A series of coronavirus-related pauses announced Monday around the Colonial Athletic Association helped James Madison clinch the No. 1 seed in the conference tournament heading into the final week of the regular season.
The reaction of CAA fans on social media to the unconventional crowning of a regular-season champion was a strong one, ranging from accusations the Dukes had been ducking games to insinuations JMU was responsible for other teams’ positive COVID tests to requesting an investigation of the communication between JMU officials and the league office.
First-year JMU coach Mark Byington told the Daily News-Record on Tuesday that his staff had gone out of its way to play CAA games during a season that has been greatly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Us and maybe Drexel might have been the only teams in the league that didn’t postpone or cancel any (conference) games,” Byington said. “I think that’s important. Every single game that was scheduled, we played. Six of our nine opponents postponed the game on us. Postponed the series, really, because it’s not just single games. I don’t think anybody else dealt with that to the extent that we did. I think we were more aggressive than anybody else.”
JMU has seen more than 50 changes to its schedule since it released an initial slate of games in the summer, but the team has only been paused in-season by a positive test once itself. That break cost the Dukes non-conference home games against Maryland and Old Dominion and a trip to Coppin State. But thanks in part to contact tracing technology and strict protocols — players were limited to small groups outside of practice and coaches traveled separately at times this season — Byington’s squad has thus far avoided any more shutdowns during CAA play.
Still, JMU has played nine conference games, winning eight, and has one more scheduled at home against Drexel on Friday. The Dukes are just a half-game ahead of 8-2 Northeastern, but the Huskies paused basketball activities this week and won’t play another regular-season game. If both teams finish 8-2, JMU has a tiebreaker by virtue of a sweep over Towson, which split a season series with Northeastern.
The Dukes didn’t play Delaware, UNC Wilmington, William & Mary or College of Charleston after COVID-19 issues in each of those programs forced postponements that were never made up.
JMU and Charleston were originally supposed to play Jan. 30 and 31 in Harrisonburg. Last weekend, both teams had games against other CAA teams postponed, prompting many to question why the Dukes and Cougars didn’t make up their games then. JMU wound up with the weekend off while Charleston played one game, an overtime victory at home against Division II Columbus State.
After the original postponement, the teams never settled on a time for the Cougars to make the trip to JMU.
“The Charleston series, as soon as that happened I called the coach and said let me know when you want to come up,” Byington said. “If you want to do it mid-week, if you want to fill in a cancelation or whatever else. I talked to him one other time and said we wanted to play the game and I haven’t heard back. Similar situation with William & Mary. With them, I don’t think they got out (of COVID protocols) in time for us to be able to get it in.”
CAA commissioner Joe D’Antonio said the league has all season allowed the schools to handle rescheduling.
“All the (athletic directors) agreed very early in the process, and then we revisited this issue later in the year, that all scheduling matters would be dealt with between the institutions themselves and specifically the athletic directors,” D’Antonio told the Daily News-Record on Tuesday.
So far JMU, which is scheduled to host the CAA Tournament March 6-9, has played five CAA home games and four on the road, including a split of two games at Northeastern. Byington pointed out the Dukes were supposed to play both games against Elon this season at home, but agreed to play the second on the road. Amid all the rescheduling, that was one of the very few instances of a CAA team giving up a home game.
Bad luck cost the Dukes several other road games. In early February, JMU was scheduled to make a southern road trip to play two weekend games at William & Mary and one game at UNC Wilmington the following Tuesday.
The William & Mary games were the first to be postponed, leaving open a possibility of JMU making a trip to Delaware instead. But a 9-hour bus ride from Newark, Del., to Wilmington, N.C. rather than the relatively short drive from Williamsburg would have left JMU players without the NCAA mandated time off for the week.
The UNCW game was subsequently postponed, leaving the Dukes without an opponent.
Some CAA teams scheduled non-conference games last week. Northeastern added a trip to North Carolina last Wednesday, suffering a 20-point loss to the Tar Heels before going on pause upon its return to Boston.
JMU opted not to look for a non-conference game after no makeup with Charleston was agreed to. Byington said this late in the season he hoped to avoid situations that could keep the Dukes off the court going forward.
“This is when we had to be really smart with scheduling,” Byington said. “With two weeks to go, we’re not going to jeopardize and add more things. We’re not going to jeopardize travel, putting ourselves at higher risk. I would have loved to play the Delaware series last weekend. We wanted to play and I’m sure they wanted to play too. But we went out of way to make Drexel happen earlier in the season, bringing them in on a weekend that was empty. And we went out of our way with Elon considering that was supposed to be two home games, but we went down to their place when we didn’t have to.”
