Dukes Flip Dates With St. John's
HARRISONBURG — James Madison football’s success has caused a scheduling change, even before the Dukes officially qualify for the postseason.
JMU women’s basketball announced Wednesday that its Saturday, Dec. 9 home game against St. John’s will now be a road contest on the same date with tipoff scheduled for 2 p.m. Dukes coach Sean O’Regan said the two schools have been in discussions since mid-August to find a start time for the contest, aware that the time would need to be altered around whenever the football Dukes played, if the defending FCS champions ended up hosting a game.
Although there were discussions before the date was finalized, O’Regan said, there were some issues with the game time that ultimately prevented a favorable solution for both sides.
“It was twofold — the potential football game and what kind of possibilities does that pose for us to change the time and stuff like that,” O’Regan said. “Being aware and not being blind to the possibility of that. There were plenty of different solutions for us to play the game at home, but none that we all loved, including St. John’s.”
O’Regan said St. John’s coach Joe Tartamella, a 2001 JMU alum, suggested the Dukes play in Queens, N.Y., this year in exchange for St. John’s making consecutive trips to Harrisonburg in 2018 and 2019. A spokesman from St. John’s athletics department said in an email that the school was informed the game was moved because of “a potential scheduling conflict with JMU football hosting an FCS Playoff game.”
This season’s meeting was supposed to be the end of a home-and-home agreement between the two sides that began last season. However, the series has now been extended two more years with the Red Storm visiting the Dukes on either Dec. 20 or 21 in 2018 and Nov. 17, 2019.
If there was a year JMU could afford to flip a home game into a road one, it is this upcoming season, O’Regan said, because the Dukes already had six other home dates during the 11-game non-conference slate.
“We were going back and forth for quite awhile coming up with other solutions, but it just didn’t fit,” O’Regan said. “[Tartamella] came up with the idea to have us go there for another year and then he would give us two return games in the following two years. A four-year deal with St. John’s and you just don’t alternate, it’s pretty rare, but I still think it benefits both parties.”
O’Regan said he planned to discuss the two teams renewing the series for another two years before the scheduling issue. He said it is a challenge to lure teams from major conferences to Harrisonburg on home-and-home deals, so O’Regan is keen to take advantage of any opportunity that presents itself.
The New York market has also been a recruiting hotbed for JMU recently with both of its true freshmen this season — Brey Bellerand and Tori Harris — hailing from the area. O’Regan said the combination of a quality opponent and being able to expand the Dukes’ footprint in the area made this series a good one for JMU.
“I was really hopeful we were going to continue the series with St. John’s anyway because I think it’s a good game and I think it’s a good location,” O’Regan said. “It’s an area where we’ve been successful recruiting, and being able to get a home game back for Tori Harris and Brey Bellerand is really helpful and it continues our presence around New York.
“It’s a big win in a lot of ways, too, because it’s never the easiest thing in the world to get a Big East team to come play at your place.”
JMU now has five games contracted to be played for the 2018-19 season: home dates with Dayton and St. John’s, and road trips to Hampton, Liberty and Wake Forest. The St. John’s game is the only one on the books for the 2019-2020 season.