JMU Tops Gardner-Webb By 12

The Dukes (18-11) started off this game strong. After freshman Julius Wells hit a 3 pointer to take a 5-3 lead, senior Juwann James stole the ball and took it back down the court and slammed it home. The next possession found Juwann wide open inside again where he got another dunk. After Gardner-Webb had taken the lead again at 12-10, we refused to leave our half of the court without hitting a shot from behind the arc. Julius took a shot, missed...rebound sophomore Ben Louis. Freshman Andrey Semenov tried for 3, missed...another rebound by Ben Louis. Julius tried his hand again for a 3, and missed...senior Kyle Swanston got the rebound this time. Kyle got it junior Pierre Curtis (playing point guard since Devon is out), who got it back to the senior who finally drained the 3 for the Dukes. With 8:31 left in the first half, the Runnin' Bulldogs took a lead of 9, their largest of the night, but it wouldn't last too long. With a layup, dunk and tip-in by Juwann and a three by Wells, the Dukes were back within 2. The Dukes would then tie it up with a dunk by Juwann with 1:23 left in the half at 39. Unfortunately, Nate Blank (who didn't miss a shot in the first half, going 3-3, 2-2) hit a 3 with 47 seconds left which would be the last points of the half. The half ended with Gardner-Webb up 42-39. The story of the first half was Gardner-Webb shooting lights out from behind the arc. They were 8-12 from 3-point range (JMU was 4-15) and 16-28 overall from the floor in the first period. This wasn't due to terrible defense by JMU (though they did bite on some GW headfakes), because GW was hitting contested. Luckily, JMU had enough open looks inside to Juwann who racked up 14 points in the first half.

While the Runnin' Bulldogs maintained their lead for the first eight minutes of the second period, the Dukes put an end to that. With 11:42 left in the game, Juwann hit a layup to put the Dukes up by 1...and they never looked back. The Dukes would ride this 19-1 run to take a 12 point run. The lead would never drop back to single digits. Later in the second half, Juwann jumped up and came down straddling Nate Blank. Juwann fell forward straight onto his knee and was on the floor in pain for a little bit for obvious reasons. He did get up and walk back to the bench and seemed fine afterward...could have ended up much worse. JMU would go on to clean the bench and put in every player on the roster (minus redshirted Alvin Brown). Freshman Scooter Renkin got in 11 minutes and got 3 rebounds for the Dukes playing pretty well. There was one miscue where it seemed he made a freshman mistake (ironically with 2 other freshmen) where Julius was set to inbound it to Andrey, but Scooter came over and demanded the ball. Unfortunately, before he passed the ball in he stepped over the line, turning the ball over...whoops. Matt Parker even came in to hit a 3 ball with 39 seconds left. The game ended with JMU defeating Gardner-Webb 90-78, the most points JMU has scored in regulation this season. FREE KLINES!!!!

Overall a good game by the Dukes. The second half they played some outstanding ball, especially not letting the Runnin' Bulldogs get back into the game once they pulled away. Pierre and Ben played some great ball tonight handling the PG position. Not having the depth that Devon gives us is going to hurt come tournament time, but for now they seem to be able to handle the position fine. Juwann had an incredible game getting 25 points (11-16, 3-5 FT) in 28 minutes and grabbing 6 offensive rebounds (7 total). He also had one assist, one block and one steal. Julius, who looks to be on his way to his fourth CAA ROW award, scored 21 points (8-15, 4-11 3-pt, 1-1 FT), grabbed 8 rebounds, and had an assist, block, and steal. Pierre ended the night with 16 points (6-7, 4-5 FT), a huge 9 assists and 3 steals. Kyle seems to be back in rhythm, hitting 5-9 3 pointers. He also got 2 rebounds, an assist, and a steal. The Dukes ended up with 10 steals, which is pretty impressive and shows that Brady's focus on defense this year has paid huge dividends. Another impressive stat is that GW only got 4 points in the paint in the second half...that's some incredible interior defense. The attendance of 4047 was a little disappointing for Juwann and Kyle's second to last game, but hopefully we'll fill up the Convo on Wednesday night against VCU. This will be a huge game and everyone needs to come, if for nothing else than to give our two amazing seniors a great last night!

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