Ugly Win Tops Last Year

As the team walked into the arena Saturday night, Brady asked Kyle Swanston, "When's the last time you won here?" Kyle didn't really look up and just shook his head. Brady's response: "That's going to change." Then, as the game started, an ugly first half left JMU fans wondering what had happened to the team that took down ODU @ODU. We are currently without Juwann, but we were getting killed in every facet of the game. JMU was down 32-41 at the Trask, the arena of the UNCW Seahawks, at the half after being down 15 at it's worst. We haven't won there for 10 years (lost 15 of the last 19 games with UNCW), and as Brady said, "wins at home are good for the community, but wins away are special." With the start of the second half, things were looking up, though it was still an up-and-down game for awhile. As the minutes started winding down, we finally started hitting our shots and nailing our FT's as they started building up fouls. Julius got the turning point foul, but the CAA Player of the Week and at least the Rookie of the Week honors should go to Andrey Semenov (nicknamed Dirk Nowitzki by his teammates because of his all-around solid play). After a terrible offensive first half, he finally found his stroke and went on to net 25 points, going 10-10 from the FT line. Devon and Julius (as has been said) also played key roles in this game, making the next few years look very promising. The biggest difference between the first half and the second half was effort as we drastically outrebounded UNCW and started looking after the ball more. Ben Louis also had a good defensive and rebounding game, though his offensive side was a bit off as he only went 3-6 from the FT line. JMU ended the game winning by 6, 79-73, grabbing its 14th win and 6th CAA win (3rd on the road). This is the most wins since before the 2001-2002 season (as far as ESPN's records go back) and the most conference wins since the '02-'03. The Dukes travel to Georgia State on Wednesday to hopefully pick up another road win.

DNR: New Stone Wall | Box Score