Monarchs strive for crowning glory in memorable year
NORFOLK — The Old Dominion women’s basketball program wasn’t exactly in need of resurrecting.
The Monarchs, after all, have never been complete pushovers or cellardwellars since joining Conference USA for the 2013-14 season.
But clearly, there’s a difference these days under coach Nikki McCray-Penson.
Maybe resurgent is the best way to describe what’s happening on Hampton Boulevard.
ODU and McCray — a former Olympian and WNBA star in her third season — have ticked off a number of impressive accomplishments this season:
• ODU contended for a conference title, finishing second in C-USA after losing a winner-take-all regular-season finale at Rice.
• The Monarchs collected a signature win over Rice last month, snapping the Owls’ 30-game conference winning streak.
• Old Dominion was dominant at home, finishing the season 14-1 at Chartway Arena .
• ODU finished 14-4 in the conference — the program’s best C-USA finish.
• ODU drew the second-highest home attendance in the league at 2,148 per game.
After so much success, the Monarchs still have two logical goals: Win the conference tournament and head to the NCAA tournament.
The No. 2 seed Monarchs (24-6) open the Conference USA tournament with a quarterfinal against UTEP at 2:30 p.m. EDT today in Frisco,
Texas.
The C-USA title would give ODU its first NCAA tournament berth since 2008 — when the Monarchs were 17-1 in the Colonial Athletic Association, reached the Sweet 16 and finished 31-5.
Success like that is new to the players on McCray’s roster.
“They’ve never felt this,” McCray said after a victory over Florida Atlantic. “They don’t know what it feels like. We’re getting everybody’s best, night in and night out, and they’re still trying to navigate their way through it.”
Charlie Creme — the ESPN.com women’s basketball “bracketologist” — has ODU as a No. 11 NCAA seed.
Sure, you get into the Big Dance by any door available to you, but not being C-USA champions doesn’t fit a team that strives to emulate its coach’s spunk.
ODU is a scrappy bunch that led the league in scoring defense, permitting 55.3 points per game. Allconference first-teamer Taylor Edwards, a senior guard out of Portsmouth’s Wilson High, led the Monarchs at 11.8 points per game. Sophomore Amari Young, a member of the
C-USA all-defensive team, added a team-leading 10.6 rebounds and 8.2 points and finished with 63 steals — second in the league.
Now, the challenge for McCray, who on Wednesday was named C-USA Coach of the Year, is to take another step at the conference tournament at the Ford Center — part of what’s dubbed “World Corporate Headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys.”
Everything, they say, is bigger in Texas. Over the next few days, we’ll see if ODU can put together some big moments in a season full of them.