Hot-shooting JMU douses Flames

James Madison’s Kyle Swanston was having a fine night Monday at the Vines Center. The 6-foot-7 forward had knocked down seven 3-pointers before he sank the dagger, a banked 3 from the top of the key that crushed Liberty’s fading hopes.

Swanston’s shot sucked the soul out of the Flames, who unraveled on both ends of the floor in an 88-65 loss to the Dukes in the quarterfinals of the CollegeInsider.com Tournament. Liberty ends its season at 23-12. JMU advances to a quarterfinal matchup Thursday against CAA rival Old Dominion in Norfolk.

Swanston tied a school record with nine 3s and led all scorers with 27 points. As for the bank shot:

“You know what? Luck is involved in this game. You’ve just got to take what you get sometimes.”

Swanston’s offensive role increased because JMU (21-14) was without top scorer Juwann James, who missed Monday’s game with an injured right middle finger. Though he was shooting well all night, Liberty was still in the game because the Flames were able to at least match JMU’s offensive prowess.

The Flames led 48-47 with 14:22 left after Kyle Ohman hit his only shot of the game. But with the score tied at 50, JMU scored on its next five possessions while Liberty began taking poor shot after poor shot, none more poor than Ohman’s 28-foot chuck with about 25 seconds left on the shot clock. After that shot caught nothing but air, Swanston hit his banked 3.

“Our weakness all year has been not being patient when we’ve needed to,” Liberty coach Ritchie McKay said. “Early in the season, we were patient enough to focus on getting shots for guys who were used to taking them. We were impatient. They did a great job. But defensively we broke down time and time again.”

After shooting 35 percent in the first half, JMU shot 67.9 percent in the second half and outscored the Flames 55-31. Swanston’s nine 3s were a Vines Center record for an opponent, and his 27 points were a career high.

“He’s long and athletic and has a quick release,” said Anthony Smith, the Flames’ lone senior who capped his career by scoring 26 points. “You’ve got to be there directly on the catch every time. All he needs is a little space. He’s a tough guard.”

The Dukes extended their lead to 63-50 on Julius Wells’ dunk with 11:10 left, and the Flames got no closer than 10 the rest of the way.

JMU took a defensive page out of the book of VMI and Radford, playing a tandem-and-two defense against Smith, Seth Curry and Ohman. The Dukes face guarded the three and challenged others to beat them. Only Jesse Sanders was up to it. The freshman point guard scored a career-high 16 points and added seven assists and six rebounds. He broke Liberty’s freshman record for assists, finishing the year with 137, one more than Matt Hildebrand had in 1990-91.

“It’s something we had to deal with later in the season,” Sanders said. “Teams started trick defensing us. It’s really a challenge to the team, and the guys who aren’t being guarded, to be effective. When you’ve relied on Kyle, Anthony and Seth so long, it’s a challenge for the other guys to be effective, even without scoring. Some of the guys who weren’t being guarded didn’t do as good of a job offensively without the ball.”

Curry was the first Big South freshman ever to average more than 20 points per game (20.2), but JMU’s Devon Moore held him in check, limiting him to eight points on 4 of 11 shooting. Curry missed all five of his 3-point attempts.

Ohman hit just one shot and went 1 for 8 from the floor, 1 for 6 from 3-point range.

“We wanted to make sure all three of them didn’t get going,” JMU coach Matt Brady said. “We put our best defender on Seth, who is a terrific player. We tried to face guard Ohman as much as we could. Ohman’s not as good off the dribble, but he’s a dynamite shooter. Smith was terrific in the first half, but I think we kind of adjusted in the second half.”

For JMU, the trip to the CIT semifinals is a sign of continued progress for the once downtrodden program. From 2003-07, the Dukes won a combined 25 games and finished each season with victory totals in the single digits. In Brady’s first year after four years at Marist, JMU has taken another step, reaching the 20-win mark for the first time in nine years.

“It’s a big deal,” Brady said. “When I took over this job, I said to this group that, No. 1, we’ve got to become a better defensive team. So to come on the road and hold a good team to 38 percent (shooting from the field) is significant. To go on the road and win is significant. The fact that we’re in postseason play is in and of itself an achievement. The amount of wins that this team has been able to cobble together, it’s a great thing for this team.

“It just sets the bar for all future teams.“