A brand new, state-of-the-art arena will be all but empty. James Madison will have 10 scholarship players available with one in quarantine and a couple others battling nagging injuries. The Dukes will face a Division II opponent they only added to the schedule a few days before.
And that’s only if all goes well between now and the scheduled noon tip off.
Welcome to the 2020-21 college basketball season. A new era of celebration and optimism begins at JMU with Mark Byington’s first season as the Dukes head coach and the school opening up its $140 million purple palace, the Atlantic Union Bank Center. But the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic still hangs over the team and sport as JMU prepares to host its first athletic event since the NCAA essentially shut down college sports last March.
“I’m almost afraid to check Twitter and see what programs are paused or canceled,” Byington said. “It’s going to be an unusual year. If we get something canceled, we can’t get dejected. It truly is going to be a fluid schedule this year.”
But for all the challenges the JMU program has experienced since last March, when the Dukes finished last in the Colonial Athletic Association, lost in the opening round of the CAA Tournament, then parted ways with former head coach Louis Rowe, it appears the Dukes are ready to turn the page.
And that, hopefully, begins with a game against the Limestone Saints.
After the NCAA set a Nov. 25 start date for the season, JMU initially released a schedule that had Division III Lancaster Bible College as its first opponent. Friday morning Lancaster Bible informed the Dukes training staff it had multiple positive COVID tests within the program and wouldn’t play any games this semester.
So less than 24 hours later Byington had cemented a replacement in Limestone, coached by an old friend, Kyle Perry.
On the surface, it appears to be a game in which JMU -- a team featuring preseason CAA Player of the Year Matt Lewis and a reloaded roster of five DIvision I transfers -- should roll. Limestone won just four games last season. But just as Byington took steps to quickly rebuild the JMU roster, Perry, a former Division I head coach at USC Upstate, did the same.
The Saints bring back just two players from a year ago, one of them the team MVP and German sharpshooter Ben Gahlert. Around him, Limestone added several players who potentially could be playing at the Division I level this season, including transfers from Bryant and UNC Asheville.
But perhaps the player to watch for the Saints is Midlothian product Jordan Cross.
Cross, a 6-7 forward, played for Millwood High School and Middleburg Academy and was rated a four-star recruit by ESPN. His list of scholarship offers included JMU, Drexel and Hofstra before heading to junior college. Last season, he averaged eight points, four rebounds and two assists per game for a USC Salkehatchie team that was 27-4 and on its way to the NJCAA national tournament when the season abruptly ended.
Perry, who like Byington was an assistant under Bobby Cremins at College of Charleston, said that despite the challenges of putting together a roster in the midst of a pandemic, he thinks he has a group that is ready to compete.
“We’re a new team, so there are always adjustments and we are trying to learn each other,” Perry said. “But I’ve really been pleased with what our guys have done. It’s looking like a really good group of kids.”
Byington, meanwhile, said his team has seen some setbacks in terms of conditioning and he may have to adjust his habits in terms of substitutions and rotations in the midst of an unprecedented season. He said he doesn’t know who, outside of Lewis, will start the game, but he’s excited to see the team on the floor.
“Everything is going to be such a growing process this year,” Byington said. “We’re going to do some things really well on Wednesday. And we’ll do some things really poor. We’re just going to have to keep getting better.
