Posted on March 15, 2006
This weekend Kenny Brooks and his JMU women’s basketball team get the chance to see if Cinderella’s glass slipper fits.
For the first time since 1996, the Dukes will participate in the women’s NCAA tournament as they travel to Pittsburgh to take on the eighth-seeded Panthers on their home court in the first round of the big dance.
The team gathered Monday night at Brooks’ house to see if the selection committee had picked them to be in the field of 64 teams. Despite failing to grab the Colonial Athletic Association’s automatic bid, the team wasn’t too concerned about its selection.
“Personally, I wasn’t nervous,” said senior forward Lesley Dickinson, whose Dukes are seeded ninth. “I knew we had a pretty good shot and I probably would have been more surprised if we hadn’t made it. After Delaware popped up on the screen, I was really confident we’d get a bid.”
Madison was one of three CAA teams selected for the tournament joining conference champion Old Dominion, who received a seven seed, and Delaware, which will take its 12 seed to East Lansing, Mich., to play Michigan State.
JMU isn’t exactly a stranger to postseason play, having appeared in nine postseason tournaments since 1983 with seven NCAAs and two WNITs. The Dukes have gone 10-8 in those nine appearances, including a 7-6 record in the big dance.
With such a history in the tournament, Brooks is making sure his players don’t take the approach of being “happy to be there” this weekend.
“We wanted to make sure that wasn’t the case going in,” Brooks said. “It has been a goal of ours to make the tournament and then after that make some noise.”
This will be the second-straight season that JMU made a postseason appearance after falling in the first round of the WNIT last season, 70-62, against Charlotte.
“Last year taught us how to get the mentality to play in a tournament and what it is like to get your body ready,” senior center Meredith Alexis said. “We were able to learn a lot for that experience.”
Pitt is making its first ever NCAA tournament appearance this weekend. It finished the season with a school record 23 wins, going 23-8 overall, including a 10-6 record in the Big East. Sophomore guard Shavonte Zellous and junior center Mercedes Walker will be the key to the Panther’s attack.
“They have a great guard in Shavonte Zellous,” Brooks said. “She has really come on in the absence of a kid named [Karlyle] Lim, who tore her ACL. Mercedes Walker is just a load inside. She’s a tremendous player.”
Zellous leads the team in scoring with 19.2 points per game and was second on the team with an average of six rebounds a night. Walker was the team’s second leading scorer averaging 15.6 points per game and led the team with 9.4 rebounds per game. Her match up against Alexis, the CAA Player of the Year, should go a long way in determining the games outcome.
“That will be a good challenge for me inside,” said the 6-foot-3 center from Hanover Township, Pa. “Our help defense will have to be really strong against [Walker].”
Madison will also have to avoid looking past its game with the Panthers to a potential second-round game against college basketball’s all-time winningest coach Pat Summit and her powerhouse Tennessee program.
“We take them one at a time. You’ve heard me say that a million times,” Brooks said. “We’ll focus on Pittsburgh and if we are fortunate enough to advance, worry about Tennessee. If Tennessee is fortunate enough to advance.”
The odds of 14-18 Drake upsetting the powerful Volunteers are very slim; however, the Dukes do have a precedent of taking down top seeds in the NCAA tournament going 2-2 against one seeds since 1986.
In 1986 eighth-seeded JMU defeated No. 1 Virginia in Charlottesville, and in 1991 it again defeated a No. 1, beating Penn State 73-71. In 1987, Madison fell to Texas in the Sweet 16, and in 1988 the Dukes lost to Tennessee again in the Sweet 16.
