Women’s basketball falls short against JMU
For a sizable portion of the afternoon, it seemed as if the VCU women’s basketball team was playing catch up.
Jim Swing
Sports Editor
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For a sizable portion of the afternoon, it seemed as if the VCU women’s basketball team was playing catch up.
Lost footing and fumbled passes created turnover after turnover, which allowed James Madison to grab the upper hand in nearly every aspect of the game. And when opportunities finally surfaced for the Rams, they weren’t seized and eventually led to a dispiriting 65-64 loss to the Dukes in front of the Siegel Center’s largest crowd of the season.
The initial setback was the first half in and of itself. VCU senior forward Courtney Hurt struggled to find her footing on the court literally and metaphorically. Hurt shot a measly 0-for-4 from the floor and turned the ball over five times in the first half.
JMU head coach Kenny Brooks said his team never sets out to shut Hurt down, but attributed success to their measure.
“I think our length bothers her, and when I say bothers her, it makes it tougher for her,” he said. “She has to shoot over top of us.”
The Dukes on the other hand, made the basket look like an ocean, pouring in 31 first half points on 13-of-28 shooting to take a seven-point lead into the break.
But much to the Dukes chagrin, VCU mustered up a 15-2 run to take a two-point lead midway through the second half.
Hurt got going and used it to go on a tear. She ripped off 15 second-half points to add to her tally of 19 on the day to go with 17 rebounds for her 15th double-double of the season.
“I think Courtney had a different mentality in the second half for whatever reason,” VCU head coach Beth Cunningham said. “It wasn’t like we were necessarily running anything differently.”
Still, it wasn’t enough. JMU fired back with punches of its own, making it a tit-for-tat ball game down the final stretch. The Rams had taken the lead. They were able to limit the amount of turnovers in the second half and get Hurt rolling, and still it came down to the final few possessions.
With just over half a minute remaining and JMU holding on to a one-point lead, Chelsea Snyder tried to fight the shot clock with a turn-around jumper that clanked off the opposite side of the rim.
The Dukes had the ball with just over a four second difference between the game clock and shot clock. Defense held steady for the Rams, who forced JMU to the buzzer and got the rebound across halfcourt for a timeout, salvaging one final possession with 0.9 left on the clock.
Andrea Barbour stood at midcourt with Dukes’ 6-foot-4-inch center Rachel Connely towering over her. Barbour couldn’t find the look she wanted, and called timeout.
It wasn’t enough.
Barbour held onto the ball for nearly every last second of the inbounds before forcibly throwing a muffed pass at the feet of Robyn Hobson, who got her final shot partially blocked, falling short of the rim.
It was a tale of two halves for VCU, which fell to 14-10 on the season and 7-6 in the CAA. One that was shoddy and full of mistakes. And the other that was used trying to make up for those mistakes.
“In the second half I think there was more of a sense of urgency to do some of the things that we had talked about,” Cunningham said. “A lot of these games come down to a very thin margin for error.”