Rowe Focused On Dukes' Response
HARRISONBURG — No coach enjoys talking about moral victories.
They aren’t the ones that count in the standings, and at some point they start to ring hollow to fans and players alike. It only took eight games for second-year James Madison basketball coach Louis Rowe to reach that point this season.
In the moments after the Dukes’ 76-72 loss to George Mason on Wednesday at the Convocation Center, Rowe had plenty of chances to talk about everything his young squad did right against the Patriots. He praised his players’ fight numerous times in a composed, somber manner, but he had his moments where the frustration boiling inside exploded in short bursts.
“We lost the game, no excuses,” Rowe said in one of those moments. “We’ve got to figure out a way to get to the finish line with a W.”
This year’s Dukes are learning just how hard it is to win games at the Division I level with three straight games that went down to the wire.
Last Wednesday against Appalachian State, JMU clawed back from a 13-point deficit to force overtime and eventually beat the Mountaineers 105-99. On Saturday, the Dukes led Radford late before the Highlanders grabbed an offensive rebound with 32 seconds left and hit a layup with five seconds remaining to win the game.
Then there was Wednesday when the Patriots scored seven points in a little less than a second to turn a four-point JMU lead into a three-point deficit for the Dukes.
All of those games are valuable learning lessons for the Dukes, but the players are starting to get tired of the heartbreak.
“It gives us experience in close games, but we just have to win them,” junior guard Stuckey Mosley said. “It helps us so we know how to handle it in those positions, but we still have to win the game.”
JMU sits at 2-6 after Wednesday’s loss and Rowe is starting to worry about his team losing confidence after a pair of tough losses. He said he doesn’t believe his team is close to reaching that breaking point, but he knows these are the moments when that loss of belief can occur.
Rowe said how his team responds over the next few days will have an impact on the direction this program takes for the rest of the season.
“This is the kind of stuff that snowballs and beats a young team down,” Rowe said. “When people ask why a program makes it or they don’t make it, this is what you got to get through to make it. The next one’s coming, and if you’re feeling sorry for yourself and you let up a little bit, you get to a point during the season and the record is overwhelming and the belief starts to wane.
“I don’t want to look in guys’ eyes and see they don’t believe. Those are the young men I want to coach, this is how I want to coach them, I think they believe in me, I believe in them.”
Junior forward Develle Phillips said the only thing the Dukes can do is continue to work hard in practice and only worry about the variables the players can actually control.
“We just go back into practice and continue to go hard and make sure we handle what we can handle,” Phillips said.