story from the Richmond Times-Dispatch. But here’s the JMUSB angles on the CAA tourney.
The Good – The game was incredible! You’ll be hard-pressed to find a game this whole championship week that comes close to this one for atmosphere, level of play, and sheer intensity. Unfortunately, VCU may be doomed to bookend their season with NIT berths (pre and post seasons) and sending GheorghetheBlog’s season-long dream of #3bids4CAA down in flames, but it wasn’t without an incredible effort to comeback from 18 down early in the 2nd half to close within a single point before the Monarchs pulled it out. Was it possibly even enough to keep the dream alive though? Could be, CAA Commish (Senior Doofus) Tom Yeager said before the game the NCAA told him VCU was in consideration win or lose. But the crowd was fabulous and for all the yakking from Hempstead to Wilmington (with most of the loudest whining coming from Fairfax) about moving the tourney out of Richmond, tonight was awesome.
The Bad – as in badass, did you see the elbow the VCU kid Henry took from ODU’s manchild Frank Hassell?! And then returned to the game with stitches INSIDE his mouth and glassy eyes. Great toughness that defined this game. That said, are you friggin’ kidding me VCU training/medical staff. I’m sitting on my couch and when they first showed the replay, I did a full Chris Tucker as Smokey in Friday “You Got knocked the -uck out!” to my unamused wife. Then when they showed him on the bench before he returned, it looked like the poor kid had no earthly idea where he was. You’ll never convince me he did not have a concussion and had no business even back on the court, much less IN THE GAME.
The Ugly – The CAA. I’ve been bitchin’ for a while now about the shoddy, provincial, bush-league, low-rent, d-list nature of the poor little old Colonial and tonight they nearly screwed up
CAA Production Truck
their one big shot on a national stage with that absolute debacle of a smokeshow or whatever the hell ruined the floor, nearly ruined a VCU player’s ankle, and clearly caused the Rams to play very nervous on that end of the floor in the first five minutes or so. Look, the CAA is a proud conference, especially here in the Commonwealth. It has served Virginia’s collection of acronymn schools well over the last few decades and has at least made an effort (football) to upgrade it’s status the last couple of seasons. But this is pure alpaca shit. It actually makes the ACC’s Jefferson Pilot/Raycom Sports, league-killing, Food Lion, redneck production look downright classy.
Tonight’s HUGE upgrade in announcers only served to drive home the point. ESPN’s national team doesn’t even know the CAA as well as our regulars, but they clearly did their homework, actually love and watch a ton of college hoops, and added to the excitement in the building throughout. I’m going to leave the details of my feelings on the Conference’s LARGE questions and issues for the silly season approaching, but suffices to say it’s time for the Dukes and Monarchs to make the calls to Boone, Atlanta, and Newark, ditch the old rivalries and cute pep bands, and set out for “greener” pastures.
For the next 24 hours, JMUSB is fully on board the VCU bandwagon. Sure everyone with a soul was pulling for them to beat George Mason, because well, it was George Mason and we hate them. But tomorrow night is different. Virtually every bracketologist, talking head, and college hoops writer in the country has George Mason as a lock for an at large bid. And I’m pretty sure that they all have ODU in as well. Therefore if VCU wins tomorrow night and secures the conference’s automatic bid, the CAA will be looking at 3 bids to the big dance. That’s right, the Twitter hashtag #3Bids4CAA created by our friend Georghe: The Blog, could actually be legitimate.
Three bids would be unprecedented for the CAA. The league has been in existence since 1983 and has only received multiple bids in 3 seasons, in 1996 when Richmond and Navy were selected, in 2006 when Mason and UNCW were selected, and in 2007 when ODU and VCU were selected. It seems blatantly obvious, but fans of all CAA teams except for ODU should be jumping on the VCU bandwagon with us. You’re not a bad fan or betraying your team by doing it. I’d actually argue that you’re betraying your team if you don’t.
Let me spell it out for you, more bids for the league is better for the league. Getting more teams into the dance validates the CAA and ups its profile. Each school could recruit better players because coaches could legitimately tell kids that a CAA Championship wasn’t the only way to go dancing. The schools would have greater success going head to head recruiting against A10 and MVC schools, and maybe in a few years start to snag more recruits away from power conferences. The league’s television profile, which is probably a subject for a post of its own, goes up. Instead of scrambling to watch the first few rounds of the tournament online or on regional cable, maybe ESPN would broadcast them. Instead of having the quality of tournament officiating called into question, maybe the league would actually get some refs that didn’t suck. It’s really a no brainer.
I’m as disappointed as anyone that JMU bombed out of the tournament Friday night. And while I certainly share some of Todd’s frustrations with Coach Brady and don’t dispute that he got outcoached by Shaver, I definitely think he’s got the program pointed in the right direction. A VCU win tomorrow could help accelerate JMU’s forward progress. VCU loses and they’re NIT bound. If VCU wins, it’s probably a lot more likely that the Dukes get an NIT bid. The NIT isn’t where anyone wants to be, but it’s better than playing in the CBI or CIT and it would give Brady a chance to prepare his team for sqauds from bigger and better conferences. It’s the basketball version of spring football, but it could be an important step for the JMU program. So, this might be the only time you ever read this words on the blog, but GO RAMS!
Received a text from a friend (the good Doctor Nelson) on this gloomy morning after the Dukes big chokejob in the tourney against the Caucasian Tribe. Simply said: “If Lefty was runnin’ things, this team could’ve spent all night at Club Velvet and still beat William & Mary by 20.”
While that does put quite a hipster-chic sepia tone on the up and down reign of the Dukes supposed glory days, the sentiment is correct. Coaching is to blame for this group disappointing and there is no way to sugarcoat it. After a restless night trying to put this behind me, I’ve managed to forget the missed front ends and defensive lapses by the players and , gasp, even the hideous officiating is fading in my memory, but the coaching issues are what remain front and center in my mind.
If the Dukes had won, I’d launch into a tirade about the 37-16 free throws attempted discrepancy or the fact a Technical Foul could surely have been called earlier in the game if you were annoyed with Brady as opposed to waiting until 3 minutes were left in a tight game and then throwing that dagger. But they lost, so it sounds crappy to blame the refs alone. That said, last night was the ultimate proof that I am on the right side of the argument in wishing for FBS in that I may have cute, provinicial love for the CAA, but it’s a darnright low-rent, bush league operation. It’s downright sad that while the play and talent in the conference have shot through the roof, but officiating, production value, and administration still look like an NAIA steaming pile of shit.
But this is my list of things I can’t forget:
1) Not pressing earlier. The Dukes have much better athletes than WM, WM was shooting free throws horribly last night, and JMU had no rythm on offense since Denzel spent so much time on the bench last night. Might’ve made sense to crank it up a little earlier after WM’s mid-2nd spurt.
2) Never getting the bench ready. The Dukes never varied their starting lineup till very late in the season and when more hands were needed, those players had not played significant enough minutes to be prepared. Chad Jackson on defense and Andrey Semenov on offense were nearly enough to save the Dukes last night, but as the season wound down, they were the only players Brady trusted enough to use off the bench. This isn’t the players fault, this is the coach’s not using them earlier. So what if it costs you against Presbyterian, we needed minutes from Trevon Flores last night in Bowles’ absence, but the season-long pissing contest had cost the squad that ability.
3) Down three, under :10 to go, Coach Brady didn’t even have a plan in place to funnel the ball to Kitts or another of WM’s weak free throw shooters. Actually appeared the Dukes just threw in the towel at this point but that’s even worse. Instead, I’ll assume they wanted to win, but just had not prepared and let WM’s point guard catch the ball uncontested.
4) Down 3, JMU ball, :25 to go, WM shooting free throws poorly. Classic case of let Devon Moore drive, at least get the 2, extend the game, see what happens and maybe get lucky w/ an old-fashioned 3-point play. But no, the Dukes run a confused screening action clearly going for the three. Just garbage and of course WM was ready and defended it so well that JMU ended up with Humpty, not Julius, taking a double-clutch three that essentially ended the game.
5) The waiting too long for a timeout. 2nd half, around 10 minutes to go, WM spurts. Brady, as he has all season waits two or three possessions too long for a timeout. Yes, he was trying to wait for the under 8:00 media timeout, but by the time he finally called it he a) couldn’t even wait for the media time even though it was now under 8, and b) the damage was already done. Probably the fifth or sixth time this season the coaching staff (and I do think assistants get some blame on timeout management) has completely botched it.
In conclusion, this whole blog project sometimes messes with our perception. You watch so much so intently that you begin to excuse coaches because you like them, but in this case you gotta call it what it is, piss poor.
March Madness officially begins for CAA hoops fans this weekend. Four games are on the docket for tomorrow, starting with a 12:00 noon match-up between UNC Wilminton and Georgia State. This has been a particularly strong season for the CAA and barring something extraordinary happening, it appears as if ODU and GMU already have their tickets punched for the big dance. The Dukes and every other team in the league are hoping to win it all and do their part to make the CAA a 3 bid league. Before the games start, we thought we’d give you our little breakdown of how we think each team in the league stacks up. Without further ado, here are the Official JMUSB CAA Hoops Power Rankings. Team are listed in order of how likely we think they are to win the tourney from least likely to most likely.
12. Towson (4-25, 0-18) – Some things in life just defy explanation. Like how every single 30-something white guy in America knows all the words to the Beastie Boy’s “Paul Revere”. Nobody knows why, we just do. And we’ve known them for as long as we can remember and probably always will. Well, that’s kind of like Towson basketball. They’ve always sucked and they probably always will. They just do. They aint winning this tournament. Nothing more to say about that.
11. Northeastern (11-19, 6-12) – OK, confession time. I forgot these guys were still in the league. Because of that, I had to do a little bit of research so that I could have something to write about here. Well, I had to wade through many, many links about their big performance in the Beanpot before I could find anything about their hoops team. And they didn’t even win the Beanpot. Nobody has these guys winning it all this weekend either. Chaisson Allen is a real player though and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him put on a show in his final CAA tournament.
10. Georgia State (11-18, 6-12) – The Panthers will be playing under an interim coach, after firing head coach Rod Barnes last week. The timing was odd, considering it came just a day after his team gave Mason a pretty good game before falling by 7 points. Barnes just couldn’t get the program to compete with the top teams in the CAA though. The Panthers’ main problem is that they can’t score the basketball. They rank 306th in the country in scoring. I used to live in Atlanta and I can tell you that the Panthers’ other big problem is that nobody in Atlanta cares about them. They averaged a league worst 915 fans per home game this year. General William Tecumsah Sherman has more fans than that in Atlanta.
9. William & Mary (9-21, 4-14) – Yeah, I know they finished second to last in the CAA, but I think they’ve actually been playing some good ball. As we found out when they upset the Dukes last month, the Tribe can shoot. Junior Quinn McDowell is everything you’d expect a W&M ball player to be. And by that I mean he’s a white dude who knocks down open jumpers and is as good as you’ll find from the line. Freshman Julian Boatner looks like he’s following in McDowell’s footsteps. He can be deadly from long range and recently nailed 6 treys against ODU. They’re going to be a tough out.
8. Delaware (13-16, 8-10) – The Blue Hens really struggle shooting the basketball. Jawan Carter leads the team in scoring and averages 15 points a game, but shoots only 37% from the field. As a team, Delaware shoots a league worst 41%. I think they’ll get by Northeastern, but don’t see them beating ODU in round 2. They could be a team to watch in the next few season though. Freshman Devon Saddler was one the best young players I saw in the CAA and Josh Brinkley not only can bang down low, but he was coached in high school by JMUSB commenter Tedward. And yes, that’s the best we could do making any connection between this blog and a CAA player. We’re big time.
7. UNC Wilmington (13-17, 7-11) – I easily could have flip-flopped the Seahawks with Delaware. However, of all the players on both rosters, I think Chad Tomko is the one most likely to put a team on his back and take them on a run. He’s no Brett Blizzard from the UNCW glory days, but he produced all season on a roster with its share of holes.
read more…
There is an avalanche of exciting news all over the JMU sports landscape right now. Bridgeforth Stadium is looking incredible, the baseball team is on fire to start the season and receiving votes in the national polls, softball poleaxed Georgetown today, of course it’s tournament week for Men’s hoops, and national #9 Women’s Lacrosse took out Virginia Tech today, but really tonight was all about one team and four impressive young women.
Bravo!
Senior night for Women’s Basketball marked the last game in the ‘Burg for the storied quartet of Dawn Evans, Jalissa Taylor, Lauren Jimenez, and Courtney Hamner. You can read about the eyepopping stats for this group over at JMU Sports, but it’s no stretch at all to say this senior class rivals almost any group in JMU Athletics history of any gender in any sport for what they meant to the program, not to mention sheer brilliance on the court. This group finally took down ODU last year and brough the CAA title back to the Convo for the first time in decades, not to mention putting in an appearance in the Big Dance and looking that direction again! And it’s not like any one of this group is an afterthought or just a crowd favorite like you often see on Senior Night. Taylor has turned into the most consistent rebounder and all-around player on the squad, the Dukes are at their best when Jimenez is healthy and getting consistent touches, Hamner is a sharpshooter of the highest order, and Ms. Evans is, simply, a legend.
Oh yeah, they also played a game tonight. And not just any game, but a “sort of” important one in which they were battling fellow CAA powerhouse UNCW for the regular season title. And these four did not disappoint! The Dukes locked up the #1 seed in next week’s tournament in Upper Marlboro (Show Place Arena for you DC area Dukes) by coming from behind in thrilling fashion to beat the Seahawks 79-77. And guess which Dukes shone brightest this evening? Yes that’s rhetorical. Jimenez set her new career high with a game-high 31 points and Dawn Evans broke the all-time CAA scoring mark with 2583 points, surpassing Drexel’s Gabriela Marginean’s 2581. Needless to say, the Dukes need every one of those points tonight. Not a bad way to wrap up a career in Harrisonburg. Now let’s hope they’ve got two more runs in each of the impending tournaments in ’em. Take a bow ladies and please accept thanks from a couple guys who didn’t know a thing about WBB when this project started and now are sincerely going to miss all four of you!
March is here and it’s finally tournament time. Our 6th seeded JMU Dukes will play the 11th seed William & Mary Tribe in the late game Friday night. It’s a game that JMU should win, but it’s definitely not an easy match-up. William & Mary already proved they can defeat the Dukes when they upset JMU in the ‘Burg last month. And while the Tribe has never won the tournament or been to the Big Dance, they’ve had a couple decent runs in recent CAA tournaments, reaching the finals in 2 of the last 3 years. The Dukes on the other hand, last went dancing all the way back in 1994 and haven’t made a CAA tournament final since 1997.
Fun With Stats
The Dukes own an edge on the glass, grabbing 31.8% of all available rebounds on the offensive end, compared with only 25.2% for the Tribe. They also are better at getting to the free throw line, with a 3.1% advantage in free throw rate. The fact that JMU grabs more offensive boards than W&M means that they get more second chances and easy buckets. The higher free throw rate means that JMU get more chances to score from the line. The end result is that the numbers show us that JMU is a more efficient offensive basketball team, scoring 1.07 points per possession compared to only 1.01 for William & Mary. Translation, JMU has an easier time scoring than William & Mary. We knew this, but it’s nice that the numbers prove it.
What William & Mary Wants to Do
Shoot threes and hit the glass hard. That was the formula the Tribe used to beat the Dukes last month. They outrebounded JMU and then took advantage of some shaky perimeter defense to shoot lights out from long range. It’s not magic. It’s pretty much the book on beating JMU. It’s exactly what I expect Tony Shaver to have his team do.
What JMU Wants to Do
Extend the defense and pound it in the paint offensively. Poor perimeter defense has been the Dukes’ achilles heel all season. It absolutely killed them in the loss to William & Mary. JMU couldn’t cover the guys beyond the three point line which resulted in the Tribe hitting 50% from long range. When the Tribe wasn’t bombing away from 3 point land, they were taking advantage of bad help D and late slides to create back door layups and easy buckets. JMU needs to extend the defensive pressure to prevent the Tribe shooters from spotting up for open jumpers. Then on offensive they’ll need to get shots in the paint. Denzel only got 10 shots the last time these teams faced off. We’ve said the same thing all season. Feed the big man. Assuming they can rebound better than they did last time against the Tribe, getting shots in the paint should lead to some easy put backs and at the same time open it up for Julius and Humpty to hit jumpers.
Prediction
If not for a furious rally in the end of the first game between these two teams, the Tribe would have swept the season series with JMU. I think Coach Brady uses that to his advantage this week and gets the team to focus. Coming off the big win at VCU last week, the Dukes should also be riding a wave of confidence. JMU is a better team than William & Mary and I think they finally play like it on Friday. JMU 77 – W&M 69.
By now we assume you know that JMU finally got the breakthrough win against a top CAA team it needed yesterday. The Dukes closed out the regular seasson with a 72-69 win on the road at VCU. Now while Todd and I have worked really hard this year to make sure that at least of of us could attend, watch, or listen to every JMU game, we dropped the ball on this one. Todd was busy taking in a game at his better half’s alma matter, and I spent the entire weekend handing out with family and friends at a friend’s lake house. While we’re both thrilled the Dukes won, it’s giving us a bit of a complex. We hung on this team’s every possession all year and never got that big win we were waiting for. Then we take a game off and the Dukes pull off the upset. Maybe the Dukes don’t actually have a problem with televised games at all. Maybe they’ve just got a problem with JMUSB tuning in.
Because Drexel also defeated Towson, the Dukes still ended up as the 6th seed in the CAA tournament. As a result, they’ll open things up Friday night with a game against William & Mary. Hopefully, the Dukes can carry some momentum from yesterday’s big win into the tournament and stay hot. After the Tribe, in all likelihood the road the championship game for JMU is going to go through Hofstra and ODU. It is a tough road, but not an impossible one. We’ll break the entir bracket down JMUSB style later this week. And no, I don’t know what JMUSB style is either. In the meantime, now that we’ve determined that JMUSB might be a jinx, you all can think of creative ways to keep us from attending or tuning in for the tournament. Solutions involving free beer have the greatest chance of succeeding.
The JMU Dukes have played 10 televised games this season. They have lost 8 of them. Much like NBC’s The Cape, this team just wasn’t made to be televised. Tonight’s loss was to conference rival ODU by the score of 74-59. Although at this point it’s not really fair to call it a rival, since JMU has dropped 6 straight in the series. And while we’re being honest, we should also admit that this one wasn’t even as close as the score implied.
Like they have for most games this season, the Dukes couldn’t put together a full 40 minute effort. Typically the Dukes have struggled in the first half only to get it together in the second half. Much like they did in the second game against GMU however, tonight JMU played tough and hung in there against a good team in the first half, only to fall apart after the break. JMU just looked overmatched in the second half. Denzel Bowles had little trouble scoring when he got looks at the basket. He was 7 for 8 from the field. Unfortunately, JMU just couldn’t get him the ball. Credit is due to ODU’s zone defense, but JMU simply had to find a way to overcome it and get Denzel the ball. They couldn’t, the offense stalled, they turned the ball over, and ODU ran away with the ball game.
After the Dukes’ first loss to ODU, things didn’t look so bad. JMU had an off night, but still kept it close and had a chance to win. It looked like JMU was a team on the rise and read to compete with the top CAA teams. After this game things look much different. JMU and ODU seemed like two teams moving in opposite directions. JMU just got outplayed in every aspect of the game in the second half. It was incredibly disappointing and frustrating to watch. The fact is that teams like ODU and GMU are just deeper and more experienced than the Dukes. Earlier in the season, the differences weren’t as obvious. Now that the season hits the home stretch and teams are worn out, the differences have become more apparent. JMU will get there. It just might take another season or two.
JMU is now 0-6 against the top 4 teams in the CAA and has slipped to 6th place in the CAA. They’re only one game behind Drexel for the 5th spot and they own the tiebreaker over the Dragons because they swept them. Unfortunately, JMU has to beat VCU in Richmond on Saturday and count on Towson to knock off Drexel to even get to the tiebreaker situation. And counting on Towson is unadvisable at best. So in all likelihood the Dukes will finish in 6th place and draw William & Mary in the first round of the CAA tournament. Drexel will likely finish 5th and draw Towson in the opening round. The Tigers and Tribe might only be seperated by one spot in the standings, but Towson is a much, much better draw. The CAA tourney isn’t televised until the finals though, so the Dukes’ odds go up dramatically.
Baseball season starts with a bang: To say Bucknell Bison baseball may have some issues to work out when it comes to pitching and defense is like saying Chainsaw Dan Synder “might” have a Napolean complex and some public relations challenges (or maybe like saying JMU Football has some off-field problems right now, cough, Scott Noble, cough). I give you the following paragraph pulled right from the JMU Sports story on the Dukes sweep of Bucknell to start the season:
JMU improved to 4-0 on the season while Bucknell dropped to 0-4. The win followed a Friday score of 37-7 and a Saturday doubleheader with scores of 9-2 and 26-15. The series featured 23 JMU home runs, a team slugging mark of 1.056, a team on-base percentage of .588, and a perfect 16-for-16 on stolen base opportunities. Overall, the Dukes’ offense saw 30 innings at the plate for an average of 27.3 runs per nine innings.
Needless to say, last year’s CAA Champion Dukes have to be feeling alright about this start, though it’s a long way between now and Omaha.
Once in a generation
Women’s Hoops:
Well, I enjoyed a rare government holiday yesterday when the Mrs. actually had to work in part by catching up on Sunday’s win over Delaware. The Dukes almost fouled their way into trouble late but held on to beat the Blue Chickens and their own megastar Elena Della-Donne. With the CAA women’s tourney moving to a neutral site at the ShowPlace Arena in Upper Marlboro it’s going to be an exciting (and nerve-wracking) conference finish. “Nerve-wracking” because this team appears even better, and definitely deeper, than last year’s Big Dance squad, but the CAA is probably no sure thing to get more than one bid on the women’s side. Also, great to see the Dawn Evans story about her work with the NephCure Foundation really getting out. Here’s a great story from Sports Illustrated about quite possibly the greatest basketball player to EVER put on a Dukes uniform and her incredible story. Or check out the video from USA Today. Seriously, don’t sell the women short. If you get a chance to catch them in action this last month of Evan’s career, don’t poopoo it and pass it up. Much like Rodney Landers senior year, you just can’t take this combination of greatness, grace, and leadership for granted.
Football: Stadium may be looking great, but the Dukes are going full Tark-era UNLV on the offseason “issues” this year. Get it together, man! For the most part, we stay away from getting into these issues, but let’s just say opening the new palace without five or more scholarship players isn’t exactly the way to go.
ODU game on ESPNU Thursday at 7: I’ll be at Bailey’s in Ballston for a Magoo-hosted official viewing party, but there are also three official parites in the RIC (Bailey’s Southside, Big Al’s West End, and Bandito’s Fan) and one in Va. Beach at ShoreBreak Sports Bar. My guess is our old friends in Chicago will be back at Murphy’s Bleachers as well. Time to break the television/big-game curse that seems to have afflicted the Dukes this season. Senior Night in the ‘Burg for Julius Wells (Denzel too, but Wells has been the true beacon of light leading us out of the dark days of Keener/Dillard/Sauron). Denzel Bowles and Ben Louis.
