Virginia Falls in Opener at James Madison

HARRISONBURG, Va. – The Virginia women’s basketball team (0-1) opened the 2021-22 with an 84-69 loss at James Madison (1-0) on Tuesday (Nov. 9 ) at the Atlantic Union Bank Center in Harrisonburg, Va.

Junior forward Camryn Taylor, a transfer from Marquette, scored 27 points in her Cavalier debut. Junior guard Carole Miller scored 14 points and grad student center Eleah Parker, a transfer from Penn, scored 12 points with nine rebounds and four blocked shots.

Kiki Jefferson led the Dukes with 31 points, one of three players in double figures. 

HOW IT HAPPENED

JMU scored seven straight points late in the first quarter to build up a 22-13 advantage, but the Cavaliers scored the final four points of the period and the first four points of the second to pull to within one, 22-21, on a layup from Parker with 7:56 left in the half. The Dukes built back up a six-point lead, 39-33, with 1:06 left in the quarter. Jamia Hazel hit a dagger three with 4.6 seconds left in the half to put JMU up 44-35, but Taylor Valladay answered with a three-quarter court shot at the buzzer that went into the net to cut the halftime deficit to 44-38.

Virginia opened the second half on a 6-2 mini-run. Back-to-back layups from Taylor made it a one-point game, 46-44, but the JMU shooters got hot, converting their next five field goal attempts to build up a 56-46 advantage. The Dukes continued to build, scoring the final seven points of the third period to lead 71-50.

Virginia scored the first nine points of the fourth quarter, with Taylor scoring her 27th point of the game to make it 71-59 with 7:52 remaining. A jumper by Miller got the deficit back down to 10, 73-63, with 6:10 remaining, but the Dukes built back up to a 17-point advantage in the final minute of play. Parker closed out the game with a layup for the final 84-69 score.

FROM HEAD COACH TINA THOMPSON

“First of all, it felt great to be back on the court. We haven’t played in a long time, so that was a lot of excitement leading up to this game and just being able to be out there.

“We were getting the ball inside. I think that all of our post players did a good job of scoring around the basket. We had trouble defending which is kind of what we hang our hat on. Our one-on-one defense was subpar today. We just allowed a couple of individuals to kind of have their way and once they got going, it was really tough to stop.”

NOTES

• JMU outscored UVA 27-12 in the third quarter
• Transfers Taylor Valladay, Camryn Taylor and London Clarkson were in the starting lineup for their UVA debuts
• Taylor was 10-of-15 from the field. She also had seven rebounds
• Valladay had six assists to lead the team
• Eleah Parker and McKenna Dale also made their Cavalier debuts coming off the bench in the first quarter
• Parker was 6-of-9 from the field
• The Cavaliers were 16-of-28 from the free throw line (57.1 percent)
• UVA went 1-of-15 from three point range
• JMU held a 46-36 edge in rebounds
• Virginia shot 41.3 percent (26-of-63) while JMU went 29-of-55 (44.6 percent)
• Virginia never led in the game

ON THE HORIZON

• Virginia plays its home-opener hosting head coach Tina Thompson’s alma mater Southern California on Sunday, Nov. 14 at 1 p.m.
• UVA closes out the homestand with a midweek game against UCF on Wednesday, Nov. 17 at 7 p.m.