Dukes draw Mason in round one
JMU hopes to upend last year’s Cinderella team
By John Galle, sports editor
Posted on March 1, 2007

The JMU men’s basketball team heads into Richmond Friday hoping history won’t repeat itself.

For the last three years, the Dukes haven’t advanced past the opening round of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. Tomorrow, against sixth-seeded George Mason, 11th-seeded Madison looks to reverse the trend.

“We’re excited to play George Mason,” JMU coach Dean Keener said. “I’ve sensed that from our kids in talking to them. They’re ready … I’m more nervous from Mason’s perspective than our perspective.”

Though the Patriots (15-14 overall, 9-9 in the CAA) have beaten the Dukes (7-22, 4-14) twice this season by an average of 19.5 points, JMU believes its draw may be a blessing in disguise.

“I’d rather play [George Mason] than ODU or a team like William & Mary,” sophomore guard Joe Posey said. “As far as our personnel, it’s not a bad [matchup].”

In its second meeting against the Patriots on Jan. 27, Madison’s 2-3 zone held its opponent to 59 points — 14 fewer than the first meeting Jan. 13. Unfortunately, JMU’s offense did not respond in that contest, managing just 41 points.

“To be successful, you have to have three capable scorers on the floor at all times,” Keener said. “For us, we haven’t always had three … there have been times we’ve had three and that has shown when we’ve played well within games or we’ve won games.”

In the last four games, JMU’s offense has progressively improved, averaging nearly 70 points an outing, including 72 points against the CAA regular-season champion Virginia Commonwealth University and 78 against third-seeded Hofstra.

Along with the emergence of junior forward Terrance Carter and freshman point guard Pierre Curtis in the second half of the season, Keener said sophomore forward Juwann James is back in form and sophomore forward Kyle Swanston has broken a season-long shooting slump. James has reached double figures in his last five games, something he was only able to do once in the six games prior, and Swanston is 50 percent from 3-point range (8-of-16) in his last three contests, averaging 10 points per game during that span.

Even with the recent positives, Keener said JMU still needs to be better on both sides of the basketball.

“They understand what it takes,” Keener said of his young squad, “but we’re just limited in what we can do. Whether it’s having enough guys that are able to beat people off the dribble or defensively, you know, we have some deficiencies on the perimeter [and] we don’t really have a shot blocker back there.”

Said Carter: “We just need to have consistency. We have a lot of scorers capable of scoring in double figures … with consistency and defense we’ll have a fair shot of winning the game.”

If JMU upsets GMU tomorrow, it will have a second-round date with the Pride — a team that blew out the Dukes by 20 in the season finale.

“[Hofstra] could [win the tournament],” Keener said. “When you’ve got guard play like them, anything is [possible].”

But the Dukes can’t play spoiler until they get by their formidable foe: the Patriots.

“They’re beatable,” Posey said. “[It’s] definitely not the team they had last year.”

Nevertheless, Madison will face one of the premier post players in the CAA in GMU’s Will Thomas (61 percent shooting, 13.7 ppg, 7.1 rpg), not to mention scoring threats Folarin Campbell and John Vaughn (combined 23.1 ppg).

JMU is more confident with its 22-loss season wiped clean for the start of the tournament. But, the team is careful to not be overconfident at the same time.

“We can’t think we’re due for [a win],” Posey said. “But maybe we are.”