HARRISONBURG — Coming off perhaps the most disappointing weekend of a season already filled with wild momentum swings, James Madison men's basketball finds itself trying to regain some of the positive kind heading into this weekend’s Colonial Athletic Association Tournament in North Charleston, S.C.
After dropping a pair of home losses to Elon and William & Mary to close out the regular season — results that sent the Dukes (13-18, 6-12 CAA) from a potential fourth-place finish in the CAA to the No. 8 seed in the conference tournament — third-year JMU coach Louis Rowe faced questions about the stability of the program after three consecutive losing seasons.
“My future as a coach is always going to be ... nobody’s future as a coach is great,” Rowe said following Saturday’s loss to in-state rival William & Mary. “I’m stressed, I don’t sleep a lot. I don’t sleep a lot because I care about these guys and this team. But I’m blessed. I have two degrees from here. I played 10 years professionally and I’m not an idiot. I have a great family. So I can do this. I coach my heart out.”
Still, Rowe acknowledged unrest among some fans as the Dukes have fallen behind in-state and conference peers in one of the school’s highest-profile sports. The question now is how his team handles it heading into a win-or-go-home tournament.
“The noise is the noise,” Rowe said. “It would be different, maybe, if I was coaching somewhere else. But I’m an alum, and I know the want to win. Nobody knows me. These people don’t know me. They know my team and they say we want to win. Outside expectations are what they are. They are fans. That’s fair. No fan is going to say, 'I want us to be bad.' They want us to win and I’m as passionate as they are.”
Talk of Rowe on the hot seat has fluctuated with the team’s results. Victories against last year’s CAA champion, College of Charleston, as well as regular-season champ Hofstra and potential NCAA Tournament team Radford, were encouraging. But season sweeps at the hands of William & Mary and Elon plus an extended slump through the holiday season were equally deflating.
“It’s too much up and down for us,” JMU sophomore guard Matt Lewis said. “We came off a loss to Northeastern and put that behind us and beat Hofstra. Then we come back and drop two games we needed to win. We can’t be up and down.”
So the Dukes head into the postseason with an opportunity to turn the tide once again with a victory or two. JMU opens the tournament Saturday at 4 p.m. against Towson. The winner of that one gets top-seeded Hofstra Sunday at noon.
Those are two teams Madison knows it is capable of beating, having split the season series with each. But the Dukes also know it takes a better showing than their past two outings.
“We have to stay focused,” senior guard Stuckey Mosley said. “Coach is going to come up with a great game plan, but we have to be able to execute it. We have to come out with energy and be focused and pay attention to the details. If we lose, we go home, so we have to focus on winning.”
