Online exclusive: JMU falls to W&M
Posted on January 10, 2008
With 4 minutes, 58 seconds remaining in Wednesday night’s men’s basketball game, there couldn’t have been a worse time for JMU’s leading scorer to foul out.
Senior forward Terrence Carter was whistled for number five when he fouled William & Mary sophomore Danny Sumner on a shot. Sumner sank both free-throws, capping a 9-0 run to get the Tribe within one at 55-54.
But it was the disqualification of the Dukes’ second leading scorer, Abdulai Jalloh — and the way that it happened — that ultimately led to JMU’s 69-66 loss in Williamsburg.
Jalloh, who averaged just a tenth of a point less than Carter, at 15.2, going into the game, was fouled on a made shot attempt with 3:14 left. Instead of stepping to the line to complete the 3-point play, Jalloh picked up his final foul on a technical when he appeared to punch the ball after it came through the net.
Jalloh was not available to the press following the game, as all of the JMU players quickly boarded the bus before the end of the press conference.
To JMU coach Dean Keener and his William & Mary counterparts the first-year Duke’s absent-minded move was the final turning point in a game that saw 10 ties and six lead changes.
“Technical fouls, intentional fouls you just can’t do things like that,” Keener said. “Particularly on the road when teams have a chance to get the home crowd into it and they did.”
“It was big,” W&M coach Tony Shaver said. “I didn’t see what happened quite honestly, but it fouled him out and gave us two free-throws so it was a big moment in the ball game.”
“That was a big play for us,” W&M senior guard Nathan Mann said. “Obviously two huge point we got from it.”
Sophomore guard David Schneider shot the technical, sinking both to tighten the Tribe’s deficit to 59-56.
In a rare situation of the offensive player picking up a technical after his own made basket and foul, the Dukes still got to shoot what should have been Jalloh’s free-throw.
Keener replaced Jalloh with redshirt-freshman Stephen Kendall, one of the team’s better shooters according to the fourth-year coach. Kendall missed his first career free-throw and W&M tied the game on a Mann 3-pointer.
The Tribe then took care of the ball and connected on eight of their last nine free throw attempts to hold onto the win.
“We just hung in there and we made a lot of winning plays down the stretch,” Shaver said. “I thought we did a good job down the stretch keeping the ball in our good free-throw shooters’ hands.”
W&M junior reserve Chris Darnell made all four of his free-throw attempts in the final 2:08 as he helped Shaver at the small forward position with the absence of senior Laimis Kisielius, the Tribe’s second leading scorer.
Kisielius took an elbow to the head during practice Monday and didn’t dress. The injury also opened up more scoring opportunities for sophomore Danny Sumner who scored 17 points. The team’s leading scorer, David Schneider finished with 16 points, while Mann led all scorers with 18.
“[It’s a] missed opportunity on the road with William & Mary not playing with arguably
their best player,” Keener said. “You just gotta do certain things and part of it is make shots. We’re 4 for our last 33 from three and you can’t win games like that.”
The Dukes finished a miserable 3-for-18 from beyond-the-arc and despite shooting only 32 percent in the first half they had a 30-27 lead. In the second, foul-trouble hindered the offense further, as freshman guard Heiden Ratner, sophomore guard Pierre Curtis and junior forward Juwann James all finished with four fouls.
Curtis was visibly hobbled by a lingering left ankle-injury suffered Dec. 30 against College of Charleston and Keener wasn’t sure whether or not he will play Saturday against North Carolina-Wilmington.
Junior guard Kyle Swanston also left the game early in the second half and sat the remainder of the game on the bench with an ice-pack on his left knee.
James finished with a team-high 16 points and Ratner scored a career-high 14 points in the Duke’s fourth losing effort in their last six outings.
