Junior guard Ron Curry (Pennsauken, N.J./Paul VI) drilled a 3-pointer from the right corner with 3.3 seconds on the clock to lift the James Madison men’s basketball team to a 74-71 victory over Radford on Monday evening at the JMU Convocation Center.
After his go-ahead layup attempt had been blocked out of bounds with two seconds on the shot clock, Curry inbounded the ball to sophomore forward Yohanny Dalembert (Port-au-Prince, Haiti/Lower Merion (Pa.)), stepped inbounds to get the return pass and calmly knocked down the shot in traffic to give the Dukes their final margin of victory and lift JMU to 1-1 on the season.
Curry finished with a game-high 20 points on 6-of-9 shooting, including a 3-for-4 performance from behind the arc, and a perfect 5-for-5 outing from the free throw line. He also had four rebounds and four assists.
Sophomore guard Jackson Kent (High Point, N.C./High Point Christian) tallied 12 points for the Dukes, while sophomore forward Paulius Satkus (Raudondvaris, Lithuania/Barking Abbey) scored a career-high 11 points to go with seven boards, a tie for his career best. After being held scoreless in his debut with the Dukes on Friday, junior guard Winston Grays (Cleveland, Ohio/Benedictine) joined his three teammates in double figures with 10 points. Dalembert just missed double figures with nine points and set a new career high in assists, with four.
The Dukes shot 47 percent (24-51) for the game and hit 77 percent of their free-throw tries (20-26) while holding the Highlanders (0-2) to 40 percent (25-62) shooting. The rebounding war was close, with RU holding a 35-33 edge and controlling the offensive glass 14-8, allowing the Highlanders to outscore JMU 15-7 in the defeat.
The Highlanders also had four players score in double figures, led by Javonte Green and Rashun Davis, who both had 15 points. Green collected his second double-double in as many games after he brought down a game-high 11 rebounds.
The Highlanders took full advantage of three JMU turnovers early in the first half, jumping out to a 10-2 lead just past the four-minute mark. The Dukes chipped away at the lead and eventually took their first lead of the night at 22-21 on a fast-break layup by Kent with 8:34 remaining.
RU answered back with the next eight points very quickly to grab a 29-22 lead with just over seven minutes left. Trailing 33-28 in the closing minutes of the stanza, JMU surged back in front with a 10-2 run in the final 2:10, capped off by a running 3-pointer by Curry at the buzzer, giving the host Dukes a 38-35 advantage at the break.
Both teams went back and forth for the first eight minutes of the second half but, with the contest knotted at 51-51, a Kent trey sparked a 7-0 run that was capped off by back-to-back layups by Grays and
Satkus to give JMU its largest lead of the night at 58-51 with 10:37 remaining.
Radford wasn’t done and used a run of its own to regain the lead. Trailing 66-60, Davis hit a pair of threes in an 8-1 run to give the visitors a 68-67 advantage with just over four to play. The Dukes retook the lead back 19 seconds later on a layup and never lost the lead again. RU tied the game on a Taj Owens free throw with 2:11 left and had a chance to take the lead in the final minute but Green lost control of the ball, giving JMU possession with 37 seconds left to set up Curry’s winning shot.
JMU returns to action Wednesday at 7 p.m. when it hosts another Big South opponent in Longwood.
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Chris Graham
