JMU gets routed on road

Women's Basketball

Drew Wilson / senior photographer Freshman guard Shameena Felix (3) scored a career-high 12 points against Old Dominion.

As the famous quotation from Benjamin Franklin goes, "In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes."

If there was a third thing in the world that was certain, it would be that Old Dominion University doesn't lose women's basketball games at home.

The Lady Monarchs won their 118th consecutive Colonial Athletic Association home game, beating JMU, 80-58, Thursday in Norfolk. The Dukes also dropped Sunday's game at Hofstra University, losing 76-57.

Other than scoring the opening basket, the Dukes never held a lead the entire game against ODU.

"I think Old Dominion outplayed us from start to finish and everything in between," coach Kenny Brooks said.

The Lady Monarchs out-rebounded, out-hustled and outplayed the Dukes for 40 minutes. On offense, ODU dominated inside, outscoring JMU 38-16 in the paint. The Lady Monarchs also turned JMU turnovers into fast break points.

"It's very disappointing," red-shirt senior guard Jody LeRose said. "No matter what [ODU's players] do, we have to be able to play solid defense — we didn't do that [Thursday]."

On defense, ODU terrorized JMU in the post, limiting the Dukes' guards from passing the ball inside. The Lady Monarchs' traps also forced several JMU turnovers, according to ODU coach Wendy Larry.

"One of the things that was most helpful is that we saw on the big and little screens, we could really step out and trap the ball and create a little bit of havoc that way," Larry said. "That took [JMU] out of some of their sets."

Meanwhile, JMU didn't help its own cause. Several turnovers were the result of dribbling or losing the ball out of bounds and telegraphing passes.

"You can't really blame it on anything," freshman forward Meredith Alexis said. "It's not experience, it's not being scared.

"Honestly, I don't know what happened to us [Thursday]," she added. "We're a much better team than this."

The Dukes struggled to contain ODU's Lawana Davis, who scored a career-high 23 points. Davis, who scored many of her points in transition, also scored several on an alley-oop play the Lady Monarchs designed specifically for her.

"We worked on [defending] it in practice and worked on stopping it," Alexis said. "We just couldn't do it."

LeRose said the Dukes knew the scouting report on the play, but the Lady Monarchs changed the way they called the play.

"They stopped calling the hand signal that we knew," LeRose said. "From that point, if we saw ‘five' and knew that [the play] was coming. When they didn't do that, it was hard to call out."

The loss Thursday was much different from the first meeting between the two teams Jan. 9 in Harrisonburg. ODU edged JMU, 75-73. Larry attributed differences in scores to the Lady Monarchs' improvement on defense.

"I think we were just keying in on playing better defensively," Larry said. "I don't think we played very good defense at James Madison (University). We really didn't talk to each other. They have so many different sets with so many different types of screens that we were at a point in our season where communication was minimum."

Freshman forward Lesley Dickinson led JMU with 15 points, and Alexis added 10 points and nine rebounds.

Freshman guard Shameena Felix came off the bench to score a career-high 12 points, including 3-for-4 shooting from 3-point range.

Felix got the bulk of the minutes at point guard in place of freshman guard Andrea Benvenuto, who started, but played only one minute in the second half.

"Sometimes as a coach, you have to look at a player's eyes," Brooks said. "I just felt like Shameena [Felix] was competing more."

Dickinson, Felix and Benvenuto combined for 18 of JMU's 24 turnovers, a problem that has plagued the Dukes all season.

Turnovers played a factor again Sunday against Hofstra, as the Dukes' struggles on the road continued. JMU committed 22 turnovers.

The Pride jumped out to a 24-9 lead in the first half. The Dukes rallied to cut the lead to 33-22. JMU came as close as 9 points to Hofstra, but Hofstra eventually pulled away for the win.

Dickinson led the Dukes with 16 points, including 10-for-10 shooting from the free throw line. Red-shirt junior guard Mary Beth Culbertson added 12 points. LeRose, Felix and Alexis added 6 points each.

JMU (11-17, 6-11 in the CAA) ends the regular season at home Thursday against Towson University at 7 p.m.