Look Back at the 2025-26 JMU Men’s Basketball Season

HARRISONBURG, Va. – Take a look back at the 2025-26 James Madison men's basketball season, which saw the Dukes finish 18-15 and 9-9 in the Sun Belt Conference.

DAVIS, MCBRIDE NAMED THIRD TEAM ALL-SUN BELT

The duo of Cliff Davis and Justin McBride led the way for the Dukes in the 2025-26 season, as both were named Third Team All-Sun Belt following the season.
Davis started all 33 games, leading the Dukes with 15.6 points per game. He finished with 99 threes, the third-most in a single season in JMU history.
McBride averaged 15.3 points and 5.6 rebounds, becoming the first Duke since Matt Lewis in 2019-20 to finish with those numbers for a whole season. McBride notched a pair of 30-point games, making him one of five JMU players since 2004-05 with multiple outings of 30 or more points in a season.

SIXTH STRAIGHT WINNING SEASON

JMU finished with a record of 18-15, securing its sixth straight winning season.
It is the first time since 1988-89-1994-95 that the program has finished with a winning record in six consecutive seasons.
Beginning with the 2020-21 season, the Dukes have a record of 120-69 (.635) overall Since joining the Sun Belt in 2022-23, that mark is 92-42 (.687) – the highest in the conference by a wide margin.
Since 2022-23, JMU's winning percentage of 68.7 is followed by Troy, which sits at 60.1 percent with a record of 116-77 over that span.

BETTER AS THE SEASON GOES

Following a 64-61 setback against Louisiana on Feb. 4, JMU sat at 11-13 overall and 4-8 in Sun Belt Conference play.
After the loss, the Dukes went 7-2 the rest of the season, which included a six-game winning streak that spanned from Feb. 7 to Feb. 27.
With a 7-3 record in February and March in 2025-26, Preston Spradlin's teams have gone a combined 14-6 record in those months in his first two seasons, after also going 7-3 down the stretch in the 2024-25 season.

BROWN SETS JMU FRESHMAN BLOCKS RECORD

Freshman Christian Brown finished the 2025-26 season with 49 blocks, the most for a first-year JMU player in program history.
Brown's mark surpassed the previous freshman record held by Andre Nation in the 2012-13 season, which was 47. In the last game of the season, Brown had four blocks against Southern Miss to set the record.
Brown opened his career with a seven-block performance at Akron (11/3), tied for the third-most in a game in JMU program history. He also had four blocks against Washington & Lee (11/5), picking up 11 blocks in the first two games

KOSE EGBULE: AN UNLIKELY JOURNEY

Guard Kose Egbule joined JMU in August of 2025 following three seasons at Dickinson State, an NAIA school in North Dakota. He spent the first two-plus months of the season as a reserve, playing in only three games before the calendar flipped to 2026.
On Jan. 3 against Arkansas State, Egbule played a then-season high 18 minutes in a road win against the Red Wolves. He made his first start of the season on Jan. 17 at Marshall and started every game for the Purple & Gold the rest of the way.

CONTINUED SUCCESS AT THE BANK

JMU finished the season with an 11-4 record at the Atlantic Union Bank Center, moving its record to 68-18 (.791) in home games since the building opened ahead of the 2020-21 season.

Calendar

Players Mentioned

Christian Brown

Cliff Davis

Kose Egbule

Justin McBride

JMU Footer

Scoreboard

Calendar

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Louisiana on February 4, 2026 , Loss , 61, to, 64

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Toledo on February 7, 2026 , Win , 73, to, 71

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Georgia State on February 12, 2026 , Win , 81, to, 79 , (OT)

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus App State on February 14, 2026 , Win , 69, to, 58

Completed Event: Men's Basketball at Coastal Carolina on February 18, 2026 , Win , 67, to, 65

Completed Event: Men's Basketball at Georgia State on February 21, 2026 , Win , 80, to, 65

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Georgia Southern on February 25, 2026 , Win , 82, to, 66

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus Coastal Carolina on February 27, 2026 , Loss , 68, to, 69

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus No. 12 Louisiana on March 4, 2026 , Win , 87, to, 72

Completed Event: Men's Basketball versus No. 8 Southern Miss on March 5, 2026 , Loss , 80, to, 86

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