The game everyone has been waiting for! Not really, but it is a chance for the Dukes to break the ice in conference play. They are getting woefully close to being a lock for the Keener round in the CAA tourney.

The traditionalists will probably hate this game because Elon launches 3’s with impunity. All five players on the court are willing and able to hoist it up from downtown and that is JMU’s biggest area of weakness on defense. How will JMU bigs defend the 3pt line? I dont know if they are capable to do that and guard the paint.

Our one hope? If a 3 pt shooting team is going to be off for a night it probably will happen on the road with different rims and shooter’s background.

Great stat of the day...
Elon attempts more 3pt shots than 2 pt shots this year. That’s right. They play backwards basketball and they do it well. 582 shots from 3 and 554 shots from 2.

Once again, Rowe will be well served to turn this into a full court game. Not only will it get Elon out of their set offense, but it will wear them down. Elon relies heavily on its 5 starters and has very little depth off the bench. If the game stays in the half court it will favor Elon’s array of 3pt shots from anyone and anywhere. All 5 of their starters average double digits and their season high attempts for 3pt shots is 40. Will they exceed that vs JMU?.

Elon 72
JMU 73

In an amazing turn of events, JMU leads by 12 with one minute to play and somehow they only give up an 11 point run to seal a victory.

(01-17-2018 09:40 AM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  In an amazing turn of events, JMU leads by 12 with one minute to play and somehow they only give up an 11 point run to seal a victory.

I agree the Dukes will be up by 12 with 60 seconds left. I think we go Oh-for-6 from the charity stripe over the last minute while Elon makes 3 3-pointers to cut it to a 3 point lead. An Elon guy heaves a three-quarters length shot at the buzzer (backwards for style points, by the way) that swishes to tie it, but a foul is called against the Dukes while the ball is in the air 40 feet away from the Elon player who threw the ball. The other Elon guy goes to the line and makes the first free throw to win it. The 2nd free throw, though meaningless, is drop-kicked and also goes in for a 2-pt Elon victory.

This begs the question, with 60 seconds left, what is a comfortable lead for the Dukes to win a game? 24? 38? More?

Hart - God Bless you for your shared interest in mens hoops. I lived through the keener years - and ill still watch through these. I want to be there first row for whenever we turn it around.

(01-17-2018 10:14 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  Hart - God Bless you for your shared interest in mens hoops. I lived through the keener years - and ill still watch through these. I want to be there first row for whenever we turn it around.

but you didn't go to Dayton

Elon plays good defense in one way but not another way. Their opponents' field goal percentage of .416 is 84th out of 351 teams. Elon averages fewer rebounds and more turnovers than their opponents, which gives them 121 fewer field goal attempts than their opponents, which is the worst differential in the CAA. Their defense is bad at forcing turnovers. They have the 13th fewest opponents' turnovers per game at 10.79, when the median is 13.67. I don't have a way of calculating this quickly, but if you looked at what percent of possessions an opponent did not score on had misses and what percent had turnovers, Elon would have an unusually high percent from misses. The epitome of that was when I saw them at Hofstra. Hofstra had only 7 turnovers, but had a whopping 51 missed field goals. Your season-high in missed field goals is 48.

(01-17-2018 10:49 AM)#YEEHAWDUKES Wrote:  

(01-17-2018 10:14 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  Hart - God Bless you for your shared interest in mens hoops. I lived through the keener years - and ill still watch through these. I want to be there first row for whenever we turn it around.

but you didn't go to Dayton

I was at the caa tourney, but was a groomsman in a wedding for Dayton...

Using Sagarin's rating system as a basis, the opening spread should open somewhere around Elon laying 2 pts. Another close one expected.

Dukes defeated Elon by 1 at the Convo last year and lost at Elon by 6 (though the Good Guys were down by 1 w/ 1:32 left in the game).

Elon's 2nd leading scorer, Dainan Swoope, 6'0" guard, averages attempting 7.2 3PTFG's per game though he is only hitting at a 33.6% rate. Of course, tomorrow night, he will go 6 of 7 from outside the arc. :>(

(01-17-2018 12:33 PM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  

(01-17-2018 10:49 AM)#YEEHAWDUKES Wrote:  

(01-17-2018 10:14 AM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  Hart - God Bless you for your shared interest in mens hoops. I lived through the keener years - and ill still watch through these. I want to be there first row for whenever we turn it around.

but you didn't go to Dayton

I was at the caa tourney, but was a groomsman in a wedding for Dayton...

C'mon the first game in Dayton was on a Wednesday so that is no excuse.

it was one of those weddings where the festivities started Wednesday night

I DIDNT HAVE AN OPTION I LOVE THE DUKES

(01-17-2018 02:32 PM)Centdukesfan Wrote:  it was one of those weddings where the festivities started Wednesday night

I DIDNT HAVE AN OPTION I LOVE THE DUKES

Apparently if there are no other options.

Fair weather fan!

Okay, I'll play:

Dukes up by 12 with one minute to go. We hold off a furious comeback (going 0-6 from the line and giving up 2 threes and an uncontested layup) and win by 4.

But wait! A ref calls a technical foul on the bench for jumping up in celebration with 0.1 seconds left. Elon makes both free throws. However, with only 0.1 seconds left, they can't get a shot off and the Dukes win.

But wait! Joey McLean (who, still nursing an injury, is not actually in the building) is called for a technical. The ref was apparently jealous that all of his friends got to make last minute calls against Joey, and "it looked kind of fun."

Elon makes both free throws, then wins in overtime. As HCLR leaves, he looks at the camera and claims, "My fault; my fault..."

(01-17-2018 06:12 PM)purplesanman Wrote:  Okay, I'll play:

Dukes up by 12 with one minute to go. We hold off a furious comeback (going 0-6 from the line and giving up 2 threes and an uncontested layup) and win by 4.

But wait! A ref calls a technical foul on the bench for jumping up in celebration with 0.1 seconds left. Elon makes both free throws. However, with only 0.1 seconds left, they can't get a shot off and the Dukes win.

But wait! Joey McLean (who, still nursing an injury, is not actually in the building) is called for a technical. The ref was apparently jealous that all of his friends got to make last minute calls against Joey, and "it looked kind of fun."

Elon makes both free throws, then wins in overtime. As HCLR leaves, he looks at the camera and claims, "My fault; my fault..."

I like it. Pretty good plot. Built on the recurring themes. Enjoyed the use of "But wait!" Adding in the ref T'ing up Joey to keep up with the Joneses while Joey isn't even in the building was well orchestrated. And, seems like something Ted Valentine might actually do if he was still refereeing instead of being a little beyatch that he is these days.

I mean it all was just well done. So, I'm giving you a C-.

jmu wins by 4

Dukes by a million

Elon -2.5
O/U = 142.5

Other games in CAA tonight...

UNCW +13 at Charleston (152.5)
Delaware +8 at Hofstra (149.5)
Drexel +13 at Towson (144)
Northeastern +1.5 at W&M (154.5)

The Dukesare the only CAA team with a losing home record. The other sucky teams still win at home. Gotta change that.

Perhaps we are witnessing a home court disadvantage

A pretty good article by Walfish on Matt Lewis' terrific frosh season to date... https://jamesmadison.rivals.com/news/lew...-for-dukes

I haven't researched all the other candidates, but I'd think Matt will be in the running for CAA Rookie of the Year if he continues his stellar play.

Lewis can be good offensively if Rowe puts him on shot restriction and I wouldn’t call his play stellar so far. He has the worst shooting percentage of any player on the team getting 10+ minutes per game and is Shooting .346 % which is atrocious for somebody who has the 2nd most attempts on the team.
He isn’t a bad shooter per say, but he takes a lot of bad shots. A lot.

The potential is certainly there, but he has to be coached up. More purposeful shot selection and less “free, natural” play that Rowe has condoned.

I agree that his ball control and security has been excellent for a freshman guard. I wish he had that type of care with his shot selection.

Rowe has put himself in no man’s land this year at point guard, arguably the most important position in basketball. He chose not to have Mosley take that role although he led Toledo in assists his Sohomore year with 4 per game and a 2:1 a/TO ratio. Proven commodity, but apparently Rowe feels SG is more important than PG.
He has tried to force Mclean into the role although his career shows more propensity to be a 5’10” SG than a floor general. He just doesnt have the skill set.
Now Rowe is going with a Freshman who has to learn the job as games are being played and doesn’t even have high school experience at PG to draw from.

I’d love to have a 4th year junior control the game from the point with his unstoppable left hand hard dribble he can get in the paint at will. Maybe Rowe is sandbagging all of us and he will break out Mosley at PG in the CAA tourney for a glorious 4-game run to the title.

(01-18-2018 03:47 PM)Hart Foundation Wrote:  Lewis can be good offensively if Rowe puts him on shot restriction and I wouldn’t call his play stellar so far. He has the worst shooting percentage of any player on the team getting 10+ minutes per game and is Shooting .346 % which is atrocious for somebody who has the 2nd most attempts on the team.
He isn’t a bad shooter per say, but he takes a lot of bad shots. A lot.

The potential is certainly there, but he has to be coached up. More purposeful shot selection and less “free, natural” play that Rowe has condoned.

I agree that his ball control and security has been excellent for a freshman guard. I wish he had that type of care with his shot selection.

Rowe has put himself in no man’s land this year at point guard, arguably the most important position in basketball. He chose not to have Mosley take that role although he led Toledo in assists his Sohomore year with 4 per game and a 2:1 a/TO ratio. Proven commodity, but apparently Rowe feels SG is more important than PG.
He has tried to force Mclean into the role although his career shows more propensity to be a 5’10” SG than a floor general. He just doesnt have the skill set.
Now Rowe is going with a Freshman who has to learn the job as games are being played and doesn’t even have high school experience at PG to draw from.

I’d love to have a 4th year junior control the game from the point with his unstoppable left hand hard dribble he can get in the paint at will. Maybe Rowe is sandbagging all of us and he will break out Mosley at PG in the CAA tourney for a glorious 4-game run to the title.

I have to agree with Hart regarding Matt Lewis. He can take your breath away at times but if you dig down into the numbers he has been pretty mediocre at best, particularly shooting 2s. I still think he has huge upside. I am going to mildly disagree regarding Stuckey as a point guard. Watch him with the ball in his hands when he plays the point and tell me that it doesn't look like he just wants to give the ball to somebody else as quickly as possible.

If Phillips plays 25 minutes or more, JMU will win.