Can this man takeover the CAA Tourney?
Medium Steps for YoYo
Last time out versus Towson we noted that JMU’s big man Yohanny Dalembert was taking some small steps back towards becoming the breakout player he was last year. In the REALLY GOOD NEWS department, YoYo built on that momentum tonight and is getting closer to an actual trend of solid play at this point. He had 14 points tonight and more than anything, his consistent presence on the court changes the whole dynamic defensively and on the boards.
Sometimes It Really is an Easy Game
JMU shot 57% from the field and 53% from deep. That included an otherworldly 67%/64% in the first half which explained the Dukes racing out to a 15 point lead at the break. Brady mentioned at the half that the Huskies weren’t even playing all that bad on D, the Dukes were just making shots. On the other hand, Northeastern shot a Drexel-esque 36% from the floor and a Delaware-esque 19% from deep. Make shots and force the other team to miss shots. Sometimes it really is that simple.
Then when you have a senior leader, especially one at the point like Ron Curry (22p/7r/4a) who just calmly steps up and takes over when you’re struggling or things inevitably get tight thanks to CAA “officiating,” it’s just not all that difficult. Watching the Dukes play like this on the road against one of the CAA favorites just makes you realize that if healthy, they’ll have as good a chance as anyone in Baltimore’s Royal Ghetto Arena in March.
Blaine Taylor on the Mic
We gotta admit having former porn star ODU Head Coach Blaine Taylor doing color really is the hoops equivalent to the jackpot that getting Mickey on color must’ve been for some teams the last two years in football. The man who’s been known to so eloquently mix metaphors like “all hat, no horse” is just good old-fashioned CAA fun.
After losing to Elon at home last Thursday night, Matt Brady and the Dukes righted the ship with a win over the Towson Tigers. In the loss against Elon, the Dukes were pretty listless. They shot poorly and let Elon sneak out of Harrisonburg with a relatively easy win. Against Towson, JMU played a tough and physical game and managed to walk away with a 73-59 victory. JMU is now 12-5 overall and 2-2 in the CAA. Towson fell to 11-6 and 2-2. Shakir Brown led the Dukes with 14 points. It was his 10th double-digit scoring effort this season, and his first in a CAA game. Ron Curry and the Serb also hit double figures with 12 and 11 points respectively. Cabarkapa was actually a perfect 4 for 4 from the field. Here are a few quick thoughts on the game.
Small Steps for YoYo
If you’ve read the blog in the past, you’ll know we’re huge Yohanny Dalembert fans. He came to JMU as an athletic, but rather raw prospect. He showed some real flashes as a freshmen, grew by leaps and bounds last year, and was seemingly poised to breakout this year. Only he hasn’t. He’s looked uncomfortable on the court and quite frankly had been struggling big time since CAA play began. Yesterday, he started to take a few small steps forward. Yes, he fouled out, but he managed to make his presence known and chipped in 5 points, 8 boards, 1 steal, and 1 block in only 18 minutes. Hopefully it kick starts his confidence, because JMU will need him playing his best against the top CAA teams.
Live By the Three, Die By the Three
JMU shoots a lot of three pointers. A lot. Thus far, they’ve launched 405 three point attempts. That’s the 19th most in the country. (ed. note: Interestingly enough, fellow CAA team Elon shoots even more. They’ve hoisted up 484, the 4th most in the NCAA.) Relying on long range jumpers is essentially a high risk, high reward venture. On nights like last Thursday, when the bombs aren’t dropping, it’s bad. JMU hit only 5 of 28 treys against Elon and lost. However, when the Dukes are knocking ’em down at a 41% clip like they did yesterday, things have a way of working out pretty well.
Good Old Fashioned CAA Rockfight
Back in the day, the CAA was a pretty physical league. Teams didn’t always win due to beautiful ball movement and great shooting. They won by playing physical basketball in foul filled wars of attrition. The refs did their part by calling fouls. Lots and lots of fouls. As fans, folks affectionately referred to these battles as CAA Rockfights. Yesterday was a bit of a throwback. A total of three players fouled out (YoYo and two Tigers). The refs called 43 fouls and the teams combined for 59 free throws. Towson shot an abysmal 10% from behind the arc and 34.6% overall. While rockfights aren’t always the most fun to watch, being able to win them is essential if the Dukes want to contend for the league title.
@MattJones36 my husband is REALLY gonna miss you.
— Kara Withers (@WithersKara) January 9, 2016
Ah, the old “sarcastic tweet at the local beat reporter who used to cover your husband’s football team on the way out of town” move. Always a nice touch and a sure fire way to leave a good impression.
Bye Felicia. And don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
Well, that happened. After spending the last few days furiously tweeting about the future of JMU and #TheEdge2016, Coach Withers bailed on JMU in a matter of minutes to accept the Head Coaching position at Texas St. No word yet on whether Sinbad, Scott Bakula, or Kathy Ireland have any eligibility left for him. The DNR’s Matt Jones, who is going to sleep exactly zero hours in the next 72 hours or so, does a much better job than we ever will breaking down the news portion of the story here so we’re going to give you some of our own thoughts, takeaways, and deepest fears heading into a very uncertain time and what could be some dark days ahead for JMU Football, and maybe more importantly, JMU Athletics as a whole. We are likely going to say things that not everyone agrees with because this is a blog, it’s our opinion and losing the Head Ball Coach leads to having to touch on wide array of issues. But we’re not trying to make this bigger than it is or start battling with everyone so please, please take us with a grain of salt. We’re a bit raw emotionally on this and scared tonight for the program but remember that JMU was JMU before and will be tomorrow and next year. Great facilities + great campus + growing tradition = a good gig. The news was first reported by the fantastic Football Scoop, then by Texas St., and as usual, JMU was the kid who’d been given the wrong address to the party (sorry, couldn’t resist).
- Withers leaves in snake-like fashion and appears to be a phony and a lot of that crap about juice and integrity seems very hollow now. By watching JMU’s recruiting class jump ship left and right, it’s pretty clear that he’s found quite the loophole around what we thought was a dark period for recruiting (though we could be wrong on that).
- As ESPN’s recruiting expert Tony Moss tweeted tonight though, “Everett Withers to Texas St., an FBS program that has never been better than the FCS program he’s leaving.”
- Let’s not kid ourselves, JMU hired Withers to be their FBS transitional coach and that didn’t happen. Sure doesn’t look like it’s gonna happen anytime soon. Believe and donate at your own peril. We’ve never even agreed entirely with each other on the conference issue and their is no right answer, but it will be a heck of a lot harder to winkwinknudgenudge the next guy and they don’t need to pay FBS money if it cuts into the pool of money for quality assistants.
- Success in G5 conferences wouldn’t be any different than FCS/CAA success. You win, your coach gets poached. It is sad that Texas freaking state is a step up, but Withers sees it that way.
- We may be pissed at Withers, but he’s 53 years old and has made it clear he wants to be an FBS coach. He’s doubling his salary and gets to give the staff he’s taking with him raises too. His wife and son get to live near Austin. Of course, it’s awful shady that he just fired a bunch of coaches, hired replacements, and is now taking those replacements with him. To be honest, we wouldn’t mind at all being a few of those recently dismissed names back on the radar right now.
- JMU AD Jeff Bourne sent out a Bourne Dialogue to address the situation tonight. Not really sure what he can say but his answer re: FBS was the weakest we’ve seen since “monitoring” and it’s pretty clear that’s not really on JMU’s radar anymore. On the other hand, the continued engagement with Carr and the things we’re hearing in the wind tonight give us a LOT of hope that JMU was actually more prepared than usual this time. After all, after Withers tried to go to ECU a few weeks ago, they had to get a plan in place and we’re at least hopeful the admin is ready with a workaround to the normal hiring process this time.
- If the hiring process drags out past National Signing Day – just two weeks away – everything is effed Dude. We don’t think that will happen and have high hopes for one of the following names: Bowers, Chadwell, Elliott (who is still on staff and might be the one stud coach that could be convinced to stay in the ‘Burg), Mehringer, DeFilippo, Edmonds. We also would at least listen to both Keeler and Scott. We absolutely under no circumstances want to hear the names Beamer, Stinespring, or London even on someone’s tongue.
- Please consider the following: The worst part is really the timing. We have to give Withers all the credit in the world for the shot in the arm he gave what had become a complacent program in terms of energy, recruiting, and fundraising, but we always found ourselves asking if he could actually coach? He was a defensive coach whose defense sucked at Ohio St. and then sucked worse at JMU. He feasted on the crappy teams (of which there are a lot more in the CAA and FCS then there used to be) but struggled mightily against stiffer competition. He lost two home playoff games as a favorite. We’re terrified to lose his recruiting prowess and ability to find bright young offensive coaches, but we’re not convinced we’ll miss him ON the field all that much.
- Don’t ask us why, but we strangely have a solid amount of faith that JMU is going to salvage this situation in as solid a manner as anyone could hope for in the next few days. If this goes through the weekend, we’re gonna need to move on to scotch though.
Finally, to any current players, recruits, or their families who may happen to stumble on this post, and with a big thank you to a certain social media/AV guru in the ‘Burg:
Back in college football that is. Yesterday Coastal Carolina University named Mickey Matthews its defensive coordinator. Mickey had been working as a television commentator for the past two years after being relieved of his duties as head coach of the JMU football team. He’s JMU’s winningest coach. While with the Dukes he won three conference titles and of course led JMU to the 2004 FCS National Championship. He also was recognized as the National Coach of the Year three times.
Matthews joins a CCU team coached by Joe Moglia, that is in the process of transitioning to FBS. Currently in the FCS’s Big South Conference, Mickey and the Chanticleers will join the FBS’s Sun Belt Conference. The school will officially become a Sun Belt member in July 2016, with all teams but football competing in the league next Fall. Football however will compete in the Sun Belt in 2017 and become a full FBS member eligible for the post season in 2018.
We hadn’t really been following Mickey’s career since he left JMU. As a result, this news was a bit of a shock. He’s a heck of a defensive coach and a good get for CCU though. We wish him well and look forward to following his progress with the Chanticleers.
JMU picked up its first road win of CAA play this year with a 73-63 defeat of Delaware. The Dukes are now even at 1-1 in the CAA and 11-4 overall. The Blue Hens fell to 0-2 in the CAA and 5-8 overall. Jackson Kent was the man for the Dukes. He notched the first double-double of his career, scoring 19 and pulling down 10 boards. Ron Curry was held without a point in the opening half, but lit it up after the break and finished with 17. Winston Grays also reached double figures, adding in 13 points, all in the first half. Here are three key numbers from the win.
9
That’s the number of Dukes who played at least double digit minutes yesterday. We saw Matt Brady go deep into his bench in early non-conference play, but weren’t sure what to expect in CAA games. If the first two league games are an indication, we’re going to continue to see a lot of guys get on the floor. Brady used 8 players for at least 10 minutes in last week’s loss against Charleston. After living through some lean years regarding JMU hoops’ depth, this is welcome development.
.896
That was Delaware’s points per possession in the game. The Blue Hens haven’t exactly been lighting it up offensively this year. They average only .96 points per possession, which equates to the 243rd best in the country. A scoring machine they are not. But the opening twenty minutes must have been particularly painful for Delaware fans to watch. The Blue Hens hit only 17% of their field goals in the first half. Whether you want to chalk that up to plain awful shooting, solid defense, or just one of the days, the end result was the same. Delaware just couldn’t score.
8
That’s how many three pointers Jackson Kent, Winston Grays, and Dimitrije Cabarkapa hit in the first half. The trio went 8 for 13 from behind the arc and helped JMU jump out to a big lead that the Dukes never gave up. The hot shooting from long range, combined with the aforementioned awful shooting by the Blue Hens, was enough for JMU to put the game away early.
Hear JMU is hiring defensive staff from Ohio State, Gardner-Webb and Wake Forest… https://t.co/sNnVtyuq1F
— FootballScoop Staff (@FootballScoop) December 29, 2015
The 2015 JMU football defense underperformed. Drastically. As a result, there were firings and a reshuffling of the defensive coaching staff. Steve Sisa was demoted from his position as Defensive Coordinator and the defensive line and outside linebacker coaches were let go. According to FootballScoop, JMU already has the replacements picked out and lined up to join the coaching staff.
Randall McCray is set to become the new Defensive Coordinator and coach the safeties. He’ll be joined by Vince Oghobaase, who’ll coach the defensive line, and Tyler Santucci, who’ll coach the outside linebackers. All three appear to be outstanding hires.
McCray will be coming to JMU from Gardner-Webb, where he was the defensive coordinator for the past three seasons. His defenses were pretty good, and certainly more effective than JMU’s. The 2015 Gardner-Webb defense ranked 13th in Total Defense and gave up the 7th fewest passing yards in the country.
Oghobaase is joining JMU from Ohio State, where he was a graduate assistant working the defensive line the past two season. He was a four year letterman and team captain at Duke, where he finished with 14 sacks and 36.5 tackles for loss. Tyler Santucci was a graduate assistant coaching the rovers at Wake Forest the past two years. Prior to his time at Wake, he coached at Stony Brook, where he also starred as an All America and 2009 Big South Defensive Player of the Year.
McCray is a seasoned coach with a track record as a very effective Defensive Coordinator. He’ll bring some much needed experience to a young defensive coaching staff looking to help the Dukes’ defense turn things around. Santucci and Oghobaase more fit the mold of young guys with plenty of upside, like we’ve seen with some of Everett Withers previous assistants. All three guys have their work cut out for them, but seem up to the task.
This was a post we put together with some friends and published in 2012. Since we loved it and it’s Christmas time again, we wanted to run it back. Merry Christmas everyone!
It’s Christmas time and we here at JMUSB definitely have the spirit. So we decided to put a list of a few of our favorite Christmas songs of all time with the help of some friends of the blog. The resulting list of songs is below, including some brief thoughts from whomever suggested each one. We’re referring to it as the JMUSB list of best Christmas songs ever. Sounds official.
Blue Christmas by Elvis Presley
It’s Elvis in all his glory. There is also a ‘musical’ joke in that the notes he sings are ‘blue’ (minor thirds or something) pretty nerdy I know. read more…
Ron Curry took over the game in the second half and guided the Dukes late in finally putting away American Athletic Conference foe EZU 67-61 on Sunday. Curry accounted for more than a third of JMU’s total with 23 points. His improved outside shooting combined with a little less defensive attention focused his way this year with the emergence of Shakir Brown have really begun to open things up for the senior guard. Curry is now 20th all time in points for the Dukes and will likely pass former teammate Andrey Semenov and another former PG with a similar game in Pierre Curtis in the next game or two.
In what is becoming an extremely encouraging trend, the Dukes won the rebounding battle 37-34, getting big contributions from Yohanny Dalembert, who hopefully is starting to find his form after battling an injury throughout the early part of the season.
With one game left in the non-conference schedule (Tuesday vs. Mt. St. Mary’s) before beginning CAA play vs. College of Charleston at home on New Year’s Eve, Coach Matt Brady and the Dukes have to pleased with their work so far. After starting the season with the big win at Richmond and a respectable performance against powerhouse West Virginia, we were all wondering what the heck happened when the Dukes inexplicably dropped two games in their own tournament over Thanksgiving to UT Martin and Oral Roberts. But they’ve bounced back very strong with the current winning streak and a win Tuesday would give them a 10-3 mark heading into the heart of the season which would give them every opportunity to exceed 20 wins by continuing to build on this success in conference play.
[polldaddy poll=9234680]Prior to the 2015 football season kicking off, we ran a little poll to find out who you thought the best QB in the history of JMU football was. Rodney Landers won in a bit of a landslide with 51.5% of the vote. One Vad Lee finished third with a shade under 17%.
Now that the season is done, we thought we’d run the poll again to see if anything has changed. Lee had his season cut short due to an injury, but he did enough in his abbreviated season to win both CAA Offensive Player of the Year and the Dudley Award. We’re curious if that was enough to move him up in fan’s rankings. Anyway, vote in the poll and share your thoughts in the comments below.
