James Madison dominates Texas State

James Madison had significantly struggled against conference play coming into Saturday’s game against Texas State. After dropping the last three matchups to a Sun Belt opponents, the Dukes picked up a much-needed 82-57 victory over the Bobcats to end the skid.

It may be cold outside, but the Dukes were on fire today 🔥#GoDukes pic.twitter.com/pi322syOGF

— JMU Men’s Basketball (@JMUMBasketball) January 24, 2026

“We’d lost three in a row, two of which were games that we were in control of at one point, and the other we didn’t finish well,” said James Madison head coach Preston Spradlin. “We sat here and talked about consistency, and I thought we found that here today.”

The game started competitively as it was a 10-10 ballgame by the time the first timeout was called at the 14:44 mark. That was the last time this was really close, as for the next seven and a half minutes, the Dukes went on a 21-5 run and led 31-15 with seven minutes left in the half. The Dukes never looked back as they took a 47-28 lead into the half.

The second half only saw the lead grow, as James Madison led by as much as 28 on multiple occasions and were able to coast to an easy victory.

The Bobcats couldn’t get anything going offensively on the afternoon, as defensively, the Dukes were all over them, making all their shots as difficult as possible. They shot 33% from the floor as a team and 24% from three. The Dukes were the complete opposite as they shot 53% overall and 44% from three.

The Dukes had a diverse scoring attack, as Justin McBride scored 18 on 7-9 shooting and knocked down three triples. Cliff Davis also recorded 18 with all six of his baskets coming from downtown, and Bradley Douglas chipped in with 13 points and five assists.

Davis now leads the entire Sun Belt conference in total three pointers with 64 makes on the season, and he shoots it at 38%.

Cliff doing Cliff things.

» 18 PTS
» 6-8 3PT pic.twitter.com/z4W9utXswo

— JMU Men’s Basketball (@JMUMBasketball) January 24, 2026

For Texas State, they did get 17 from Mark Drone, but he only shot 5-19 for the game, and DJ Hall scored 14. Hall had 12 of his points in the first half, but could only muster up two in the second half and took only two shots. Spradlin credits the defensive performance of guys like Christian Brown, Gabe Newhof, and Eli Wilborn for the job they did on Hall and limiting him.

“We were able to throw three different bodies at him,” Spradlin said. “Gabe did a good job, Eli did a good job, but certainly Christian did a phenomenal job. I remember the one stretch in the second half where he stood his ground, blocked him, 50/50 ball that goes out of bounds. They try to go at him again, stood his ground, blocked him and then rebounded it and got fouled.”

The Dukes snapped their three-game skid and improved to 10-11 on the season and 3-6 against the Sun Belt. Their next game is on Thursday when they travel to Troy to face the Trojans (15-6, 8-1 Sun Belt).

For Texas State, this is their second straight defeat after the close loss to Coastal Carolina this past Thursday. They fall to 11-11 and 4-6 versus the Sun Belt. They will return home on Wednesday for a matchup against the Marshall Thundering Herd (13-7, 5-3 Sun Belt).