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.
JMU had just enough to get by Miami (Ohio) yesterday, narrowly defeating the Redhawks 70-69 in Harrisonburg. When the BracketBuster match-ups were first announced, we were less then enthused with the Dukes’ draw. Actually that’s putting it mildly, we were pissed. At the time, Miami was not playing very well and we were annoyed the Dukes wouldn’t get to face a quality opponent. Maybe there is some sort of JMUSB curse however, because Miami hadn’t lost since we posted our assessment of the match-up. They also had climbed all the way to first place in the MAC and into the top-100 in the RPI.
So Miami ended up giving the Dukes a little more than we originially bargained for. They definitely were a much higher quality opponent than we predicted they would be. And we’re glad. What could have been a snoozer of a victory against an overmatched team, turned into another gritty Dukes come from behind win. In typical fashion, the Dukes came out slow and went down double-digits in the first half. In not so typical fashion, the game was delayed for 12 minutes in the second half due to a powere outage in the Convo. The power outage didn’t disrupt the Dukes though. They battled back and traded the lead back and forth with Miami all half, before Devon Moore hit a free throw with 2.7 seconds yet to put JMU up for good.
Unlike last week’s win over Towson in which Denzel put the team on his back, this was a more balanced effort. All five starters scored in double-digits, led by Julius Wells with 16 points. Nobody was outstanding, but everyone was pretty good. The Dukes were especially good in the clutch, scoring on 10 of their final 12 possessions. In addition to hitting 1 of 2 from the line to seal the win, Devon Moore asserted himself offensively in the closing minutes. He’s not a pure scorer by any means, but he defnitely has a knack for finding space in the lane and getting penetration with the game on the line.
The win was JMU’s 10th this season when trailing at the half and 20th overall. Yes, the 20 win mark isn’t the mileston it once was, but it’s JMU’s second 20 win season in Coach Brady’s 3 seasons. For comparison’s sake, before Brady took over, JMU hadn’t even had a winning season since 1999-2000. In fact between the 2002-2003 and 2005-2006 seasons, JMU didn’t even win a total of 20 games. I don’t think anyone is satisfied that the Dukes are sitting in 5th place of the CAA. I think it’s fair to say however, that Coach Brady at least has things pointed in the right direction.
Photo taken from JMUsports.com
As excited as we are about the postseason opportunities still potentially ahead for BOTH men’s and women’s hoops, today’s warm weather got us thinking about fields, not courts. And while we’re certainly no experts on the Spring Sports scene in the ‘Burg, we wanted to share some serious hype about two teams in particular.
First, JMU’s defending CAA Champion baseball team is once again picked to win the conference. They open the season with a four-game home series Friday against Bucknell at the new baseball complex, Eagle Field at Veterans Memorial Park, that opened just last year. Three Dukes have been selected preseason all-CAA: Infielders Trevor Knight and David Herbek and Catcher Jake Lowery.
The Legend: Casey Ancarrow
Second, the Women’s Lacrosse team, which really just pisses Rob off for the lack of a men’s team and has him quietly cursing Title IX, starts the season ranked #9 nationally by both Lacrosse America Magazine and in the Coaches’ Poll. Needless to say, expectations are enormous. The squad will be led by preseason CAA co-player of the year redshirt sophomore Attacker Casey Ancarrow. Casey is also an impressive member of the US National team already!
No guarantees as long as hoops keeps up their winning ways, but we’ll try and update you all periodically on the early goings-on for these two teams as well as the other Spring Sports that get rolling this week. Let’s Go Dukes!
There is no point in burying the lead here, the headline says it all. Denzel Bowles scored a career high 40 points and led JMU to a 72-61 victory over Towson. Bowles was an absolute beast, going 14-20 from the floor and 12-17 from the charity stripe. It’s a good thing he had such a great game, because the Dukes were slow to get it going tonight. Towson entered the game without a single CAA win this season, but they hung around for much of the game. In the end though, they just couldn’t stop Denzel and their entire defense fell apart down the stretch.
Towson was virtually powerless against Bowles from the get go, but the rest of the Dukes shot so poorly in the beginning that they went into halftime tied at 33-33. Bowles was able to get position down low and make easy bucket after easy bucket all night. After he scored 20 points in the opening half, you’d assume Towson would make some defensive adjustments in the locker room. You’d be wrong though. The Tigers appeared content to try to guard him straight up most of the night and quite frankly it did not work. At all. And then in the closing minutes with Towson so concerned with stopping Bowles, Chad Jackson and Devon Moore were able to penetrate for easy lay-ups. It went from a nail biter to a comfortable margin of victory in about 3 possessions.
Before all the haters jump in with reasons why the sky is falling, let’s just relax and enjoy the win. Yes, Towson is winless in the CAA, but any conference win is a good win in my book. And conference wins on the road are especially nice. The Dukes did have an all too familiar slow start, but they played with poise in the second half and calmly closed out the win. And please save your complaints about the Dukes’ offense being too reliant on Bowles tonight. JMU had no reason to stop feeding him the ball. Towson could not stop him. It would have been foolish not to run the offense through him all night, especially when Towson failed to adjust defensively. So yes, it was closer than we might hav expected, but it was a nice win and one that was sorely needed after Saturday’s disappointment against Mason.
This win also gets the Dukes back into 5th place because UNCW came up big tonight and knocked off Drexel. Plus it assures the Dukes of finishing at least at .500 in the CAA. The Dukes can’t get a bye, but they will have 2 more shots to knock off a top 4 team before the tournament, with games remaining against VCU and ODU. After last season’s 11th place finish, things are definitely looking up.
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Well, gotta admit two things: First, this post sucks ass to write and second, it really has crossed my mind it might be time to focus on a winning Dukes team, in this case Kenny Brooks, Dawn Evans and the red-hot women’s team. The women won their 10th straight and 15th out of their last 16 by actually doin’ work against George Mason even without center Courtney Hamner. The women are now 12-1, in first place in the CAA, and looking for a strong finish leading up to the CAA tourney in Upper Marlboro, MD this year (hopefully to be well-attended by local Dukes fans!) and maybe beyond to the Big Dance again this year.
Come on man!
That said, I guess I’ll try and say a few words about yesterday’s bizarro Men’s game. Bizarro because usually the Dukes haven’t noticed when warmups are over and first half begins and manage to dig themselves a sizable hole that they then furiously work their way out of in the second half. Yesterday, on the other hand, the team came out on fire, built a twelve point first half lead and then promptly collapsed like a Dollar Store lawn chair (or the Football team post-VT upset). Hard to even pinpoint specifics other than to say the effort and basketball intelligence (shot-selection, undisciplined chaerrging fouls, and forgetting that Denzel is the best big man in the conference specifically) seemed to revert back to last season’s miserable lows.
It looked for a while like W&M might at least help out by upsetting Drexel. Alas, the Dragons came back and the Dukes now find themselves in the dreaded sixth spot with one likely win (Towson) and two toughies (ODU and VCU) to close out the CAA schedule. As discussed before, the Dukes only shot at the NCAA Tourney is to win the CAA tourney, something we still believe is not impossible talent-wise, though it would take some incredibly smarter play. And the five seed and a likely first round matchup with Towson that is equivalent to a bye followed by a second round game with an overperforming and underwhelming Hofstra team would certainly be a more manageable road than whoever the 11 seed is and then likely ODU (still the CAA’s best in my opinion, despite what fans from George Mason Community College think) in the second round.
On a positive note despite the outcome, it was great to see a ton of Dukes fans in the Patriot Center yesterday including a number of old friends we were lucky enough to go with (SP, CDL that’s you!). Even some skeptical Dukes fans made the trek to suburbia and I daresay had a good afternoon (JH, RG, KM that’s you). Thanks again to JMUMagoo for setting up an old-fashioned, hard-charging JMU pregame at Fat Tuesday’s (even if us Old Guys had to head upstairs to more kid-friendly confines).
JMU and George Mason play at the Patriot Center this Saturday. It’s a chance for the Dukes to avenge an earlier loss to Mason and another opportunity for the Dukes to get a breakthrough victory against one of the CAA’s top teams. It’s a huge game. Inconsistency aside, this is the best JMU team in years. And Mason sits on top of the standings, is riding a 10 game win streak, and is starting to get some much deserved buzz. They’re also our rival.
Yes, George Mason is our rival in basketball. For some reason lots of people on both sides want to pretend that’s not the case though, which kind of takes a bit away from it. One thing that every good rivalry has is hatred. Not real hatred of course, but “sports hatred”. This rivarly has no hatred. And that sucks. I want to hate Mason. I want Mason fans to hate JMU. It’s not happening though. Now, I don’t mean to imply that nobody cares about this game. JMU fans and Mason both care and will pack the Patriot Center. They just won’t be nearly the passion on either side that their could be. Or should be.
This should be an intense rivalry. JMU and Mason are state schools, playing in the same conference, and are a mere 2 hour drive away from each other. For some reason though it just seems like things can’t click, not as smoothly as it does with a ppc company anyway! In recent years, it definitely hasn’t been much of rivarly on the court. Mason has pretty much dominated and owned JMU. Due to the one-sided nature of things and the general success of the Mason program, their fans seem to enjoy dismissing JMU basketball. They downplay any talk of rivalry because they claim the JMU program isn’t on Mason’s level.
The Mason fans aren’t the only ones to fall back on the “not our rival” position however. It was certainly our stance at JMU when I was a student. We relied on it not because of on the court dominance, but also because of our perception that Mason was a commuter school not worth of true rival status. Maybe it was due to the fact that so many of us went to high school in NOVA with Mason in our backyards. My high school was a couple miles from Mason so lots of tended to think going to GMU wasn’t really going anywhere at all. And since my high school graduation was in the Patriot Center, this was pretty much true. Students headed to Mason could literally walk out of of graduation with diploma in hand and point out their freshman dorm, or more likely their parking space in the commuter lot.
So yeah, this is a rivalry but it really isn’t clicking on all cylinders yet. Sure there are little videos going around that refer to this JMU-GMU clash as a rivalry. But they’re all in good fun. And actually quite clever and well done by the way. And you know what? I shouldn’t be able to think rationally and admit that. I should hate even harmless promos put out by Mason’s Athletic Department like that. I should hate everything Mason. And Mason fans should hate this blog, the Duke Dog, and everything JMU. Well, I’m starting now. As of right now, I officially hate George Mason. Disregard my earlier comment about “sports hatred”, because I’m talking real hatred now. I hate those stupid Mason Nation advertisements on Metro buses. I don’t know what that mutant muppet reject sort of mascot is supposed to be, but I hate it. I hate Jai Lewis and everyone who’s ever put on the green and gold. I even hate Coach L. And don’t give me that crap about how it’s impossible to hate Coach L. Trust me, it’s not that hard. I just did it. I hate everything related to George Mason. Except the law school. The law school’s cool. Everything else sucks though. Go Dukes!
Tonight’s second half against Drexel is the type of performance that must make Matt Brady crazy when the Dukes show up flat against bottom-feeders like William & Mary as they did in a devastating home loss last time out. After a first half complete with Humpty Hitchens puking despite being the only JMU player actually awake stepping off the bus, a number of players dealing with the flu, and a now typical horrendous 21-6 start against a fired up Drexel team and crowd, the Dukes put together a nearly perfect 2nd half to win going away.
Back on board? We'll find out Saturday.
Seriously, in the 2nd half I only counted a single bad shot (and even that was an open look, just an unauthorized shooter) and hardly a turnover to mar the stat sheet. There’s really nothing to say. The Dukes turned a 3 point halftime deficit into a 14 point victory on the road in Philly with creative offense, hot shooting, and – I can’t believe I’m about to type this – defensive intensity and focus that was truly off the charts! In no way is it hyperbolic to say that a string of 40 minute efforts like the second half would win the CAA Tourney in a couple of weeks.
But before I go whole-hog back onto the roof rack of the Basketwagon, I need to see them do this again with my own eyes when they take on George Mason Community College this Saturday. DCNova Duke Club is back at Fat Tuesday’s starting at 2 p.m. We’ll be splitting our pregame time between Fat’s and Brion’s upstairs so look for “Old Guys Leave” and say hi. Let’s Go Dukes!
What could have been the play of the year.
The Dukes gave first place VCU everything they could handle today, but still came up short in the end. VCU defeated JMU 70-66. Despite the unfortunate result, it was a really fun game to watch. The crowd was great, both teams went at each other for the full 40 minutes, and there were plenty of highlight reel plays. Of course the first half had all the defensive intensity of the NBA all star game, but both squads stepped it up in the second half and made up for it.
After watching the Dukes sleep walk through their loss to W&M, it was encouraging to see them play with some energy and fight against VCU. Devon Moore had an awful first half, but played like the leader JMU needs him to be after the break. The second half defense was awesome and seemed to only get better as the pressure increased in crunch time. I was actually starting to believe that JMU was finally going to break through and get a win against a top CAA team. Down 68-66 with 16.5 seconds left, Chad Jackson stole the inbounds pass and made what appeared to be JMU’s top play of the season. Only it wasn’t. The refs claimed that Jackson’s momentum carried the ball over the line before JMU called timeout. It was a bang bang play and a tough call for the ref, but after rewinding it and watching it about a million times, he looked in to me. Take a look at the picture above and decide for yourself. JMU didn’t lose because of the call. I’m not even positive the call was wrong. It just made the loss hurt a little more.
What We Liked
Denzel Bowles’ All Around Effort
He came to play and finished with 22 points and 9 boards. He also had 3 blocks, only 1 turnover, and managed to stay out of foul trouble, something he’s struggled to do lately. He had the convo rocking after some thunderous dunks, including an alley oop from Devon the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Harrisonburg in years.
Devon Moore’s Second Half
Let’s not sugarcoat it. Devon didn’t play well at all in the first half. He couldn’t buy a bucket and was held scoreless. He played at an All-CAA type level in the second half though. He was aggressive, got to the basket, and helped control the tempo for the Dukes. It was exactly the sort of play we expect from Devon.
Chad Jackson Playing His Role Perfectly
JMU needs Jackson to play good defense, be smart with the basketball, and do enough offensively to keep the defense honest. He’s been steadily improving for weeks now, but it all came together today. He hit 4 of 5 from the field, but his impact was most felt on defense. He seems to understand his role about as well as anyone on the team and didn’t try to do too much. What he did was awesome though. Just a solid game from a maturing freshman. Had the out of bounds call gone the other way, and this might have been known as the “Chad Jackson Game”. Oh, and that block of Skeen. WOW!
VCU Fans Traveling
It was cool to see so many VCU fans at the Convo and it made for a more exciting atmosphere. Not because I have any affinity for VCU fans. More because it just nice to know the JMU is finally playing well enough that other fans give a crap.
What We Didn’t Like
That Trey Attempt from Rayshawn
It’s not just the poor shot selection, but more what it represents. It’s not even just Goins. Unlike Chad Jackson, Rayshawn and others appear to completely misunderstand their roles and try to do too much. I like it when Goins plants himself near the basket, throws his weight around, crashes the boards, and gets garbage buckets. The game he has is good enough to put JMU over the top. The game he thinks he has is not.
Bad Breaks
JMU had a number of lay-ups rattle out, loose balls go off their finger tips, and rebounds barely elude them. It was painful to watch them be so close, yet consistently come up short. It’s all in how you look at it though. Sure sometimes the ball does bounce funny. Other times, players look at the defender instead of the bucket and miss the layup, get excited and travel after scooping a loose ball, or get caught flat footed while an opponent swoops in for a rebound. I think it’s what people mean when the say a team hasn’t yet “learned how to win.” Right now the Dukes are not putting themselves in position to get those breaks. Once they start to do that, they’ll be able to beat anyone.
Wha' Happened?!
Really running the turd sandwich picture again would have been more apropos for the Dukes play tonight in a horrid 73-67 loss to William & Mary, but didn’t want to belabor the point. I’ll be brief because Rob’s post below on National Signing Day is both happier and more encouraging today.
Here’s the list of good points from tonight’s shitshow: Wells had a good night offensively. Hitchens had a decent night offensively. That’s it.
An absolutley atrocious performance all the way around and really the first game since Kansas St. the Dukes were never really in at the end. Unreal because the Tribe sucks, but they’re kind of the anti-JMU: smart, savvy, tenacious, clutch-shooting, etc. Here’s the list of terribles for the Dukes tonight: Effort on defense, respect for the opponent, turnovers, missed foul shots, coaching (why the hell is Ben Louis anywhere near the floor and what in holy hell is doing throwing up, literally throwing up, threes late in the game), the rotation (where’s Trevon?), offensive creativity, and once again, EFFORT on DEFENSE. All at-large hopes are out the door, probably even for the NIT, (and on a night when VCU was upset by Northeastern too) and at this point we’re really just crossing our fingers they don’t finish the season and head into the CAA Tourney on a six-game skid. This performance was so wholly piss-poor it’s not worth another word. Ok, maybe one more, RRR-RRR-RRRR dumping out my load.
