Rise above any struggles
After poor start, Monarchs find range, especially at free-throw line
NORFOLK — For a while Saturday, Old Dominion couldn’t have hit water if it fell out of a Chinese spy balloon.
Eventually, though, the Monarchs got their shot down.
Chaunce Jenkins scored 16 points, Mekhi Long had another double-double and ODU overcame a second straight bafflingly bad start in a hard-fought 64-58 Sun Belt victory over Georgia Southern at Chartway Arena.
The win was the third in four games for the Monarchs (14-10, 6-6 Sun Belt), who erased a 12-point deficit in the final 3½ minutes of the first half and nearly led for the game’s final 16 minutes.
The sudden turnaround was a bit of a mystery.
“I’m not sure what did it,” ODU coach Jeff Jones said. “I know it wasn’t me or the staff or anything else, but there was a switch that got flipped there about midway through the first half, and we looked like a different basketball team.”
Long scored 13 points and grabbed 12 rebounds to record his fourth straight double-double. Kaden Archie, Carlos Curry and Andre Savrasov each scored 11 points for the Eagles (12-13, 5-7) who were held to 29% shooting and made 7 of 22 from 3-point range.
The Monarchs, who have struggled at times this season from the free-throw line, made 26 of 28, including 6 of 6 in the final 36 seconds to keep the visitors at bay.
ODU forward Faizon Fields, who scored 12 points, made 6 of 6 from the line, including a pair with 15 seconds.
Fields, a sophomore who chews Spearmint gum all game, has a simple method for remaining calm.
“I focus on the gum, the chewing,” he said. “I just go up there, chew, breathe, shoot.”
The Monarchs, despite a second straight horrible start shooting the ball, shot 32.7% and made 4 of 18 from 3-point range. They shot 37.5% in the decisive second half.
In what was already a physical, defensive battle, a bizarre lull began after Georgia Southern pulled to within 56-54 on an Archie 3-pointer with just more than six minutes to play. Neither team scored again until ODU’s Dericko Williams converted a put-back 3 ½ minutes later.
The sequence included a combined 11 missed shots, most of them highly contested at both ends.
“We just got some big-time stops,” Jones said.
“I think it was a matter of good defense on our part and on their part.”
The Monarchs twice led by as many as nine in the second half, only to let Georgia Southern back into it.
With ODU leading 50-41 and nine minutes left, the Eagles sank consecutive 3s to quickly make it a game again.
Down 12 and unable to do much of anything offensively to that point, the Monarchs closed the first half with a dizzying 13-1 run over the final 3 ½ minutes to create a stunning 30-30 tie at the break.
ODU’s awful first half included a field-goal drought of nearly six minutes. It was part of a stretch of nearly 10 minutes in which the Monarchs had just one field goal.
Oddly, for the second straight game, ODU started by making exactly 3 of 18 from the field. After doing so Thursday against James Madison on their way to falling behind by 14, the
Monarchs rallied back to within a point but ultimately fell 78-73.
This time, an announced crowd of 7,029 — the third-largest of the season at Chartway — watched and screamed as ODU turned it on and kept it on. But how?
“There’s no real, honest answer for that,” Fields said. “The only thing I can say is everyone just locked in. Shots started to fall. Basketball is a game of runs. They’re going to have their run. We’re going to go on our run. We just went on a run, and from there, we just kept it going.”
Jones, with more time to reflect on the mystery, then chimed in. He suggested that his inserting point guard Imo Essien as a second ball-handler and a defensive presence, combined with his urging Fields to turn up the pressure on the ball, helped ratchet up the defensive energy. That, Jones said, is contagious.
“Then, all of a sudden, you’ve got three, four, five guys all playing with a lot of energy and emotion,” Jones said. “The crowd gets into it — all of that. I think that’s kind of what happens. It’s like putting a match, lighting it on some gasoline.”