HARRISONBURG — James Madison entered the Colonial Athletic Association women’s basketball tournament intent on making today as stress free as possible.
That didn’t happen.
The injury-riddled Dukes were upset by Hofstra in the CAA quarterfinals, meaning no automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and a long wait on Selection Monday. Now JMU is on the dreaded bubble, and will have to watch the selection show, which airs tonight at 7 p.m. on ESPN, to find out its postseason future.
“We’re going to play somewhere,” JMU coach Sean O’Regan said. “We’re not going to be fully healthy for it, but fine. It will be an opportunity for people to step up. This is going to sting for a while, but we’ll get back after it and we’ll play in the postseason like we do.”
JMU has played in the WNIT each of O’Regan’s previous two seasons as the Dukes’ head coach and last made the NCAA Tournament in 2016, when he was an assistant under Kenny Brooks.
With the loss, the Dukes put their fate in the hands of the selection committee, which, frankly, could go either way on JMU. Madison dropped 10 spots to No. 36 in the NCAA’s RPI ranking and ESPN’s Bracketology had the Dukes in its “next four out” group, six spots out of a berth as of Sunday evening.
But RealTimeRPI.com predicted the Dukes could head to Syracuse, N.Y., as a No. 11 seed. Going into last week, some JMU officials were pessimistic a mid-major in the Dukes’ position would get the benefit of the doubt from the selection committee without winning the CAA title game, let alone losing in the quarterfinals. But it’s now wait-and-see time.
How the committee views the Dukes’ injury situation is anybody’s guess.
Junior guard Kamiah Smalls, a first-team All-CAA performer and JMU’s leading scorer missed most of the past two games, but should be available for tournament play going forward. Perhaps committee members would be inclined to give JMU a mulligan for the Hofstra game given JMU’s overall record of 25-5 and strong RPI.
“We have enough talent,” O’Regan said. “It’s just a matter of prepping the right way, That’s two starters who do a lot for us. It just didn’t go our way, which is tough to swallow.”
On the other hand, the Dukes have lost second-team all-conference guard/forward Lexie Barrier, who broke her shooting hand in three places in the opening minute of the conference tournament and the committee could just as easily argue JMU isn’t the same team without her.
JMU has put in a bid for a WNIT home game if the Dukes are not in the NCAA field, and the school is preparing for a possible home game later in the week, perhaps Friday.
