Slow weekend for JMU sports news, but one highlight was huge win against ODU in basketball! You know we were referring to the Lady Dukes, right?
The misery continues as the men’s hoops team loses to Canisius. In the Dukes’ defense however, the game was Koessler Athletic Center and nobody wins in there. It’s one of the cathedrals of college hoops. Rupp Arena, Pauley Pavilion, Cameren Indoor Stadium, and Koessler. You can argue about the order, but they’re all up there.
JMU baseball is picked to win the CAA and was scheduled to open the season at the new Veteran’s Memorial Park over the weekend, but the series against Marist was cancelled due to snowy field conditions. Therefore the 2010 season will kick start this Friday against nationally ranked Coastal Carolina University. Since we don’t have any weekend highlights to report, go check out this great story you might have missed about the Diamond Dukes special relationship with their number one fan. I’m warning you though, it might get a little dusty wherever you are. Kind of a tear jerker.
And finally, apparently some folks got way too bent out of shape about Snooki coming to campus. We poked fun at it to, but how anyone could become enraged by it is beyond comprehension. Apparently some people are so concerned with the damage that bringing a friggin reality tv star to campus for a comedic event could do to JMU’s reputation, that they started spouting racist nonsense all over Facebook. That should make the school look good. Great job jackasses.
So has it really come to this? Not only is JMU trying to bring Jersey Shore’s Snooki to campus, but as of the time I write this there are over 2,600 people who have already RSVP’d to the event on Facebook. And UPB hasn’t even finalized the date yet. Wow! If any random 21 year old can become famous nowadays simply for being the sloppy drunk who strikes out with every member of the opposite sex in the bar, then I really was born about a decade too early. Forget a reality tv show, there might be a network dedicated to me. That’s not really the point though. The point is that if these numbers are true, then it’s quite possible that Snooki’s appearance will draw more students than the average Dukes’ hoops game. I know this has been a disappointing season, but you’d think people would want to go to games even if it were for no other reason than to see Denzel Bowles play.
So basically it comes down to if students would rather listen to Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi or watch Denzel play basketball. It seems like a no-brainer to me, but let’s break it down just for fun.
|
DENZEL |
SNOOKI |
|
Size |
|
| 6’10”, 255 lbs |
Self-desribed as “pint sized”. Um, sure. |
|
Likes to Thrown Down |
|
| Dunks |
Jager shots |
|
About one year from now |
|
| He’ll be CAA player of the year |
She’ll be forgotten |
|
Tough to deny |
|
| The offensive talent |
The trainwreck appeal |
|
Rolls with |
|
| Julius, Ben, Trevon, Darren |
Jwoww, The Situation, Pauly D, that other dude |
|
Critics say |
|
| He’s got to improve his defense | |
|
Fans want to see |
|
| Him lead the Dukes back to prominence |
Her get drunk and fall down |
|
Breakthrough moment |
|
| 37 and 15 in his second game as a Duke |
Getting punched in the face |
|
Personal Kryptonite |
|
| Gets into foul trouble |
Rather stupid |
Basically, in one corner we’ve got Denzel, a 6’10” beast of a basketball power who could finish as one of top Dukes ever. On the other hand, we’ve got a random drunk chick who isn’t even Italian with no discernible talent. I know who’d I’d rather go see, but apparently 26 hundred students are already itching to go see Snooki. Maybe it’s just another sign that I’m old (highly likely, I’m about a year away from flat out being scared of college kids and their loud music), but maybe it’s a sign that this hoops team is really struggling.
Georgia State’s Joe Dukes poured in 25 points to lead the Panthers to a 77-72 victory over JMU. This one cuts especially deep for me. You see, I used to live in Atlanta and now I’m never going to hear the end of it from all of the Georgia State fans I know. Just kidding. Georgia State has no fans. Seriously. No fans at all. I’m not even sure if Georgia State has full time students.
So, while it’s nice that JMU fans aren’t going to be forced to suffer abuse from Georgia State fans, this is a terrible loss. Losing to Georgia State earlier at home was awful, but we wrote it off because those were the “Pre-Denzel Dukes”. Tonight, Denzel was in the lineup, and he was dominating, and JMU still didn’t win. Bowles did all he could to keep his team in the game and he finished with 34 points and 9 boards. Julius Wells had 18 points. No other Duke scored more than 9 points.
There really isn’t much to be said at this point. There is no point trying to break down what went wrong or explain why the Dukes lost. The fact is that even with a depleted roster, JMU is talented enough that the Dukes should be losing games to the likes of Georgia State, UNCW, and Towson. It’s the same old thing we’ve been saying all season. This team is just inconsistent in every way possible. Until Coach Brady gets them to string together a couple results like last Saturday’s win over VCU (or even just string together a couple strong efforts), this team just isn’t going to separate itself from the bottom of the CAA. Denzel is a beast though. So we got that going for us, which is nice.
Senior point guard, Pierre Curtis.
Just when we think that this team is absolutely dead and buried, the Dukes go out and put together a great 76-71 win against VCU. This was one heck of a game and it had me on the edge of my seat down to the very end. Well, actually until 2:22 remained when my friggin DVR stopped recording!
JMU played tough in the first half, but went into the break down 8. However, instead of sticking with the template and opening the second half by laying an egg, the Dukes actually went on a 19-2 run and stormed to the lead. Denzel Bowles was having a monster game against projected NBA first round draft pick Larry Sanders before fouling out just past the midway point of the second half. Even in limited minutes he had 21 points on 10-14 shooting. The Dukes prospects looked dim without Bowles, but the guys hung in there and gutted out the win.
There was a lot to like about this game. The Dukes only played 7 guys yet somehow finally put together a solid 40 minutes. Like he did against Artsiom Parakhouski, Denzel Bowles met the challenge of playing against a super hyped big man in Larry Sanders. The Dukes’ effort on D was better than I’ve seen all year and so was the ball control. JMU had only 9 turnovers compared to 22 for the Rams. At this point, I trust Julius Wells’ shot selection about as much as I trust John Mayer’s PR savvy, but he hit a huge three down the stretch and finished with 20 points. Pierre Curtis had his best all around game of the season. Ben Louis had a classic Ben Louis game, hustling and generally making himself a nuisance on defense. So, lots and lots of good things. The best of all though had to be the play of Trevon Flores. He only had 9 points, but he was all over the place and really provided a great spark.
Now, we just need to find out if the effort today was an anomaly or if the Dukes are ready to scare some teams down the stretch.
Apparently, Julius Wells’ inability to distinguish good shots from bad is rubbing off, even getting to the walk-ons that never play or dress (for the record, I had no idea this kid was on the squad, not that he’s going to be around much longer).
From The Smoking GunJMU guard charged with Felony for throwing snowballs at cops. If you’re into silver linings though, at least the Dukes a) have rated a Smoking Gun story, b) we’re closer to Rockheed dressing for the CAA Tourney, and c) hey, he was the first outside shooter to get hot since Semenov went down.
When reached for comment in the immediate aftermath, SportsBlog Senior Lifestyle Correspondent Uncle Ron said, “I don’t know what I like better, Charles Gill’s strangely coy mug shot expression or his Dukes-centric tie dyed shirt. And who is Ryan Knight? Is he like the poor man’s Ben Louis?”
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. My neighborhood’s internet access got completely wiped out by the blizzard. I actually trekked up to the one coffee shop in my neighborhood that still has access, anxious to scour the web and report all sorts of exciting JMU sports news for everyone. That’s just not gonna happen. JMU lost to Towson last night in a make-up game by the score of 81-78. File this one under “made up games that probably shouldn’t have been”.
There really isn’t much to say about this one. Even the most casual CAA hoops fan knows that Towson is terrible. I checked their schedule/results in an attempt to define a recent won-loss trend, but there isn’t one, because Towson is always in the midst of a losing slump. All ways. There are no exceptions. The Tigers just lost to VCU 112-53 and the bounced back two games later to lose 97-55 to Drexel. Yes, Towson is just a terrible basketball team. Towson beat JMU.
We could leave it at that, because anyone who reads this blog already knows the template. For those of that might not however, here we go:
The Dukes defense and intensity disappeared in (insert time of game) the second half which offset a strong offensive outing from (“Wells”, “Bowles”, or “Wells and Bowles”) Bowles while (insert opposing team’s player’s name) knocked down wide open shots all game.
We’ll go with “last 8 minutes of the first half”, “Wells and Bowles” and “Towson’s Jarrel Smith” to fill in the three blanks in order.
There is really not much to say at this point. My expectations for a top half of the CAA finish might have to be modified to “show some hustle in the play-in game”. We’ll see.
Coach Matthews brings another strong class to campus.
Alright Dukes fans. As you know, Wednesday was National Signing Day (yes, even for 1-AA) and the Coach Matthews officially inked 19 recruits. Todd and I made the strategic decision to hold off on posting our JMU football recruiting wrap until this morning, so that our Mid-Atlantic readers could really dig in and enjoy it on a snowday. I swear that’s the reason. It’s not because we didn’t get around to it yesterday. Not at all.
I wasn’t really what anyone would call a “star athlete” in high school, so I’m not really to hip to the world or recruiting. It doesn’t take a genius to imagine the pitch Matthews and the staff sell to recruits though. JMU is a winning program in hands down the best FCS conferences. The facilities are top notch and the new stadium is gonna be ridiculous. It has a terrific gameday atmosphere and is situated in the heart of the beautiful Shenandoah Valley. Oh, and did we mention that the student body is 60% female? Yeah, that might help attract recruits.
Regardless of how they do it, Matthews and the boys have an outstanding class coming to the ‘Burg. According to Rivals the Dukes signed two 3-star recruits and fourteen 2-star recruits. For those of you that don’t follow FCS recruiting, just trust us, that’s a big deal.
There is a lot to love on paper about these recruits. The Dukes went all the way to Texas to snag two quarterbacks, including Henry Hunter and Jace Edwards from Midland Lee High School. Yes, the same Midland Lee from Friday Night Lights fame. The guy I’m most excited to see suit up for the Dukes is 3-star recruit, Dejor Simmons, a RB out of Virginia Beach with 4.39 speed and some impressive highlights. The class’s other 3-star, Anthony Rose, turned down an offer from Maryland to join his two brothers, Jon and Peter on the Dukes.
As tough as it is to tell relative strength with recruiting classes in FBS, it’s even harder in FCS, so who knows. Word is the ODU pipeline is cranking and the Ticks (UR) & Hicks (ASU) had strong days too, but we here at JMUSB are confident that MM and co. have probably done good work with a class that knows it will spend it’s best years in the new “best FCS stadium in the nation (or at least east of Missoula).” Also, and not sure this can be overstated, it’s great to see the Dukes go 19 for 19 with no decommits from the kids they’d already lined up! Looking forward to Morehead St.!
Here’s the official story from JMU Sports on the entire class.
Continuing with this season’s theme of inconsistency, the Dukes followed up a strong effort against Mason, with an absolute stinker against Hofstra. JMU lost to Hofstra by the score of 68-48. That’s right, Hofstra. A school that distinguishes itself by having the only student body in the country that laughs with, instead of at, the cast of Jersey Shore.
I don’t know what to say about this loss. I really don’t know what to say about this JMU team at this point. It’s pretty clear that the lack of depth isn’t the only thing hurting the Dukes. The inability to put forth a solid 40 minute effort any night, let alone every night, is absolutely crushing this squad. JMU fell asleep for a few minutes after the break, let Hofstra run off 11 straight points, and never recovered. JMU turned it over 17 times and shot a whopping 34% from the field, due to going a pitiful 7 for 24 in the second half.
Reigning CAA co-player of the week, Denzel Bowles had 15 points in the loss, but was limited to just 2 boards. Julius Wells equaled Bowles’ offensive production, with 15 points of his own. There is now doubt that both players have a lot of talent. There is also no doubt that the duo has a lot on their shoulders due to the state of the Dukes’ depleted roster. Wells’ struggles with turnovers and his poor shot selection are becoming a concern though. He had another 5 turnovers to add to his CAA worst total and finished the night just 1 of 6 from beyond the arc and 4 of 15 overall. He’s too talented to continue to let games get away from him like this.
In the post game presser, Coach Brady revealed that he kicked the team out of practice this week due to a lack of effort. The lack of effort in practice is carrying over to games and it’s quickly killing the season.
[polldaddy poll=2640615]
At one point during last season I started getting text messages from a number I didn’t recognize, that said things like “Drew should be starting” or “JT is awful!” and I proceeded to reply to them. All season.
With increasingly venomous rants directed at Justin Thorpe. And I still don’t
know who I was sending the texts to. So yeah, saying I wasn’t wowed by Justin’s play might be a bit of an understatement. Todd didn’t go to the extremes of voicing his displeasure with Thorpe’s play in the form of aggressively anti-Justin texts to complete strangers, but he was pretty
much right there with me in spirit. We had front row seats on the Drew Dudzik bandwagon.
Since the season ended, Todd and I have probably spent more time pondering
the JMU QB question than anyone would consider healthy. Our animosity
toward Justin cooled and we started to view his season a little more
objectively. As we did, we started to come around to the notion that,
heaven forbid, the Dukes might be better off installing him as the QB and
moving on with Drew as the backup.
read more…
This is really about the photos, but a couple quick notes in the aftermath of the Dukes close loss in Fairfax to George Mason this weekend.
JMU didn’t play great, but Bowles was a flat-out man-child, Ben Louis was a huge catalyst in the comeback, and the boys had a shot, albeit an off-line one from halfcourt, to win at the buzzer, which is a hell of a lot better than most recent years at the Patriot Center. The Dukes still have three major problems however: 1) They can’t get a stop on D when they really need one, 2) With only 9 players even dressing they really struggle with fouls and wind, even when they get decent contributions off the bench like they did from Louis and Parker this game, and 3) Julius Wells’ shot selection makes Jessica Simpson look like a Rhodes scholar. He may be the most gifted player, and some of those shots occasionally find the bottom of the net, but EVERY shot he takes seems deserving of a Bill Walton “Terrible!” Now on to the papparazzi portion:
Pre-game we went to Brion’s Grill, where they had free hot dogs in honor of “the incident” in the Burg a few weeks back. Also, we’re old, Hard Times is still smoking, and our buddy from JMU is actually the GM at Brions. Plus really we’ll go anywhere that the beer flows faster than a water filtration pitcher.
Loading up (with ammo)
Thinking of where I can find a double team to shoot out of
Can’t cover a Mason game w/out an obligatory Doc Nix shot
They got rid of Gunston for this friggin’ guy?!
That’s it, that’s our ENTIRE bench. Just killer.
“I thought there were 20,000+ students here?” – Friend of blog on the Masonettes
First of appearance of the GMU Furry
It really was tight down the stretch, just couldn’t get a stop here.
The Daniel Day-Lewis of self-proclaimed alternate mascots: Not even leaving character for post-game drinks. God I’m glad I got into JMU and didn’t have to go to GMCC
Mason Coach Larranaga. His post-game weapon of choice? Bleu Cheese.
