Game 14 at James Madison on 12/28/2019 at 4:00 P.M.

[EvanJ]

CAA games start on Saturday with two at 2:00 P.M., us at 4:00 P.M., and one at 7:00 P.M. William & Mary opens at Elon on Monday.* This will be our last game at the JMU Convocation Center because they're getting a new arena.

https://twitter.com/CAABasketball/statu ... 8269672449 has a preview video.

https://gohofstra.com/news/2019/12/26/m ... dison.aspx is Hofstra's preview titled "MBB: Hofstra Begins CAA Slate At James Madison."

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... game14.pdf is Hofstra's Game Notes.

James Madison has not written a preview yet.

https://static.caasports.com/custompage ... m#team.ind has James Madison's statistics. They have used 12 players, and 8 players have played 93.4 percent of their minutes. That might be even higher if forward Dwight Wilson hadn't missed the first 4 games. He averages 10.1 points and 10.3 rebounds. If he had played enough to qualify, he would be 21st in Division I in rebounds among 353 teams.

https://www.flohoops.com/articles/66270 ... f-momentum is Jerry Beach's "I'll Be Quirky: Hofstra Heads Into CAA Play With Plenty Of Momentum."

https://www.flohoops.com/events/6568047 ... basketball will have video for FloHoops subscribers.

*I'm happy that they will play the travel partners game Monday rather than Saturday because if they played on Saturday it would give William & Mary extra rest before going to us next Thursday.

[cactus]

Hopefully this is the last we will see of that court design.

[triplec2195]

Hopefully this is the last we will see of that court design.

I'll ask a dumb question What does that court design mean??

[EvanJ]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfZJGL7mx_Y is a video the CAA made.

They have a picture of a Duke on each side of the court, and with different colors it's distracting.

[EvanJ]

https://jmusports.com/news/2019/12/27/m ... fstra.aspx is James Madison's preview titled "Dukes Tip Off League Schedule at Home Against Hofstra." It says we have won five of six, but incorrectly says "including three wins on opposing courts" because two wins were neutral.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/sidearm.sites/ ... ofstra.pdf is James Madison's Game Notes, which are short with only 14 pages. Our Game Notes are 39 pages.

James Madison is seventh in the CAA in the NET, but is the best CAA team according to Seven Overtimes, which expects them to win 77-71. Seven Overtimes has James Madison 1 spot above Delaware, but expects Delaware to win the regular season title with these standings:

Delaware 13-5
James Madison 12-6
Towson 11-7
Hofstra 10-8
Northeastern 10-8
Charleston 10-8
William & Mary 9-9
Drexel 8-10
UNCW 4-14
Elon 3-15

Multiple CAA teams are opening with cheap tickets. Towson is selling tickets for $5, and James Madison is celebrating 2020 by selling 4 tickets for $20.20.

[HUSID74]

Newsday has us as three point favorites. Coach Mihalich says they have the "Best talent in the League 1-8," will be a tough one IMO.

ESPN HAS US AS 2.5 POINT FAVS AND GIVES US A 53.8% chance of winning.

[EvanJ]

Coach Mihalich says they have the "Best talent in the League 1-8," will be a tough one IMO.

IMO Northeastern, Drexel, Towson, and JMU could make the best case for having eight signifiant contributors. Based on not losing many players, JMU and Delaware could be great next season. JMU has more freshmen (7) than points from seniors (6). Antanee Pinkard is their only senior, and he has more fouls (9) than points (6) in 25 minutes. Matt Lewis, who scored 40 in JWF's senior day, is on pace to become the sixteenth player in CAA history to score 2,000. This season Grant Riller became the fourteenth CAA player to do that, and Nathan Knight is on pace to be the fifteenth. I wonder what the NCAA record is for fewest points by seniors on a team, but there's no way of finding that out. Darius Banks is on pace for over 1,500.

Does anybody know how Silverio's sister is? If Silverio remains away, we need Burgess and Miranda to contribute or we will have guards play 140+ minutes in eight days from today through next Saturday. I may go next Saturday, and I don't want us to be tired. I've already been to losses to Elon by 13 and 14 including in 2017-2018 when we had the better season.

[HUSID74]

Think I might have seen Silverio in a photo from practice at JMU yesterday.

[EvanJ]

Think I might have seen Silverio in a photo from practice at JMU yesterday.

Good. This season and last season we haven't had many injuries, absences for personal reasons, in-season departures, unexpected ineligibilities, and foulouts.

JMU's average attendance is 2,260, which is 35.2 percent of the capacity of 6,426, but today's game seems to have high demand; which is surprising because we're above average but not elite, we're not a geographical or historical rival, and I doubt many people from around here went there today. StubHub says no tickets are available, and SeatGeek has bleacher tickets for $39, which is $54.23 with fees.

If anybody doesn't pay for FloSports and wants to watch the CAA, UNCW at Delaware will be on SNY at 7:00 P.M.

[EvanJ]

I started watching when we were down 4-0, we went down 8-0, but now we have the ball down 12-10.

Edit: We went up 13-12, but gave up a three 10 seconds later. JMU leads 18-15 with 2 free throws coming up with 11:14 left in the half.

[Hof_Judge99]

Matt Lewis has been unstoppable again. What an ugly start.

[ProudofPride]

1 of 14 from 3, yet we continue to just keep chucking them up! JMU currently shooting well over 50% from the field, compared to our 22%.

[triplec2195]

The shots we're missing are wide open 3's for the most part 28-18. Sad sad shooting performance.

[triplec2195]

Prayer 3 pointer by Eli at the buzzer 36-30. A miracle we aren't down more.

[HUSID74]

Amazing we are only down six. Make some threes and we win this thing. JMU can't hit a free throw, get close and foul them.

Without Eli we would be on the bus to Towson by now.

[Cards]

Without Eli we would be on the bus to Towson by now.

100 % correct. He's the only guy in the first half that showed up to play! Sad effort by the rest.

[EvanJ]

JMU's lead ranged from 7 to 12 from 7:48 left to almost halftime. With 14 seconds left, Julien Wooden missed a dunk, and JMU fans wanted a foul called. With 5.3 seconds left, Ray got fouled and missed both, then made it worse by fouling Jayvis Harvey after the rebound was knocked to him. Ray missed all 3 field goals and had made all 4 free throws before those 2. Harvey continued JMU's horrible shooting by missing the second, as they shot 3-9 and didn't have anybody make all of his free throws. When Ray missed the free throws, I thought we lost our chance to go down 6 at halftime, but I was wrong because Pemberton made a 3 at the buzzer to go down 36-30. Pemberton made 2 of 5 threes and was open on at least 2 of his misses. The rest of us shot threes 0-13 to make 2-18 (.111) as a team.

Pemberton has a majority of our points with 17, which is 5 more than Matt Lewis, and those are the only double-digit scorers. Coburn scored 5 by shooting field goals 1-6, threes 0-5, and free throws 3-5. Buie shot 0-3 and did not attempt a free throw. He played only 12 minutes and did not have any points or assists! We had 2 assists with 1 by Ray and 1 by Kante. After Trueheart, Hughes, Burgess, and Schutte entered, I assumed Silverio was unavailable, but he came in. That means we used 10 players in the first half, which is really rare for us. Despite the poor shooting, Coburn was our second leading scorer. Ray scored 4 which were all free throws as I mentioned. Kante made his only shot to score 2. Silverio missed all 3 field goals and made both free throws. In addition to Buie being scorless; Trueheart and Burgess both missed a two, missed a three, and didn't attempt a free throw; and Schutte and Hughes did not shoot.

Pemberton tied Dwight Wilson for the most rebounds with 6, and Ray tied Darius Banks for the third most with 4. Coburn had 3, and our four forwards combined for 7.

[EvanJ]

Buie scored his first 2 to go down 36-32 and then committed his third foul. JMU scored 9 to make their largest lead at 45-32 with 17:34 left, and we called timeout.

[Hof_Judge99]

Prayer 3 pointer by Eli at the buzzer 36-30. A miracle we aren't down more.

Man there is something about Eli and prayer 3s before the half at JMU. Buie being on the bench is a killer, team can’t operate with any efficiency without him.

[EvanJ]

I returned to the game with Hofstra down 4 twice. The first time was 4-0 when I didn't know anything, and the second time was 47-43 after an 11-2 run. We trail 57-53.

Edit: Burgess scored to go down 61-60 and make JMU call timeout.

Edit: After a JMU turnover up 1, Buie missed a chance for us to take our first lead in a long time. Buie scored 2 to go up 68-67 with 5:30 left and made a 3 to go up 71-69 with 4:44 left. It's 71-71 with 3:48 left and JMU shooting 2 free throws.

Edit: Pemberton has 24, and the other three starting guards have 15 each to make 69. Buie gave us a 78-72 lead with 1:36 left and made JMU call timeout. JMU is 7-22 shooting threes and free throws!