Web exclusive: Dukes feelin' the Blues
Delaware deals Madison third straight loss
Posted on January 24, 2008
After dropping a fifth game out of the last six, JMU coach Dean Keener was at his wits end.
The emotions boiled over for the fourth-year coach after his team committed two costly fouls in the last two seconds, leading to a 66-65 Delaware win in front of 3,408 at the Convocation Center.
“I’ve been in [coaching] 20 years,” Keener said. “It’s the worst [expletive] loss I’ve ever had.”
JMU sophomore point guard Pierre Curtis hit a pair of free throws with 11 seconds remaining to give the Dukes (10-8 overall, 3-5 in the Colonial Athletic Association) a 65-62 advantage before they called timeout.
Delaware (9-9, 6-2) then worked the ball up the floor looking for forward Herb Courtney. After all, the 6-foot-7 senior was already 2-for-2 from beyond-the-arc and was leading the Blue Hens in scoring with 21 points.
Courtney received the ball with about four seconds left on the clock and took one dribble before pulling-up near the top of the key. JMU senior forward Terrence Carter tried jumping straight up to alter shot, but he nicked Courtney’s wrist on the follow-through.
The Dukes watched as Courtney sank the first of his three freebies and rimmed out on the second shot. Forced to miss the third attempt in order to give UD a chance to get a put-back for the tie, Courtney spun the ball off the rim, but it dropped in the direction of JMU junior guard Abdulai Jalloh.
Jalloh was unable to corral the rebound and the ball squirted out off of his hands with 1.5 seconds left. The Dukes used another time-out to discuss the defense, but erroneously chose to double-team Courtney coming off a screen, forgetting about the screener.
“I couldn’t put two hands on it,” Jalloh said. “It probably would’ve won the game…I just didn’t secure the ball with two hands like we’ve been taught to.”
UD junior guard Marc Egerson rolled off of his screen to a wide-open layup and was fouled by JMU junior Juwann James.
Egerson tied the game with the layup and swished the go-ahead free throw. The Dukes desperation heave found nobody and in a matter of two seconds they had blown a three-point lead.
“Can’t explain that,” Keener said as he remembered everything his team did wrong. “We didn’t get the job done. Can’t foul a 3-point shooter. That’s the second game in a row we’ve done that. Missed box-out assignments. Allowed the slip the last play, [but] shouldn’t have come down to that.
“But…this is on everybody. It’s not one player, it’s not the team, it’s the coaches, it’s everybody. This loss is a total team loss.”
The Dukes took a one-point lead into the half, led by Jalloh’s 11 points, which included a jumper with one second remaining on the clock.
Delaware would have the last shot of the second half after battling a deficit that got as high as 10 on a Jalloh 3-pointer with 6:51 remaining.
The Hens then went on a 9-2 run — capped by an Herb Courtney 3-pointer — to cut the lead to 59-57 with 3:18 on the clock. The deficit then bounced between three and one before Egerson’s game winning free throw.
“I guess you could call that snatching victory from the jaws of defeat,” Delaware coach Monte Ross said.
Ross went on to joke with Courtney and Egerson that they could watch movies on the ride back.
“I just wanted to make [the free throw] so we could watch a movie,” Egerson said jokingly.
There was no room for jokes with Keener who will try to assess his team’s three-game skid that has included the absence of injured junior forward Kyle Swanston, and more recently the indefinite suspension of junior guard Joe Posey, following an argument with assistant coach Louis Rowe during Saturday’s loss to Mason.
“You guys got the story line. I don’t know what else to say. We blew a [expletive] game,” Keener said smugly as he left the post-game press conference after a little over two minutes.
No players showed up to the press conference, but Jalloh stopped on his way out of the Convo with a more positive message.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Jalloh said. “We still got a season to play. We still got the CAA tournament. There’s a lot more basketball to be played. Nobody wants to lose by one; nobody wants to lose by twenty…we experienced both in back-to-backs and it’s time to win now.”
Jalloh finished with a team-high 20 points but turned the ball over seven times. Courtney scored a game-high 22 and Egerson chipped in 15 for Delaware. The Dukes will travel to Towson Saturday for 7 p.m. start and the team’s leading scorer is confident things will turn around.
“I’m just thankful that the fans came out again,” Jalloh said. “We’re gonna get back on the right footsteps…we’re gonna get it done. So look for it to be sooner than later.”
