Posted on March 22, 2006
Let's go back to Feb. 22 of this year.
The JMU women’s basketball team entered that night’s game 24-2, and was tied for the best start in the team’s 86-year history. In the Colonial Athletic Association, the Dukes were in sole possession of first place at 15-0, including a 29-point beat down of 15-time defending conference champion Old Dominion.
That night’s game against Delaware marked the unraveling of a season that was, up to that point, nothing short of spectacular.
The Dukes entered the week needing to win one of two games against the top two competitors in the CAA, Delaware and Old Dominion, in order to clinch a share of the regular season title. That goal collapsed when JMU lost both games on the road and fell to the No. 2 seed in the CAA tournament.
All season long we heard that JMU’s top goal of the season was to win the CAA tournament and get the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. So now a whole season worth of work with the country’s most experienced team, and probably the best team in Madison history, came down to a four-day tournament.
In their first game, JMU coach Kenny Brooks and his Dukes sent a strong message by dominating UNC-Wilmington by 30. They went on to defeat the Blue Hens in round two on their home court by 11 to set up the rubber match with the Monarchs.
The tournament would end in disappointment as JMU fell 78-70 to ODU in the final game.
Disappointment is the only way to describe the end of the season. To call it a “choke” would be unfair to the talents of senior center Meredith Alexis and company and completely disrespectful to Wendy Larry for the job she has done with the Monarchs. After all, ODU proved, once again, that when the season was on the line, they were still the kings of the CAA court.
Yet, I can’t help feeling like this JMU team deserved so much better. The team had four 1,000-point scorers in the same starting lineup, including the school’s all-time leading scorer and rebounder in Alexis. Senior guard Lesley Dickinson finished her career second on the all-time scoring list right behind Alexis and junior forward Tamera Young. Barring any injury, Young will more than likely pass both Dickinson and Alexis next season.
So to say this may have been JMU’s most talented team ever doesn’t seem like much of a reach.
Yet, when the team needed to be at its best, it came up short.
Twice they had a chance to dethrone the Monarchs and take their title from them and failed to get the job done. On Sunday, when JMU had a chance to put their CAA disappointments behind them and take down Pittsburgh to set up a meeting with Tennessee and the nation’s all-time winningest coach Pat Summit, they once again just couldn’t get over the hump.
Maybe a few years from now people will look at the statistics from this year’s players. They’ll see how they went to the NCAA tournament, how Kenny Brooks was named CAA Coach of the Year, how Meredith Alexis won CAA Player of the Year and say that this season had to be one of the most successful in JMU history.
Don’t be fooled; the women’s season ended in disappointment. This team was capable of so much more than a second-place finish in the conference and a first round exit in the NCAA tournament.
Brian Hansen is a senior SMAD major with a concentration in print journalism.
