The 2016 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament kicks off on Friday. Once again, Kenny Brooks and the JMU women are dancing. The Dukes won the CAA for the third consecutive year and earned a matchup against the DePaul Blue Demons. JMU enters the game with a 27-5 overall record, which was good enough to earn an 11 seed. The 6th seeded Blue Demons managed to go 25-8 and win the Big East regular season title, before losing in the semifinals of the Big East Tournament to St. John’s. Here’s what you need to know:
Tip time: 12:00 noon on Friday
Location: KFC Yum Center in Louisville, Kentucky
Tickets: Available Here
Broadcast: ESPN2 and streaming via ESPN
Streaming Audio: Madizone
Twitter: @JMUWBasketball
You can check out the entire bracket here. As you can see, the winner of JMU vs. DePaul faces the very real possibility of playing Louisville in its home arena. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. For now, let’s focus on the present. And root.
Today, March 15, 20016, is #JMUGivingDay. Which means you really need to stop reading this post, and head on over to the official JMU Giving Day page to make a donation. Go do that, then come on back. We’ll wait.
OK. Thanks for that. As we explained on Friday, JMU Giving Day is a 24 hour online fundraising effort. We are honored to working with the Duke Club to help promote it. We’re making a donation to the Duke Club in the amount of $80 today, 20 bucks for each of JMU Softball’s wins over the weekend. That’s over and above our regular Duke Club donations, which let me tell you, are YUUUUUGE.
The Duke Club’s goal is to raise $24,500 today. That’s the amount of one in state full athletic scholarship. We think the JMU community can do much better than that. And boy are we gonna be disappointed if JMU can’t do better than Elon. So please go make a donation and announce it with the hashtag #JMUGivingDay to help spread the word.
So we’ve sort of worn this out on ye ole’ Twitters today, but we thought we should get our few major points and questions down about the end of Matt Brady’s 8-year run as Head Coach of the Men’s Basketball program.
First, we always personally enjoyed Coach Brady and his staff. Other than one snide remark when he thought one of us might be flirting with a friend of his, he was always willing to chat with dork alums like us as were his assistants (man are we gonna miss Coach O’Regan). Next, let’s not lose sight of the fact that this program was an absolute tire-fire when he arrived (and he didn’t help himself with the whole Marist suing JMU thing) and he definitely righted the ship a great deal. He struggled at times with transfers (Cooke), off-court issues (Rayshawn, Nation), and on-court discipline (Denzel), but his teams won 20 games half the time and snuck into the NCAA tournament during one of the weakest years a conference has ever had. This year’s team in particular was a respectable group who showed up every night and generally acquitted themselves in a manner befitting Dukes. There can be little doubt he leaves the program better than he found it.
But as for the general decision to let him go, it’s tough to find too much fault with Bourne and co. Brady had eight years – an eternity in today’s college game – and proved himself a capable recruiter, a respectable developer of talent when the kids themselves didn’t screw it up, and a competent game coach. But as Bill Parcells always says, at some point “you are what your record says you are” and in Brady’s case, that was a coach capable of 20ish wins and consistent postseason flameouts in a conference that no matter what the coaches and retired (good riddance) commissioners and other apologists tell you is a shell of its former self and has been begging for four years for a program with resources to dominate the Crumbling Athletic Association. More than anything in eight years, Brady kind of proved dominance wasn’t his thing. Neither was living in Harrisonburg or being a big presence in the community, always a faux pas with the Spotswood CC old-boys network that apparently still takes years to make major athletics’ decisions at JMU. Additionally, with the currently “challenging” campaign to scrape up funds for a new arena (stop calling it a Convo!), there’s no doubt almost any new coach is more exciting to donor base that realizes the quarterfinals of a low-major tournament are not enough for a school who’s other programs seem to be contenders every year.
Our fault with JMU in this situation is two-fold. First, the timing. It’s clear from Bourne’s comments that this decision was made a long time ago and JMU only squatted on Brady this year to limit the buyout (down to 20k) and save money. Nothing wrong with that, but the university’s unwillingness to commit to him was a consistent and unacceptable challenge Brady faced throughout this tenure. It’s pretty clear he would’ve been gone after the ’13 season had the Dukes not scrapped their way to that tourney berth. Basically, JMU could’ve pulled the trigger anyways in ’13 or either of the two intervening years were they not their typical penny-wise-pound-foolish selves. We can only hope the next guy gets a better assist than Brady ever did. And another thing on timing. You couldn’t have done this last Monday? You really were delusional enough to think an NIT berth might come? You really thought that this would somehow distract from a women’s team every true JMU fan knows is the real deal? And maybe most of all, you recruited fans and supporters to get on board with #JMUGivingDay and then pull this on the eve of the biggest JMU fundraising day of the year?! It’s so typical of JMU it makes me want to vomit. And that’s to say nothing of rumors of a Bourne/Alger split on the bungling handling of this firing.
Second, as long as JMU plays in a one-bid, low-major league, refuses to offer Cost of Attendance stipends even when members of their own conference are doing so already, has only an underfunded plan to replace the fire hazard they currently play in, and has such a consistent track record of half-assing their support of this program, we are left to wonder who the hell they think is going to be an upgrade from Brady?! At some point, we all have to take a step back and view our beloved JMU with objective eyes. And those eyes say Lefty or Lou ain’t walkin’ through that door. But in any case, we’ll still be making our contributions tomorrow, we’ll always be rootin’, and in this case, we’ll have our popcorn ready!
Oh yeah, one final note for all the “firing Brady means they’re looking for a coach for a conference move” tin-hat folks. You’re wrong. They’re pissed Brady can’t dominate the league President Alger just hired a new commissioner for the way so many other JMU programs can. #CAAlyfesentence
There you go. JMU announced that the school has parted ways with Matt Brady. We’ll have more thoughts on the news tonight. Love him or hate him, it’s been pretty obvious the administration wanted Brady gone. Not really sure how it benefited anyone to wait this long to cut ties. And doing it the day before the school’s (and the Duke Club’s) largest fundraising day of the year…no words.
We’ll be back with our big update on #JMUGivingDay tomorrow (needless to say, the Softball team wrecked shop and happily made our wallets a touch lighter this weekend), but we just couldn’t resist a good wedding post. After all, Justin Timberlake and the boys remains our high water mark and Duke Dog’s waaaaayyyyy more important, right?! In any case, it was the nuptials of former OLinemen and current NFL hopeful Josh Wells that brought this unexpected photo treat this weekend. Congrats to the Wells’ and DukeDog’s gotta be good luck for a marriage!
Also, with the news that the CAA’s UNCW Seahawks drew a 13 seed (slowly creeping back to respectability) and the even better news that they will face punkassed Grayson Allen and always upset-prone Duke (at least when they’re not a top seed), we really will all be able to Feel the Teal. Before the last five years or so as the Crumbling Athletic Associations’ membership has looked more and more like a who’s who of safety schools, we always loved cheering for the champ in the Big Dance and it will be fun to unabashedly do so again for one of the old-school stalwarts.
This Tuesday, March 15, JMU will be hosting its University-wide Giving Day. On this day, students, parents, fans, alumni and more will come together and help raise money for JMU. It’s a one day online giving campaign to raise money for all of JMU, including the Duke Club. Which is where we come in.
As part of JMU Giving Day, the Duke Club has set a goal to raise $24,500. And before you ask, $24,500 happens to be the cost of one in-state full tuition scholarship. In order to meet this goal, the Duke Club has enlisted a number of prominent and successful alums to personally donate and help encourage more folks to do the same. They’ve gotten folks like Pittsburgh Steeler Arthur Moats, Carolina Panther and NFC Champion Dean Marlowe, College Gameday producer Lee Fitting, Sportscenter host Lindsey Czarniak, and…us. Presumably we were chosen to help reach the portion of the donor base that enjoys emotionally unhinged rants and snarky digs at our fellow CAA brethren. But we’re here to help. We’re going to donate a little something extra beyond our normal annual pledges.
So this is what we’re going to do. The wonderful women of JMU Softball have a full slate of 5 games between now and Giving Day. Your favorite bloggers pledge to donate $20 for each game they win. We’d love it if you could join us and make a donation as well. It doesn’t need to be a lot. Anything from $5 on up would make a real difference. All you need to do is visit GivingDay.jmu.edu on Tuesday (midnight to midnight) and make a pledge directed for the Duke Club. Then encourage your friends, family, and fellow Dukes fans to do the same by announcing it on social media and using the hashtags #JMUGivingDay and #ProudandTrue
Here’s the thing though. A goal of $24,500 is nice, but we think JMU fans can do better. Much better. Elon University just had a similar giving day and the Phoenix Club (its booster club) managed to raise a whopping $193,308.03. First of all, who doesn’t make even dollar donations? Did someone make an actual 3 cent donation, or did someone feel generous and tack on the 03 after the decimal? Second of all, a total of $19,165.36 went just to the football program. We’re talking about the Elon football program. And contrary to what you might have assumed, it was not given under the condition that the program be eliminated to stop embarrassing the school. It was given by Elon fans (they exist apparently) who want to show their support for the Phoenix. Wow.
Let’s do the math. Elon won 4 football games last year. It was a good year, relatively speaking. That means Phoenix fans donated $4,791.34 per win to the football team. If JMU fans gave the same amount per win, the Duke Club would get $43,122.06. The boys in maroon scored all of 147 points on offense, which works out to a hefty $130.38 per point. If we all chipped in at the same per point basis for the Dukes, it would lead to $69,229.97. You want one more? The Phoenix fans chipped in $1,064.74 for each of Elon’s 18 offensive touchdowns. The JMU offense scored 64 touchdowns last season, so if Dukes fans donated at the same rate, it would be $68,143.50.
We could go on and on, but the point is obvious. Elon is bad at football. Wait, that wasn’t it. Oh yeah, here it is. As JMU fans, we’re treated to a great product, not only on the football field, but on the softball diamond, basketball court, soccer fields, and pretty much every other place JMU athletes perform. Let’s step up and raise some money so future student athletes can continue to entertain us and make us all proud to be Dukes. Donate on Tuesday and encourage your friends to do the same.
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There is a giant elephant in the room for JMU basketball right now. Anyone who’s been paying attention, knows that Matt Brady is on the hot seat. Yet, the administration appears to be in no rush to made a decision or even communicate its intentions to the fanbase. Most reasonable people would probably agree, it would behove JMU to act quickly. Letting Brady swing on the vine isn’t good for anyone. If we’re headed for a break-up, let’s get it done and move on. If we’re not, then extend him and get going. Another lame duck year ain’t good for anyone.
While we wait for the admin to act, we’d like to hear what you think. Should Matt Brady stay or should he go? By now, you’ve heard most of the arguments both for and against Coach. The pro-Brady crowd (of which I am a part) like to point out that he took over a moribund program and returned it to respectability, even getting the Dukes back to the Big Dance. He’s coming off his second straight 20 win season, and has a career record over .500 at JMU. And he’s done it all with what appears to be only limited support from the administration.
Of course the anti-Brady folks will (rightly) argue that 20 win seasons aren’t as impressive as they once were. They’ll also argue that Brady has matched those twenty win seasons, with a few under .500 records, and that he’s struggled to retain talented players like Charles Cooke, Darren White, Andre Nation, and others. They believe that JMU has a storied history in hoops and that Brady isn’t the guy to return the Dukes to their past glory.
These are all reasonable arguments. Well, except for the “storied program history” stuff, because that is grossly overstated. JMU’s “storied history” consists of a couple of tourney runs 30+ years ago. The Lefty years were two decades ago, and resulted in a whopping 0 NCAA tourney wins. Ancient history. NYU won a National Championship. Nobody confuses it for Duke or Kentucky. Let’s be a little more realistic. Other than that though, there are plenty of pros and cons. It’s not a slam dunk either way.
Personally, I really like Brady. I think he’s a good coach and a good guy. He’s definitely not perfect and I can point to several areas for improvement. But I also get the impression that the administration has never fully been behind him. He was reluctantly extended after taking the team to the Dance. If the administration is going to continue to be wishy-washy with its support, then they might as well let him go. I guess I’m squarely in that, “he deserves to stay, but it might be better off to let him go” camp. Clear as mud. So what would you do?
We realize this is a little delayed, but the site was down due to some technical difficulties. We have no idea what happened, because our wonderful hosting service didn’t contact us to let us know the site went down, let alone how they managed to get it back up. Don’t go cheap on hosting services boys and girls. But we’re back.
The little glitch might have been a blessing in disguise because we had nothing positive to say immediately after the loss anyway. JMU struggled to score baskets. William & Mary scored a lot of them. When you don’t score, and you let the opponent go on 20 point runs, things typically don’t go your way. They certainly didn’t go JMU’s on Saturday. Sadly, the Dukes failed to win a game in the CAA tourney. Again. And the season is done.
Ron Curry didn’t have his best game, but he still led the team with 20 points. He ends his career as one of the top JMU players in recent memory, maybe ever. He came to JMU four years ago as a talented player, but few predicted he’d turn out this good. There’s no telling how things might have turned out if the rest of his recruiting class (Nation, Cooke, and Bessick) stuck around. Surely another trip to the dance was within reach. But we’ll never know. Matt Brady took Curry to the tourney as a freshmen. Now Curry is gone and folks are calling for Brady’s head. And that’s a topic for another day.
In all the years we’ve been doing this, it’s pretty clear that this year’s CAA tournament ushers in the biggest anxiety for us as Dukes fans. There have been (plenty of) years where the JMU’s men’s team was just awful and our biggest hope was to win a game on Pillow-Fight Friday and just to make it to Saturday. And then there was 2013 when the third-seeded Dukes managed to win the dang thing after we thought they had a shot, but the reason we felt that was their were only seven teams in a horrendous field that year thanks to defections (ODU, GMU) and kids that can’t read good (Towson – who was maybe the conference’s best team that year, and UNCW). Plus although we loved that collection of kids (Rayshawn, Devon Moore, AJ Davis, freshman trio of Curry/Nation/Cooke, etc.), that was a team that never really put it all together in the regular season so we didn’t know what to expect. And maybe more than that, thanks to a middling record and the CAA’s absolute bottoming out that year, the champ was inevitably headed for a 16 seed and zippy shot of the dream upset in the big dance. Which brings us to this year. It’s been a crazy year in the league and I think all of us who follow the league closely agree on two things. First, that ANY of the top six teams (Hofstra, UNCW, Towson, JMU, W&M, Northeastern) cutting down the nets next Monday night would not be a huge surprise. And second, that any one of those six would probably avoid a DOA-16 seed and be a dangerous opponent for anyone in the country come round one in three weeks. Needless to say, this should lead to a crazy entertaining long weekend at the Royal Ghetto Arena in Charm City.
The Basics
JMU is seeded fourth and will play the only other remaining Virginia school still stuck in the CAA in their rival William & Mary Tribe in the second round Saturday at 2:30 p.m. in Baltimore. The Dukes and pantless Griffins split their regular season meetings though if you’re looking for reasons to be optimistic it’s worth noting JMU blew an 18-point lead in their loss in Williamsburg. Basically, the Dukes should compete well. The matchup is particularly intriguing because it pits the Dukes’ CAA-best defense against the potent offensive efficiency of the Nerds. The winner will advance to most likely face top-seeded Hofstra (the Pride take on the winner of the 8/9 game between Elon and Drexel which will almost certainly be Elon).
The Road to a Championship
There really isn’t an easy road in the conference as every team except Drexel and Delaware has been competitive this season so there’s not much use wishing we’d drawn Towson instead of W&M for example. But yes, the Dukes could very easily trip up right out of the gate. However, if JMU can get by the first one, we actually like drawing Hofstra instead of the 2 seed UNCW. Hofstra is really solid and the duo of Green and Gustys is a handful, but UNCW has looked like the biggest matchup nightmare this season for the Dukes (JMU was basically non-competitive in both games agains the Seahawks) and JMU will avoid them till the finals, when maybe/hopefully they will have been upset by someone else like homesteading Towson. In any case, it’s probably W&M, then Hofstra, then UNCW. Damned tough road, but the Dukes are very capable this year.
The Question
Will Shakir Brown be healthy enough to contribute? JMU beat W&M without him last weekend, but they could really use him if they want to play all the way to Monday night.
Why Each Team Can Win
Hofstra has Juan’ya Green and Gustys and they won the regular season. UNCW has the most athletic starting five in the conference and they should be motivated before their new coach goes to the gallows thanks to his alleged role in Louisville’s hooker-gate. Towson might be the shakiest of the top six, but the tourney (thankfully for the last time) is in their backyard and if they get a win Saturday, their crowds will build Sunday and Monday. The Dukes have the league’s best depth, best defense (always important for winning in a tourney format), and the type of senior point guard in Ron Curry that tends to take over an event like this. W&M is well-coached as always by Tony Shaver and can shoot their way past anyone on a given night. Northeastern has struggled with consistency but they appear to be getting arguably the conference’s most talented player in Quincy Ford back from injury just in time which would make a title less surprising than their seed implies.
Charleston and Elon have both shown flashes all year and while four wins in four days may be too tall a task in this field, they have a chance to put scares into UNCW and Hofstra in the second round for sure and are capable of beating anyone.
Delaware and Drexel cannot win the tourney. They are awful. Bruiser Flint HAS to be fired on Saturday, right?!
Fan Pro Tip
The arena is so so ghetto, but there’s a way to make it fun and meet up with lots of other CAA dorks throughout the action. Behind one basket is the corporate yuk-fest and you don’t need to go there. But behind the other basket is a pretty cool little fan-zone where you can still watch the game from floor-level while also enjoying very B’more-esque tall boys of cheap domestic swill. Thank us later.
Idaho, New Mexico State denied extension as football only Sun Belt members & will no longer be league members after 2017 sources told @ESPN
— Brett McMurphy (@McMurphyESPN) March 1, 2016
Oh. We’re not really sure what to say about this. The Sunbelt will be down to ten teams once NMSU and Idaho bounce and Coastal Carolina becomes a full member. That will leave it at 10 teams. Not a bad number, but certainly susceptible to a major shakeup if there’s movement in the P5 and other conferences come raiding. That’s something to watch.
There’s really not much more to be said at this point. The FBS issue has been beaten to death by JMU fans. We’re not sure we could come up with an argument, that hasn’t been heard a thousand times. We could attempt to convince everyone that this news means JMU is FBS bound, but we’d probably be seen as overenthusiastic dreamers. Or we could attempt to justify the administration’s decision to not pursue a Sunbelt move in the past, but we’d be labeled apologists. Neither option is appealing. But there might be a third choice. We could realize that as fans it’s pretty much out of our hands, and instead of worrying about it, just root. Let’s go with that.
