NCAAT: College Station, TX Experience

First off, I want to say congratulations to a great season to the JMU women's basketball team and to Coach Kenny Brooks for getting his first NCAA women's tournament win. I also want to thank the two seniors Kirby Burkholder and Nikki Newman for giving the Harrisonburg community 4/5 years of wonderful college basketball. They will certainly be missed.

I had a great time at College Station, TX and I can say with certainty that they were a great fan base who loved our team, our fans, and especially our band. I honestly would enjoy seeing a home and home with this team. I met a lot of people and I truly felt at home there. I remember telling one TAMU employee that College Station reminded me of back home in that there is a sense of community. Terrain wise, College Station is mostly flat, but the community was outstanding. I was able to visit some of the sites in the area, one site was the Bonfire memorial when in 1999 12 Aggie students lost their lives when the Bonfire collapsed.

Bonfire Memorial

I was quite surprised at how the community got involved with the process as well. One community member told me that they used to provide the cranes and lumber to help build the structure and that all lumber was hand cut. You really got a sense of how they truly embody their tradition of "The 12th Man." While visiting, I was taking back to the time when the Harrisonburg Community along with other communities in the state worried about their own sons and daughters when a mentally ill student went on a shooting rampage at Virginia Tech. Another interesting tradition they have is before games and I was very intrigued. by it. Here is a video of it:

I was also able to visit the Alamo and walk the river walk in San Antonio, TX. If you haven't visited those places yet, I hear the first two weeks in December are absolutely amazing.

The River Walk in San Antonio, TX

Anyway, lets get to the actual games.

What an amazing first game, it was superb. The girls came out on fire and maintained the intensity all the way through. I truly thought they were the better team. After the game you really got a sense that this team could go far into the tournament. I remember one comment from an Aggie fan: "Your team is amazing," and "they can win this thing." Those words in my opinion were true, especially how well the played (which wasn't even at their best). It was a great step forward for the program as a whole and it showed that yes, the team under Kenny Brooks can win NCAA tournament games. At the hotel I was staying at there was a cameraman who commented how good our team looked and quite impressed. People who don't think people notice should realize, that the big wigs do notice, but sometimes they do not want to acknowledge and give credence to the smaller schools.

The Texas A&M game was every bit the game I thought it was going to be. I had this terrible feeling before the game that the refs were going to call a lot of fouls on JMU. Don't know, you just got the sense that the game was going to be a game that guaranteed the Aggies a sweet 16 trip. Now that isn't to say that the Aggies didn't play good, because they did. They made the plays when they needed to. But to say it was a fair game in that how it was called by the officials is a complete farce. Instead of allowing teams to play the game and decide who was going to win the game, the referees dictated the tempo of the game and forced JMU to play a zone defense which ultimately allowed A&M back into the game and the eventual win. People may disagree because they will say, well the stat sheet says JMU had 27 fouls verses A&M's 19 fouls, but remember, the first half when JMU had 16 fouls called on them putting the team into major foul trouble on several of our key players. They were jobbed in my opinion and it is a shame that these refs ruined the game by not allowing the teams to play--well, they would allow A&M to play, but JMU? Forget about it. It has been a couple of days and I am still upset about it. This is a big reason why I cannot legitimately say that A&M won the game fair and square. Personally, if the refs kept out of it, I truly believe JMU would have won the game by 4 or 5 points. If you remember when JMU was playing their game in the first part of the first half, they were up by 6 points, but as soon as JMU got into foul trouble in the second part of the first half, JMU was forced to play a softer defense and a softer offense that eventually allowed A&M back into the game. So I feel like the team was robbed. But in the end, you still have to play through the bias and make plays. What was worse was we only made like 2 3 pointers the whole game. You will not win many games shooting that poorly beyond the arc. Secondly, because we were not able to aggressive in the paint due to foul trouble we were unable to stop their big from scoring. If there is a take away from this game, it was even after foul trouble, JMU was still able to hang with TAMU. Another great thing was the TAMU fans stood up and cheered for Kirby when she fouled out, They truly appreciated Kirby and her efforts. On to next year!