Saturday, February 6, 2016

February 5th, 2016: James Madison at Hofstra

Just the Facts, Ma'am: Jazmon Gwathmey had 34 points and 13 rebounds to power James Madison over Hofstra, 71-54. Angela Mickens added 20 for the Dukes. Ashunae Durant led Hofstra with 20 points.

For buses, trains, automobiles, rebounds, transfers, losing track of time, precise dance moves, a lack of pins, and finishing through contact, join your intrepid and sleepy blogger after the jump.


The sun is out. The snow has stopped falling from the sky and is now falling from the trees and pretty much everything else it managed to stick to. This is fantastic building snow, so get out there and make snowmen or have snowball fights before it's all gone. Then again, by the time these notes go up, it'll probably all be gone anyway. Never mind. Carry on. As you were.

Taking the long way around, since the 45 bus I caught laid up short at the Metro-North station. Currently winding my way through the Pelhams, and they're beautiful.

45 to the 42 to the 2 to the Q44 to the N6 to the N72. To the izzo, I suppose. But I'm here. That's what's important. So are several members of JMU's Crown Club, though it looks like their tickets haven't been fully sorted out.

It's a PinkZone game for Hofstra, though because Kilburn-Stevesky is an NC State alumna, they tend to do a lot of PinkZone games. JMU brought their pink tees, which I thought was a nice touch.

The erstwhile Johnnie, Ashley Perez, traveled, but did not dress. She's wearing a very cute dress and tragically mismatched boots. Awww, Ash. :(

Hofstra gave me a scare by closing the campus early- nothing quite like passing a sign flashing "University Closed" at you on the last leg of a four-hour journey.

There's something slightly galling about Hofstra doing a PinkZone game on National Wear Red Day, but that might just be my inherent seething hatred of PinkZone talking.

I WANT JMU'S PURPLE NIKES SO MUCH I AM CAPS LOCKING OF GLEE.

The difference between the music Hofstra plays when the players are on the floor and what they play when they're not is... marked. A little disturbing, the more I think of it.

I assume they're staging the Girl Scouts, since it's half an hour before tip and there are still a fair number of empty sections.

At halftime, JMU is up one, basically because Angela Mickens and Jazmon Gwathmey are awesome and you are not. Ashunae Durant is leading the way for Hofstra, with a phenomenal ability to finish through contact.

I like the Hofstra experience. The band is good, and they get into the game. There isn't a large student section, but they make noise. The dance team is competent, if boring. It's not the worst arena food I've ever had, but also not the cheapest. The souvenir stand is well stocked. Everyone's really nice.

(I'm also a little in love with hanging banners for presidential debates, and the way they do retired numbers, and the fact that the basketball banners are strictly chronological, not separated by women and men.)

Talent will tell in the end, and JMU did more good things better, especially down the stretch. Also, Jazmon Gwathmey is really good at basketball, but you should know that already.

I'd heard a lot about Savannah Felgemacher from an acquaintance down in the Shenandoah Valley, so I was looking forward to seeing her, but she only played very briefly in the first half, and I never got an impression of her. Destiny Jones threw her weight around down low and on the ball, and got called for a fair number of fouls doing it. Hailee Barron loves her three-pointers, sometimes a little too much- she took that caused me to yell, "You don't have to take it from Charlottesville!" She's more of a scrapper on defense than I expected from everything I read about her. Logan Reynolds gave Angela Mickens some brief relief in both halves, but wasn't much of a factor.

Y'know, I could have sworn I just spent the morning watching a forward who couldn't hit a shot because she kept shooting them off the inside of the rim, but boy howdy can she rebound and hustle after loose balls. In the morning it was Joy Adams; in the evening it was Da'Lishia Griffin. Kayla Cooper-Williams found herself limited early and often by foul trouble, and she seemed to get in her teammates' way a lot when she was trying to rebound. Jazmon Gwathmey was awesome. When did she make three-point shooting such a crucial part of her game? Because she's strong slashing to the basket and making moves in the lane, but in the second half the threes started going down. She's so tough. She's so good. I'd love to see her in the summertime.

Angela Mickens owns the floor when the ball's in her hand. I love her footwork and her swiftness. She was hot early, and she called her own number often, but for good reason- she was getting the pull-up with impunity. Hofstra put stronger defenders on her in the second half, forcing her into more of a distributive role. Tasia Butler got the start, but was pulled early in both halves for Barron.

The passing got a little sloppy in the second half, but JMU generally did more things smarter and better than Hofstra did, and that was enough for them to pull away.

Sandra Dongmo gave some good minutes in the post off the bench. Jakelle King-Gilchrist saw a little bit of time in the first half and contributed a bucket, but not much else. Asia Jackson was tenacious on defense- she was making Angela Mickens's life miserable in the fourth quarter, sometimes to the point of excess (I'm pretty sure that the best way to stop a player from hitting a layup is not to wrap an arm around her waist).

It really feels like Darius Faulk played less time than she did, although that perception might have been skewed by her missing much of the first half with foul trouble. Kelly Loftus was quick to shoot, and not always accurate about it. Krystal Luciano is really fast and makes her decisions very quickly. She seemed fond of the overly deep three.

Anjie White would probably drive me insane if I were a Hofstra fan. There's so much there to like- positioning on rebounds, setting screens, boxing out, all the little things that make a player endearing- but those hands would probably cause me to bruise my forehead with the repeated slaps that would surely occur. She just could not seem to catch a pass cleanly. Ashunae Durant has a phenomenal ability to finish through contact- pretty much all the shots she hit were contested. I don't think it was until the fourth quarter that she hit a shot that didn't come with an accompanying free throw. I really like her- and she's only a sophomore, so there's every chance that she could get even better and well-rounded.

The officiating was mostly even-handed, though I think the game might have ended just in the nick of time- Hofstra was starting to object to this whole losing the game thing, and Jackson and Mickens were starting to get into it a little bit. I don't know if there's history between them or if someone was running her mouth or something, but it was definitely an interesting dynamic. People need to be more careful with their footwork, though. There were a lot of travels uncalled.

I think Hofstra's a year away. I think JMU's going to be okay (though in my biased opinion, they do miss Ashley Perez).

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