After one quarter of play, where the Red Wolves seemed endlessly stuck on six points until a late-quarter three from Marlie Dickerson inched the output to nine, I determined that not only was James Madison the far better basketball team, but Arkansas State was not a very good one.

The Red Wolves were the team known for creating turnovers, but it was the Dukes picking pockets and converting TOs to points. The Red Wolves were known for drilling three-pointers, but it was the Dukes connecting from deep. The Red Wolves were the home team, but it was the Dukes who appeared to have slept in their own beds, mercilessly beating A-State on fast breaks. James Madison closed out the quarter firing a blistering 60% from the floor to cement a 23-9 advantage.

The Dukes would build an 18-point lead early in the second quarter, with A-State missing pointblank shots at the rim and JMU running a zone defense that the Red Wolves seemed to have never seen before. The crowd – made tiny by the inclement weather – seemed to shrink to a microscopic scale. This was UCA all over again, with the bigger team controlling the boards, robotically hitting threes, and executing a well-conceived game plan. At one point, Carol Halford, Arkansas State’s excellent broadcast analyst, made a simple observation: the Red Wolves just needed to find the gaps in the zone.

It was Crislyn Rose, the 5’8″ junior guard from the Lone Star State, who found the gap first, launching herself from the three-point line and barreling through the paint to find the bucket. It sparked a modest beginning – a methodical chipping as the Red Wolves slowly gained confidence. Mia Tarver hit a three. Zyion Shannon followed with one of her own. Rose continued to stab into Jimmy Mad’s zone, punching in layups. By halftime, the score was 35-25, a reasonable 10-point difference.

The Dukes weren’t willing to oblige the comeback, however. The second half opened with a Red Wolves busted three attempt and a fast break bucket from the Dukes’ Bree Robinson. However, the resurgence gene had already been triggered. Wynter Rogers, cursed all game with rimmed-out layups, finally saw one rim-in. The layup sparked the comeback.

With a defense led by 6’2″ Ashanti Barnes and 6’3″ Brianna McLeod, James Madison’s size was a problem the first half. Of the Red Wolves’ prime rotation, only Rogers eclipsed six feet in height. But the Red Wolves hornet-like speed and tenacity began to wear James Madison down – just as it did in last year’s championship game, when Arkansas State had also erased an enormous JMU lead.

The game became a duel between Rose and JMU’s six-foot senior Peyton McDaniel, who’d sink five three-pointers before game’s end. But Rose proved too tenacious, too enraged, playing with the kind of smoldering fury one acquires from a childhood of being endlessly challenged by bigger, stronger players (NOTE: I have no idea if this is how Rose spent her childhood). She connected on one-of-two three-pointers, but the bulk of her damage was created by slicing through the James Madison bigs and dropping circus-style lay-ins. Ja Morant given Red Wolves form!

James Madison entered the fourth quarter with a fragile five point lead, but a quarter-opening three from Shannon followed by a rapid lay-up from Rose evened the score for the first time since 2-2 within the game’s first two minutes. A Grace McDonough jumper and a big three-pointer from McDaniel restored JMU’s five point lead, but the Scarlet tide was impossible to push back. The Red Wolves would outscore the Dukes 33-21 in the last quarter, with Tarver and Rose taking turns altering the scoreboard. Rose’s three-pointer gave A-State a 51-50 lead, and the women never surrendered it.

It was one of those games that will define Coach Destinee Rogers’ run at Arkansas State – a game that seemed a certain loss after one quarter but wound up a win through adjustment, recognition and grit. It was also a game that cemented A-State as not only the legitimate team-to-beat in the Sun Belt, but arguably the conference’s most entertaining. It’s easy to point to Rose’s athletic prowess – Rose may eclipse Izzy Higginbottom as the best Red Wolves women’s hooper in recent memory (with respect to the great Aundrea Gamble). However, the team has surrounded Rose with a variety of intriguing talent, from the team’s emerging big Yves Cox to three-point mavens Shannon and Tarver. The Red Wolves are a team that flies, and we’re the ones enjoying the flight.

IMAGE: An image from A-State Athletics altered with soulless AI technology