Tribe Gives Free Lesson (Commentary)
March 7, 2010 • By Tim Chapman, The Breeze
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JMU should learn from season-ending loss
RICHMOND – In one word Pierre Curtis summed up the season as “inconsistent.”
The senior is absolutely right. The most disheartening thing for Curtis and classmate Matt Parker is that the inconsistency was not only in the X’s and O’s. It was inconsistency in heart that plagued and an already injury-riddled team. It also had little to do with the seniors.
The Dukes’ season is over after they blew a 14-point second-half lead in the quarterfinals of the Colonial Athletic Association tournament. William & Mary hit seven second-half triples in its 70-65 win.
If there is one word to sum up the Tribe’s season it is heart, or fight, or effort, or any number of synonyms that this JMU team never harnessed.
Let this be a lesson to the young and talented JMU team that gave coach Matt Brady fits all season because of its inability to show heart.
“Things have got to be different for us,” Brady said. “We didn’t always play hard this year, and I was frustrated with this group all year long. I just said that to our team.”
The sad part is that Brady even has to mention effort to scholarship athletes. It is unlikely that William & Mary coach Tony Shaver ever has to get on his guys about playing hard.
“The same terms I’ve used to describe these guys all year long are tough-minded, resilient,” Shaver said. “They just don’t quit.”
With a team that lacks the athleticism of almost every team in the conference, Shaver has his three-seed Tribe at 21-9 and just two wins from its first-ever NCAA berth. They never hang their heads — not when they went down 14 and not when they were without answer for JMU junior Denzel Bowles. William & Mary doesn’t lose its fight. JMU does.
The Dukes lost it in two embarrassing 20-point blowouts at the Convocation Center against Old Dominion and Hofstra. They lost it in a 21-point rout at Drexel. They lost it other times when opponents simply made runs. Saturday, they lost it when David Schneider nailed a deep 3-pointer to beat the shot clock and cut the Dukes’ lead to 52-50 with more than five minutes remaining. Five minutes!
Their body language changed at that point and they stopped feeding Bowles down low. They stopped moving without the basketball, and they started hanging their heads.
This was not the team that played hard for 40 minutes Friday to beat Drexel by 15 and advance. After playing his most complete game of the season Friday, Bowles disappeared in the second half. The Tribe trapped and doubled him as soon as he touched the ball and he stopped demanding the touches. With two starters— Devon Moore and Andrey Semenov — hurt all year, the Dukes needed Bowles to be the go-to guy.
He did lead the league in scoring and was second in rebounding and finished Saturday’s game with 17 and 15, but the statistics are misleading. Bowles failed to play hard on both ends of the court for the entirety of games. He described his season as great. A great season is not marked by having to constantly be called out by your coach for being lazy. Great seasons have an aspect of leadership. Bowles, an All-CAA second-team selection, failed to lead.
Julius Wells, the team’s second-best scoring threat and a third-team selection also failed to lead. By having little to no presence on the defensive end of the floor, Wells did not lead by example. During the Hofstra blowout in Harrisonburg, Wells and Bowles walked back on defense, heads hanging on the same possession.
The freshmen cannot use the upperclassmen as an excuse. If Darren White wants to mature to his incredible potential, he needs to stop pouting about playing time and touches.
“This was a frustrating group for a lot of reasons,” Brady said. “As a basketball coach, all you want your team to do is improve, have steady improvement. This group didn’t have steady improvement… We’ve got to push more buttons with this group next year.”
Brady cannot physically do it for them. This team needs to want it more than others. They need to stop being selfish and mimic players like William & Mary’s, who play for each other.
The return of Moore and Semenov is a start. The tandem plays hard all the time and exhibits natural leadership. They are as vocal as anyone who actually suited up this year.
On paper, JMU is near the top of the league next season. But rankings mean squat. W&M was picked to finish 10th this season and they finished third. Why? They outfight “better” teams. They play for 40 minutes.
Contact Tim Chapman at chapmatp@gmail.com
CORRECTION: William & Mary was picked to finish 10th this season, not 11th, as originally stated.
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You hit the nail right on the head! The one thing I think should be added is that this team needs better conditioning. All season long the majority of the players have been out of shape. A college game is only 40 minutes long with stops and breaks at least every two minutes. These are 18 to 21 year old kids. They should have better wind and legs. They need a serious pre-season conditioning regime. There needs to be a direct correlation to the amount of heart = the amount of playing time. Less heart = more riding the pines time!
Someone famous once said, ” fatigue makes cowards of us all”. We were fatigued too much.