Who? The Dukes of James Madison.
Where? Harrisonburg, VA, home to the Virginia Quilt Museum. (You laugh, but quilts and basketball go well together.)
When? Sunday the 14th in Harrisonburg, VA.
How? Dawn Evans notched 25 points and 7 assists to lead JMU to a 67-53 win over Old Dominion.
Upset? Yes. Old Dominion won the regular season title, finishing one game ahead of JMU.
RPI: 34
SOS: 96
Bubble teams and fans all over the country breathed a sigh of relief when James Madison knocked out the bipolar Lady Monarchs, who went 14-4 in a solid CAA but a bad 4-9 outside it.
Junior guard Dawn Evans is where it all starts for James Madison, who averages 24.8 points per game (and yet is second in the conference, go figure). She's not afraid to crank it up from anywhere, with 606 attempts on the season, 321 from beyond the arc, but she gets to the line and converts as well. She also averages 4.7 assists per game to lead the team. The other double-figure scorer on this team is freshman forward Tarik Hislop, who puts in 10.2 points per game. Senior guard Sarah Williams's 6.6 rebounds are tops on the team, closely followed by junior forward Jalissa Taylor's 6.5. The minute distribution is the odd stat for me- ten players average at least 14.7 minutes per game, but three average over 30. I know it has to do with the three overtime games they played, but it still seems odd.
It's hard to pick their best out-of-conference win from between Georgetown and Virginia. Wouldn't you like to have a problem like that? Back-to-back losses in conference to William & Mary and UNC-Wilmington look awful on the resume, especially with Evans available for the second of those games.