Northeastern is the day’s final winner, cruising to an easy victory in JMU coach Dean Keener’s final game. He announced he would resign when the season ended. Northeastern will face No. 3 George Mason tomorrow night.

Thanks for joining us for an exciting day of blogging from the Richmond Coliseum. More coverage will be in tomorrow’s Times-Dispatch. Tomorrow the action starts at noon with Towson facing VCU. George Templeton will be your blogger for another full day of CAA action.

Postgame comments from the final game:

Northeastern:

Coach Bill Coen: Whenever you get to tournament time, theres a different level of intensity in the air. I thought our guys came out with the appropriate amount of intensity, and it showed on the defensive end.

We got a great lift off our bench in Baptiste Bataille. James Madison did a great job of getting on the backboard and taking advantage of our size.

We really couldn’t get much going. We had a couple possessions where they got deep into the shot clock with positive results, and I thought when Baptiste came in that opened things up for us.

It’s tourney time. It’s all about the team that can make shots and do the little things right. We were fortunate tonight, we had a couple guys step up for us.

Guard Matt Janning: They made their little run with those threes, and then we stopped it and the momentum carried for the rest of the game.

James Madison:

Coach Dean Keener: I just feel bad for our guys. There’s a good group there. I think our guys can hold our heads high. We didn’t accomplish everything we wanted to this year, but I think there’s been a foundation and an infrastructure put in place.

Foul trouble was an issue. We had several guys with two in the first half, and played a couple of them. I hate doing that. I think the same official called all five fouls on Juwann, and four of them were away from the ball. That’s a tough call. That certainly hurt us not having our guy. It’s hard for JMU to win basketball games when Juwann’s not playing 30-plus minutes.

It’s hard when you get down. You just use so much energy coming back. Then they make a couple shots and become backbreakers.

I’m just disappointed we long. I’m not necessarily thinking about that. I don’t have a terminal disease. I’ve got a great family and kids to spend time with as I decompress over the next couple weeks. We can walk out of here knowing the program is better than when we took it over. In some small fashion, this program is better. My hope is it continues to grow with whoever they hire.

Forward Juwann James: This guy [coach Keener] recruited me. He taught me what it is to be a man, so it’s like losing a father figure. We’ll wish him the best and he’ll wish us the best.

Guard Pierre Curtis: I think those threes were pretty huge, especially because they were guys we didn’t think would knock them down. It was a big turning point in the game.

I think the zone worked exactly how we wanted it to. But we left a couple shooters open and they knocked them down.

Posted by Michael Phillips in • College Sports
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