After a 12-day layoff and coming off the worst outing of the season in a terrible loss at Radford, the Good Guys are back at home tonight against Charleston Southern. This is the next-to-last game before the CAA schedule starts up as the Dukes head to NYC to face Fordham Friday night before a week-long break for Christmas and hosting Hofstra & Northeastern on the 28th and 30th.

I usually get in the Convo about 20 minutes before tip. The first game after fall exams I normally count the number of players in the layup lines to see if all are accounted for (in hopes none have transferred out) as this is prime time for all programs across the country to potentially experience some attrition - that is, after fall semester is officially over. Hoping not.

The guys have had almost 2 weeks to steam over their performance at Radford. And, hopefully work on defense as it has been non-existent in the last 3 games and was particularly awful at Radford. Really interested to see tonight whether our guys are going to take pride in defending regardless of how we do offensively or even win (or lose) for that matter.

If no improvement in defensive effort is evident, this is going to potentially be an even worse season than we've seen in Rowe's first 3 years (pity the thought).

Hoping.

Fingers crossed for some defensive intensity tonight. I'm sure our shooting will start off rusty (not playing in games for two weeks will do that), but if we can play any semblance of defense, hopefully it will lead to easy transition buckets as Chuck South averages 14 TOs a game. That said, they have won three straight games, including a 68-60 win over Missouri. They hit on almost half of the 3PT attempts that game to Mizzou's 15%

Dukes by 11

Fordham is in midst of 3 game losing streak, including losing at home to tennessee st. so that game could be winnable as well.

GO DUKES

Playoff football almost made me forget about the FloSports deal...on the bright side, Dave Thomas does a great job and there could be a lot worse audio streams to listen to.

I'm not watching, but I looked at the stats. This heaving a 3 pointer every time down the court has got to stop. It looks like we are 8-9 from inside the circle and 3-14 from three. We have too many versatile pieces to keep doing this.

Playing well. Pinkard brought in for a defensive spark. I wish we shot less 3s. Dwight and Zac are more than capable of running plays on the block. Use that to open up the outside

The Dukes are playing fairly well and Charleston Southern looks like garbage. They came into the game as one of the worst shooting teams in the nation and are confirming it tonight.

JMU is trapping a lot on defense and giving up wide open 3’s but it is a good move when Charleston Southern can’t shoot. They are a frigid 2-16 from behind the arc.

This one could easily be a bigger lead if JMU fed the post every possession. The Bucs are small and have no interior defense. It is a physical mismatch.

I think Rowe feels he has this one well under control because he started playing Pinkard and Richey in the first half. This game will help everyone forget about the crappy performance against Radford.

attacked rim early and looked good. then started chucking 3s....finished half strong, need to put this team away early.

Keep. Feeding. DJ.

49-29 Dukes up in 2nd half

59-43 8:00 left

(12-16-2019 08:33 PM)formerjmusprinter84 Wrote:  59-43 8:00 left

Uh Oh-here starts their comeback

Chuck South won at Missouri a few weeks ago.

Dukes lead by 20

81-60 final

That’s a good score.

This was a nice convincing win against CSU. A get well game if you will.
It was never really in doubt and it feels like it could have been an even bigger blowout with some of the mismatches JMU had.

Free Chicken Nuggets Kids!

We actually looked pretty good at times. The defense was a lot better albeit vs a pretty bad team. We play another pretty bad team on Friday on the road and we need a similar performance to go into conference play with some confidence.

need to play well and compete and maybe even beat fordham.....Go DUKES

We can complain about certain play styles this team has shown such as jacking up threes and a lack of defense but I am happy to hear Lowe address this type of style and say that we don't need someone to go off for 30 to win. He stressed a defensive play style, a balanced scoring effort, and how proud he was of the combo with Jacobs and Wilson in the post. Results will be ultimate decider but it is good to know that Rowe understands that this hot scoring, live and die by the three, play style is not the correct route.

The offensive style didn’t change much, if any this game. JMU took 32 of its 58 shots beyond the arc. And for the year are taking half their shots behind the arc which is 5th highest in the nation.

The 3pt attempts seem too high to me and I’m a huge fan of the 3pt shot. If Rowe could dial it back some this offense can be better and more consistent. If it stays the same we will be scratching our heads after some losses that shouldn’t be losses, but will be excited to see some upset wins against the best teams in the CAA. I would be all for launching 3’s if JMU was outmanned because it is the great equalizer. However, they will be more physically talented than most, if not all, of the teams remaining on the schedule. Taking that many 3’s will open the door for off shooting nights and keeping less talented teams in games.