Week 13 Men's Basketball Preview: James Madison

James Madison Dukes will hit the road to face the Troy Trojans and the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. James Madison will look to build on their previous performance, an 82-57 victory over Texas State this past Saturday. The victory over Texas State snapped a three-game losing streak for James Madison, and they will look to build off of that one with some more huge in-conference games this week.

James Madison at Troy

The week for James Madison will certainly start with a major challenge against the team that has been the best in the conference. The Troy Trojans have the best overall record at 15-6, and they also have the best in-conference record at 8-1. The Trojans get good production from several different players, but the players who are at the forefront are Victor Valdes and Thomas Dowd. Valdes is seventh in the Sun Belt in points, averaging 16.5, while also averaging 3.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists. Dowd is 12th in the conference in scoring, averaging 15.7 points, and is the leading rebounder in the conference with 10.5. Theo Seng, Cooper Campbell, and Cobi Campbell also average double-digit points.

With the variety of scoring, it has been the main factor behind Troy’s high-power offense. Troy ranks 24th in all of college basketball in scoring with 86.5 points per game and ranks 80th in offensive rating.

While Troy has been dominant against the Sun Belt, James Madison hasn’t had the same luck against other Sun Belt teams. James Madison is only 3-6 against the rest of the Sun Belt.

Troy comes into this game having won their last five contests by an average margin of 20 points.

The last time these two teams faced each other in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, Troy defeated James Madison 79-60. Thursday’s game is the only time this year these teams see each other.

Tipoff: Thursday, Jan 29, 7:00 p.m. ET (6:00 p.m. CT)

TV: ESPN+

Radio:WTBF-FM 94.7 in Troy, JMU Network for James Madison

James Madison at USM

Unlike James Madison’s game against Troy, the matchup against USM will be against a team that has played closer to their level this season. USM has a record of 11-11 on the season and are 5-5 against the Sun Belt.

USM started off the year playing well with an 11-7 record. But have since dropped their last four contests and now sit at ninth in the conference, only two spots above JMU.

This game will be a matchup between two of the top five scorers in the Sun Belt. For USM, they are led by Tylik Weeks. Weeks is third in the Sun Belt in scoring with an average of 17.8 points per game. Weeks does this on 47% shooting from the field, which is seventh in the conference, and not much from the three-point line. As a matter of fact, Weeks has only made two threes on the season, and both of those makes came in the same game against Grambling State back on Nov 13.

A key for JMU’s defense will be to keep Weeks off the free-throw line. Weeks has gone to the line 137 times, which is third in the conference, and has the most made free throws in the conference, converting 111 of those attempts.

McBride comes right below Weeks in scoring with 17.3 points, making 50% of his shots from the floor and 44% from downtown. McBride is fifth in the conference in field goal percentage

A big part of USM’s struggles has been due to the absence of Isaac Tavares. In the 12 games he played this year before his hand injury, he was averaging 15.8 points along with 6.7 rebounds while shooting 53.7% from the floor, so his loss has contributed to some of the recent struggles they have faced.

This will be the first and only time James Madison and Southern Miss face each other.

Tipoff: Saturday, Jan 31, 3:00 p.m. ET (2:00 p.m. CT)

TV: ESPN+

Radio: WUSM-FM 88.5 in Southern Miss, JMU Network for James Madison