A Successful Cancun Trip

A valiant effort by the Lady Dukes and a stellar performance by Tarik Hislop (30 points), Jasmine Gill (10 pts, 11 rb), and Jazmon Gwathmey (8 pts, 9 rb) would give the Dukes a victory over a defensive minded team nicknamed the Shockers 63-58. You have to be excited for this team, especially after they started 0-2 for the season. Here you have a team that was having trouble finding itself, especially inside, and yet, in two of the three games was able to have good games inside. Even Ross who started off slow, really showed why she deserves the starting position at the 5 spot. Today's game didn't feature a single 3-point shot being made (0-13), nor did it feature big points for Kirby Burkholder (0 pts, 8 rb), it was all about defense, rebounds, and Tarik Hislop's breakout performance for the 2nd time in the tournament.

You would be hard pressed to say that this team didn't grow from this experience, you would be hard pressed to say that they didn't find themselves in this tournament. The fact that they did it without Giggets and without Mickens (in today's game, Concussion) says something. It says, they are finally coming together as a team. That doesn't mean they don't have issues. I still think they have a hard time defending big post players, but who doesn't have those issues, especially smaller teams? We are tall, but we are not bulky and that is what Minnesota had in yesterday's loss.

We should learn from this trip and we should be well rested and healed for the first home game in nearly a month against Richmond. Richmond was also in the Cancun Challenge and played the exact same teams as we did. So far they are 2-0 in the tournament. They beat both Minnesota and Wichita State. Let's see if they can beat what I think, is one of the best teams in the tournament, Green Bay.

UPDATE: Richmond could not hang with Green Bay and lost 79-48. They did beat Minnesota and Wichita State. 

Notes: Both Gwathmey and Burkholder fouled out. JMU went 2-1 in the Cancun Challege and improved to a 0.500 record at 3-3. Box Score http://admin.xosn.com/fls/14400/stats/wbasketball/2013/jmu1124.htm?DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=14400