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.
Senior Days
So this weekend brought senior days at the Convo for both the men’s and women’s teams. And while on the women’s side a senior class that’s been one of the best in school history pulled out a heart-stopping victory, their regular season isn’t even over and we’ve got a feeling there are at least a few more games left in their season to discuss the brilliance of Gwathmey, Perez, Mickens, and Jones (and technically P. Hall, though thankfully for JMU Nation she’ll get another shot next year) so we’re going to focus on the men’s game. Note that the women have an extra week before their CAA Tourney.
The men snapped a five-game losing streak to the rival Griffins, generally played a steady game from start to finish, earned their way back out of pillow-fight Friday at the CAA tourney and into a share of third place with a solid “meets expectations” record of 21-10, 11-7 on the year. And they did it all with a noticeably hobbling (even in street clothes) Shakir Brown out of the lineup and Ron Curry in foul trouble for the entire first half. How?
0-10
That’s what the featherless Tribe shot from 3 in the second-half. And that’s just one part of the 33% shooting overall they were held to by the Dukes’ consistently strong defensive efforts. Ron Thompson, who’s not our favorite CAA color analyst generally, did a good job of noting just that on the telecast and it certainly bodes well for next weekend in Baltimore. The Dukes, maybe better than any team in the conference, have been able to weather cold stretches because of their CAA-leading defense and that certainly seems like something that could help a team win three straight.
The Road Ahead
Towson, JMU, and W&M all finished tied for 3rd with the tiebreaker giving the three seed to the Tigers, the four to the Dukes and the five to the Tribe. Which coincidentally means the Dukes will play this very same Tribe team in the quarterfinals at 2:30 p.m. next Saturday at Royal Ghetto Arena. Congrats to Hofstra, who closed strong to catch UNCW at the top of the league. Although we might rather have drawn Towson than W&M in the quarters, the good news with Hofstra getting the top seed is that the Dukes will definitely avoid UNCW – who has been a nightmare matchup for the Dukes this year – on their side of the bracket. That’s not to say a W&M/Hofstra/UNCW road would be anything other than brutal, but it’s a small silver lining.
Ron Curry
With four more points, Mr. Curry will pass Dukes’ great Darren McLinton for fourth all-time in scoring at JMU. When you look back to the trio of freshman that played in the NCAA tourney a few years back, it’s hard to believe Curry is the one on such a precipice and that he’ll surely have his number hanging from the rafters in the new arena a few years hence. And we cannot possibly be more proud of, and thankful for, a student-athlete we’ve had the privilege to watch during our time doing this silly little project. Curry has weathered every storm, grown into one of the conference’s finest players and leaders, and most importantly, unquestionably improved his game every one of his four years. The three-point assassin, big-shot making, floor general and defensive pain in the ass we get to watch hopefully about six more games is light-years better than the backup guard shakily playing a few minutes in the Indiana loss. Thank you Ron Curry for everything!
In the penultimate game of the CAA regular season, JMU lost to Towson by the score of 69-67. The loss dropped JMU to 20-10 (10-7). Towson’s win vaulted them past the Dukes in the standings, moving them to 20-10 overall, but 11-6 in CAA play. Ron Curry had 20 points in the loss to lead JMU. The senior struggled to find his rhythm for much of the night, before getting going late in the second half. Unfortunately, it was too little, too late. Tom Vodonavich was very effective, scoring 12 points. Yohanny Dalembert contributed 11 points and a team high 8 boards. Let’s break down the game by the numbers.
48
Seconds JMU had the lead. That’s it. The scoreboard says it was only a 2 point win for Towson, but the Tigers pretty much went wire to wire. Curry got it going in the end, and JMU managed to hit enough buckets in garbage time to briefly turn it into kinda-sorta-exciting time. Towson hung in there and closed it out though. JMU had a shot. Truth be told though, if the Dukes won, they would have been stealing one.
9 and 8
JMU shot 9% better than Towson from the field, and 8% better than the Tigers from behind the arc. Curry was slow to get going, but the Dukes didn’t lose because of poor shooting. To the contrary, they shot the ball pretty well. They hit 49% overall and 41% from long range. Those are percentages Matt Brady would take most nights. Especially on the road.
0
That’s the number of times I’ve mentioned Shakir Brown in this post. He led JMU with 14 points in the seasons’ earlier win over Towson. He’s averaging double figures in scoring. Yet, he was invisible tonight and seems to disappear for games at a time. He’s too talented not to be a factor night in and night out. JMU needs him to step up in Baltimore.
14
How many offensive boards Towson pulled down. Watching the game, it seemed worse than that. If you would have asked me to guess, I would have said that Towson had about 20 offensive rebounds. I wouldn’t have doubted you if you told me they out-rebounded the Dukes by 10+ boards overall. They did not. They grabbed 35 rebounds to JMU’s 31. And despite all those offensive rebounds, they only managed 17 second chance points to JMU’s 14. Not overwhelming, but significant in a 2 point game.
6
If you guessed the number of free throws JMU missed, you are techincally correct. It’s easy to point to that and say its why JMU lost. But that’s not really it. Six is also the number of free throws Towson’s Byron Hawkins hit in the final 45 seconds of play. Let me repeat, he hit 6 free throws in the final 45 seconds. He knocked down 11 of 13 for the game. That’s how you close out a tight game. And it was the difference for Towson tonight.
Vad Lee was one of, if not the best, QBs in JMU history. And when it comes to producing JMU highlight videos, grad assistant Zach Lantz is absolutely the G.O.A.T. Give him the full video archives of Lee’s career and let him loose and this is what you get. Ten minutes of pure awesomeness highlighting just some of the amazing things Lee did on the field. It probably could have been 1o hours. Enjoy.
Damn, there are only 10 teams in that graphic. We guess that means, wow, Mickey Dean and the Dukes are a Top 10 team! For good measure, senior Jailyn Ford was also named National Pitcher of the Week. The senior went 2-0 last week with 18 strikeouts in 13.2 innings. She also held her opponents to a .104 batting average. Pretty good. Pretty, pretty good.
The men’s basketball team sort of had an uneventful weekend, which is just what was needed. Curry is clearly still working his way back from injury, thankfully no one else appeared to suffer an injury, and the team got healthy with a win over a truly atrocious Delaware team (seriously, what the hell is going on in Newark?! it’s like they’ve completely given up).
The women’s team kept rolling as usual and as of this writing, might even lock up the number one seed in the CAA tourney tonight if other results go their way later. Also, in spring sports news, the ranked lacrosse women continue to justify that preseason respect despite their first road loss 12-10 at UConn.
But the squad we really need to discuss is Softball. This team has come out of the gate on fire and with something to prove. And with no disrespect intended towards other Dukes’ programs of recent vintage, this isn’t a “gaudy record in the CAA but that’s because the CAA sucks” type thing. This team went down south the first couple weeks of the season and has pretty much romped through a loaded early season schedule! The one loss was 2-1 in a nip-and-tuck affair against #5 Alabama. The teams they’ve beaten on the way to a 9-1 start include #17 UCF, #12 Tennessee (who they run-ruled 9-0 in 5 innings), and this weekend #3 Auburn. They also took two from the B1G’s Rutgers and handled the Big 12’s Oklahoma St. That’s to say nothing of the fact they’ve simply outclassed the non power-conference teams they’ve played so far. Needless to say, when they come back to the ‘Burg for a grab-bag of those teams next weekend (Binghamton, Toledo, Robert Morris, and St. Joe’s) we expect they’ll handle their business again then too. Who knows where the #20 Dukes will be ranked when the new poll comes out this week, but let’s just say folks are taking notice and with a one-two punch of sophomore Megan Good and senior Jailyn Ford in the circle, it’s not unrealistic to dream of the Dukes being true national contenders this year. Jump on the bandwagon now!
JMU fans were treated to free basketball tonight. It ended up not being the bargain we were hoping for. The Dukes fell to Northeastern by the score of 95-94 in triple overtime. Ron Curry made his return to the court after missing last game at UNCW. He came off the bench to score 21 points in the loss. Yohanny Dalembert had a monster game with 26 points and 10 boards. Joey McLean continued to impress, pouring in 15 points, while Jackson Kent added 12. Yet, JMU lost. And it was primarily because Northeastern’s Quincy Ford hit all the baskets, dropping 36 points on the Dukes. Let’s break down the game by the numbers.
41
The number free throws Northeastern attempted. If you’re scoring at home, yes that is 20 more than JMU shot for the game. Before we go down the road of ranting about the officiating, let’s point out that this was largely due to JMU settling for jumpers far too often instead of going to the hole. The Dukes could have closed the game out in regulation and again in OT with a simple bucket, but Ron Curry opted to shoot threes. To his credit, he adjusted his game and went aggressively to the bucket to force a third OT. Too many times tonight though, the Dukes were forced to settle for jumpers away from the basket with the shot clock winding down. And I know we said we wouldn’t complain about the officials, but 20 free throw attempts in a triple overtime game? Come on.
23
Believe it or not, that’s the number of assists JMU had. The Dukes assisted on 23 of their 36 field goals. That’s a sign of some unselfish play.
15
How many times the lead changed hands tonight. We’re working through the frustration from the loss, but this was a tight game that really could have gone either way. Still hurts though.
10.1
That’s the difference between the two teams’ shooting percentages. JMU hit 47.4% from the field and held Northeastern to 37.1%. Quincy Ford racked up a bunch of buckets, but he didn’t shoot particularly well from the field. He was a respectable 10 for 26. The rest of the Huskies went 15 for 41. JMU actually played pretty good defense.
1
How many three pointers Ron Curry hit. He attempted 8. It was great to see Curry back on the floor. He played a good game and helped keep the Dukes in the game all night. But he didn’t have his long range game tonight. Shooters get cold. It happens.
7
Looking at the boxscore, it’s really tough to see how JMU lost. In a 3 OT game we could point to any single mistake, such as one of the Dukes’ missed layups. Or we could chalk it up to one particular nice play by the Huskies, such as Quincy Ford’s buzzer beating three to close the first half. Or we could point out that JMU missed 7 of its 21 free throw attempts. And if we’re being honest, one of those was supposed to be a miss to give JMU a shot at a rebound and late bucket. Regardless, JMU shot 67% from the line. That’s not terrible, but it’s not good enough to win a close game either.
Like many of you, our lives were profoundly impacted by our time at JMU. College represents the proverbial quest for knowledge, and we did in fact learn a great many things as undergrads. One of those things that we have carried with us the longest is a deep appreciation for the Waffle House. Late night breakfasts after being slightly over-served were a regular occurrence for us as undergrads. And they were terrific. Scattered, smothered, & chunked and a chicken melt with a sweet tea just can’t be beat sometimes. So when we found out some guy had to spent 30 straight hours in Waffle House as a punishment for losing his fantasy football league, of course we had to weigh in.
It almost goes without saying that this is not a punishment. At all. Punishments by definition are supposed to unpleasant or even painful. Getting the chance to spend 30 hours in cozy little restaurant, filled with friendly people, a jukebox that is guaranteed to have both the “Waffle House Song” and a variety of Johnny Cash classics, while having virtually unlimited access to all the waffles, hash browns, and patty melts you can eat? Not a punishment.
The guys in this fantasy league are either clinically insane or the most spoiled people on earth. The loser gets 30 uninterrupted hours of bliss in one of our country’s iconic institutions. What do you get for winning the league, a personal chef and a goose that shits hundred dollar bills? It’s nuts. Implement this sort of a “punishment” in any fantasy league we’ve ever played in and suddenly it becomes pure pandemonium. We’re talking full on tankapolooza and fist fights over the right to draft Cleveland Brown’s QBs in the first round. It would be a total race to the bottom. Spending 30 straight hours a Waffle House is more bucket list stuff than punishment. But maybe that’s just us.
Really not all that much to say about this weekend’s beatdown at the beach. The Dukes lost to CAA-Leading UNCW 78-68 in a game that wasn’t really that close. The Dukes game planned well and tried to go inside against UNCW’s smaller but more athletic lineup but gave up a 20-3 run in the first half, trailed by 13 at the break and never really threatened. We mentioned after the Dukes’ first loss to the Seahawks that UNCW was the scariest team in the conference for JMU matchup-wise because a few of our players are just out-classed athletically, but without Ron Curry those issues were even more glaring. We’re actually not down on the team after this one considering other players were being asked to take over ball handling duties in the conference’s toughest possible game (@UNCW). But JMU has fallen into a logjam for third-place and someone from the CAA’s current top five is going to end up playing on the dreaded Pillow-Fight Friday in Baltimore as only the top four teams earn byes.
If anything, JMU’s rally to win at Charleston after Curry went down during what had to be one of the Dukes ugliest performances is even more important and impressive in hindsight.
Speaking of Curry, official word is “knee sprain, will return this season.” We’re not doctors, but that seems like as good a news as we could’ve hoped for. No idea which ligament that means, but hopefully something like a very mild MCL which could mean a fairly rapid return. In a one-bid, low-major league where only the tourney champ is going dancing though, there is no reason to rush back before Baltimore, even if it means having to play an extra game versus an awful Drexel or Delaware team on the first day. Now everyone cross your fingers.
