Game update: Dukes fall to ODU
Posted on February 21, 2008
The steady mixture of blowouts and heartbreak losses has continued for JMU men’s basketball.
Unfortunately for the Dukes the latest was a 72-52-blowout loss to Old Dominion Wednesday night.
Junior Kyle Swanston scored JMU’s first bucket at the 15:13 mark in the first half, after the Monarchs had started the game on an 8-0 run.
There was no recovery after JMU (11-15 overall, 4-12 in the Colonial Athletic Association) missed its first six shots as they trailed the whole way en route to a second 20-or-more-point loss to ODU this season.
Coach Dean Keener’s team has now lost four straight games and 10 of its last 11.
“We just couldn’t muster anything all night long,” Keener said. “Those first four or five minutes were pretty indicative.”
Junior guard Abdulai Jalloh – the team’s leading scorer at 16 points per contest – was the only player to score in double figures for the Dukes, finishing with 14 points.
Jalloh was saddled with two fouls before the seven-minute mark and had only two points in 11 first-half minutes.
It was up to junior forward Juwann James to shoulder the scoring load in the first twenty minutes, but at 6-foot-7 the Jacksonville-native was undersized compared to the Monarch’s front line.
6-foot-10 sophomore Gerald Lee, 6-foot-8 freshman Frank Hassell and 7-foot-3 senior reserve Sam Harris made it near impossible for James or any other JMU post player to gain a presence on the block.
Lee scored a game-high 16 points and Hassell chipped in 12 points and ripped down 10 of ODU’s 35 rebounds in his first career double-double.
Madison managed to pull down just 22 rebounds in comparison.
It was the 40-10 points-in-the-paint advantage for ODU that stuck out the most.
“They’re just bigger man,” JMU freshman guard Heiden Ratner said. “I thought we played them hard, but them dudes were just catchin’ it over us and layin it up.”
The Monarch’s ball movement and unselfishness also left the Dukes baffled as they tried to recover defensively.
With less than two minutes left in the first half ODU strung together six passes before finding a wide-open Hassell for a two-handed monster dunk.
“Offensively they were very efficient in what they were doing,” Keener said. “I think our guys just missed some shots and [ODU] got a dunk and rather than getting to the next play like we’ve talked about, our guys for whatever reason were hung up on missing those shots.”
ODU (15-13, 10-6) took a 38-21 lead into the half on 53 percent only to shoot even better in the second half at 64 percent.
James scored only two points for JMU in the second half to finish with eight and Jalloh received little help from anyone else.
“I think when we had a hard time scoring it took something out of us and affected us at the defensive end,” Keener said. “They didn’t do anything we didn’t expect. They ran their stuff good.”
The Monarchs have now won five of their last six games including first and second place CAA leaders Virginia Commonwealth (20-6, 13-3) and George Mason (19-8, 10-5).
Madison remains at home for Saturday’s O’Reilly ESPNU BracketBuster matchup with Morehead State. Tip-off is at 2 p.m.
