PENSACOLA, Fla. – A memorable and in some ways courageous postseason run by the Old Dominion men’s basketball team finally ended late Saturday night as the Monarchs were ousted from the Sun Belt Conference Tournament by Troy.
Exhausted from playing three games in the three previous nights, the Monarchs simply did not have enough gas in the tank to win a fourth game in a row and fell to the Trojans, 75-59, at the Pensacola Bay Center.
Troy (21-10), the third seed, takes on second seed James Madison Sunday at 7:30.
And while the season ends for ODU (15-20), the Monarchs can take solace in knowing they played far better than expected in the Sun Belt Tournament.
ODU had not won a postseason game since the Monarchs won the 2019 Conference USA title and after losing six of their last seven regular-season games, entered the Sun Belt Tournament with almost no momentum.
Yet the Monarchs won three games and in the process, gained some national notoriety.
The 10th-seeded Monarchs defeated No. 11 Louisiana, as expected, 67-49, in Wednesday’s second round, but then upset No. 7 Texas State, 64-61 on Thursday and then knocked off No. 6 App State, 61-56, on Friday.
The Monarchs won all three games with strong defense and clutch shooting down the stretch.
Robert Davis Jr. made the game-winner against Texas State with 1.1 seconds left and Sean Durugordon scored ODU’s last six points against App State.
ODU Head Coach Mike Jones, a Monarch alumnus coaching his first season, choked up momentarily when asked what the postseason run meant for his program.
"I want this to be expected from us," Jones said. "I want this to be who we are.
"We're playing in a great conference but I'm also coaching at a great university. This is what we're going to do. This is what should be expected from us.
"Anybody who works at our university, anybody who decides to sign and come play with us, this is the standard, for us to come to our tournament and be who we were this weekend.
"We've got to get better so we can go further."
R.J. Blakney, the ODU senior from Baltimore, played perhaps his finest game this season against Troy. On a night when game officials were quick on their whistles, Davis spent much of the game on the bench in foul trouble.
Blakney helped fill the void with 20 points, six rebounds and four assists. Durugordon (14 points, 16 rebounds) had a double-double for the fourth night in a row. Davis had 10 points in spite of missing nearly half the game with foul trouble.
Things fell apart early for ODU against Troy, which, because the Trojans had not played since the end of the regular season, had fresher legs.
Fatigue often causes players to come up short on their shots and the Monarchs came up short a lot.
Davis went to the bench with his third foul less than seven minutes into the first half. And then the Monarchs went stone cold, as they made just four of 30 shots in the first half.
ODU trailed by just three, 17-14, with 8:20 left in the first half when the shots stopped falling. Meanwhile, everything put up by Troy guard Tayton Conerway, the Sun Belt Player of the Year, seemed to go in the net.
Conerway scored 14 points over the final eight minutes, including eight on layups in which he simply dribbled around ODU defenders to get open.
His arching layup high off the glass just before the buzzer sound gave Troy a 36-18 lead heading into the second half.
Troy twice built the lead to 23 points in the second half and led 51-31 with 15 minutes left.
But as has been the case most of the season, the Monarchs rallied.
Durugordon made a layup to cut the lead to 16 with 13:58 left and then Blakney added a jumper to trim it to 14 a minute later.
Blakney dunked with 8:44 left to trim the lead to 10, 55-45, the first time ODU hadn't been that close since early in the first half.
But the Monarchs had nothing left in the tank at that point and could get no closer.
Davis, Durugordon and Blakney all received standing ovations from ODU fans as they went to the bench with less than a minute to play.
"I'll remember this tournament as the start of a new era, the start of the Mike Jones era," Davis said. "We weren't surprised that we were here, winning three games in three days. We believed in ourselves and in each other."
Blakney said he's sad that his ODU career has ended but says he's looking forward to the future.
"There's a lot of talent in this program and these guys will be back here again," he said. "The sky is the limit. They'll be here again."
Jones said the team was buoyed by ODU's fan base all season, even in Pensacola.
"We felt the energy from our fans here," he said. "But we also felt the energy watching the video from Mojo Bones (restaurant), and everybody going crazy, when Rob hit the shot the other night.
"We've got a community that truly supports us better than I've seen anywhere else. We're so fortunate."
