HARRISONBURG — A season that lasted longer than just about anyone anticipated with James Madison playing into April wasn’t truly over until the final seconds Wednesday.
The Dukes rallied from a double-digit deficit late to get within a basket of visiting Northwestern with less than 10 seconds to go, but couldn’t pull off the comeback, seeing the season come to an end with a 74-69 loss in the WNIT semifinals.
“Once we got going in this tournament, I thought we could win the whole thing,” JMU coach Sean O’Regan said. “That’s why I’m pretty disappointed. We didn’t play our best and that’s why we are going home now. It’s a pretty cool thing to win 29 games, but I want to win 29 next year and be an NCAA Tournament team.”
Ravaged by injuries in March, JMU missed out on an NCAA Tournament berth despite dominating the Colonial Athletic Association in the regular season, but responded to rattle off four straight WNIT victories, beating teams from the American Athletic Conference, Big East and ACC in the process.
But Northwestern from the Big Ten proved a stiffer challenge, with size and athleticism the Dukes hadn’t seen since taking on Maryland, another Big Ten foe, in December.
“The zone is tough to play against, their offense is very, very fluid,” O’Regan said. “They deserved to win today, but I don’t feel like we should have lost this game today. I feel like we are a mid-level Big Ten, or I don’t care what conference, but I was impressed.”
Northwestern never trailed and had its biggest lead of the game, 15 points, with less than five minutes to go, but the Dukes closed on a furious rally, cutting it to three after Kamiah Smalls was fouled on a 3-pointer with five seconds left and made all three free throws.
Smalls finished with 15 points, but struggled shooting, going just 2-of-16 from the field. Jackie Benitez made six 3-pointers for the Dukes and led all scorers with 18 while Kayla Cooper-Williams finished with nine points and 15 rebounds.
“We play every game to win,” Cooper-Williams said. “Even when we go down, our mindset is we are going to win. Just today it didn’t work out for us.”
But Northwestern got just enough from its two first-team All-Big Ten performers to move on to the finals with Lindsey Pulliam scoring 16 points and Pallas Kunaiyi-Akpanah scoring 11 with 11 rebounds.
The Wildcats fell behind by big margins in their earlier WNIT games, but got off to a hot start offensively in the Convocation Center, nailing a trio of early 3-pointers to build a 19-5 lead and forcing JMU to call timeout with 2:55 remaining in the opening quarter.
But after falling behind by 14, the Dukes responded with a 12-1 run via four 3-pointers to crawl back into the game. In all, JMU shot 7-of-16 from behind the arc in the first half, four of the makes from the hand of Benitez, as the Dukes kept it close despite struggling to convert close looks in the paint.
But the Wildcats were able to get to the free-throw line, where they converted on 8-of-11 attempts in the first half compared to just two attempts, both misses, for JMU, who trailed 34-27 at the break.
The deep ball continued to keep the Dukes close in the second half as Benitez’ fifth 3-pointer of the game got JMU within five, 49-44 late in the third quarter. But each James Madison run was answered by the Wildcats and JMU could never climb out of the whole dug in the game’s first seven minutes.
“Smalls and Benitez are terrific players,” Northwestern coach Joe McKeown said. “But every time they scored we could get it back to 10 or 11. I think that was the key, to be able to score when they scored.”
In the end, JMU (29-6) matched a school record for victories and improved on last season’s third-round WNIT exit, but the final loss left something to be desired and enough goals unattained for a program that presumably loses only seniors Logan Reynolds and Aneah Young.
“Just thinking about it, that’s going to be a scary sight,” Cooper-Williams said. “Logan and Aneah are a very big part of our team this year, but now that we have a team where everyone has figured out what their role is and young players that are learning. I think that’s going to be a scary sight next year.”
