NORFOLK, Va. -- The Lady Monarchs ended the 2015-16 season with a 17-17 overall record and a 10-8 mark in Conference USA play, advancing to the tournament’s title game as the unlikely No. 5 seed and seeing plenty of success along the way.
After a tough start to the year, the Lady Monarchs opened the month of December with a 64-41 victory over Loyola in the fifth annual Education Day game. The win not only snapped a five-game losing streak, but also marked the second consecutive Education Day sellout for the Lady Monarchs. The crowd of 8,472 screaming fans tied the record for the seventh-highest attendance in the state of Virginia to watch a regular season college women’s basketball game. At the end of the season, ODU ranked in the top 13 percent in all of Division I in average attentance.
The good times kept rolling, as Old Dominion became just the fourth Division I women’s basketball program to reach 1,000 wins on Dec. 15 at Howard. The Lady Monarchs joined Tennessee, Louisiana Tech and James Madison on the 1,000 wins list. Tennessee began keeping records in 1903, James Madison’s records date to 1920, ODU started keeping track in 1969 and Louisiana Tech began in 1974.
Old Dominion entered Conference USA play with a 4-8 non-conference record, but the Lady Monarchs made their presence known. Conference play began on Jan. 3, when ODU defeated Charlotte, 71-59, behind three players in double-figure points.
At Middle Tennessee two weeks later, the Lady Monarchs again made some noise, this time on the national scale. With less than a second on the clock, freshman Makayla Timmons drilled a 40-foot three-pointer in front of her family and friends from Columbia, Tenn., to lift the Old Dominion Lady Monarchs over MTSU, 61-58. Timmons’ shot was heard and seen around the world, as it was featured as the No. 7 play on ESPN’s SportCenter Top-10 Plays segment that night. Not only did the shot make television, but head coach Karen Barefoot and the Old Dominion Lady Monarchs handed MTSU head coach Rick Insell just his sixth home conference loss since joining the Blue Raiders’ program 11 years ago.
After a rough snow ridden trip to WKU and Marshall, the Lady Monarchs strung together four straight wins over the span of three weeks. The streak started with an 85-45 routing of Florida Atlantic and finished with a 65-48 victory over North Texas in Denton, Texas. During that span Old Dominion outscored its opponents 328-227, which included a season-high 94 points in the win over Charlotte. The Lady Monarchs scored 80-plus points in three consecutive games, marking the first time since 2006 that has happened. In the 85-45 routing of FAU, ODU put together a 36-point halftime lead (51-15), marking the largest lead for ODU this season which smashed the previous mark of 16 set against Loyola on Dec. 2. The Lady Monarchs also scored a season-high 48 points in the first half.
The Lady Monarchs closed the season winning five of their last six games, which included a spectacular run to the Conference USA championship game. ODU downed No. 13 North Texas, No. 4 Charlotte and No. 1 seed UTEP, before falling to No. 2 Middle Tennessee in the title match. Two players etched their names in the tournament record book, as Ije Ajemba tied the tournament record with 21 rebounds against the 49ers and Jennie Simms finished the tournament with 98 points, ranking her third all-time. Simms was also named to the all-tournament team for the second time.
ODU was a defensive force in conference games and finished the season ranked in the top five in six defensive categories. The Lady Monarchs topped the league in rebounding margin (+6.7), while ranking second in field-goal percentage defense (.397), defensive rebounds (25.6) and defensive rebounding percentage (.691). The team was also third in scoring defense (62.2) and rebounding defense (33.6). As a team, ODU corralled 137 steals against league foes, including a season-high 13 against North Texas on March 3. The Lady Monarchs were also tops in the league in strengh of schedule, coming in at No. 92 according to RealTimeRPI.com.
Destinee Young and Ajemba were the only duo from the same school to rank in the top five in rebounds. Ajemba pulled in a team-high 9.4 boards (3rd), while Young grabbed 9.0 rebounds (4th) per game.
Simms, the 2015 C-USA Newcomer of the Year, repeated as a Conference USA All-Conference First Team selection, as the two-time C-USA Player of the Week finished the season as the league’s overall (21.4) and conference (22.2) scoring leader. She had poured in double-digits 28 times this season and was the only player in C-USA to notch 35-plus points three times. She also holds the conference top scoring mark for the season after a 39-point onslaught at UTSA. In all, Simms had five 30-plus point performances in the 2015-16 campaign, the most in C-USA.
Simms made history against FIU, becoming just the sixth Old Dominion women’s basketball player, and second under Barefoot, to score 1,000 points in two years. She joined Anne Donovan, Shae Kelley, Nancy Lieberman, Clarisse Machanguana and Inge Nissen as the only players to reach 1,000 points in two seasons at ODU. During the year she passed everyone but Donovan with 1,320 points. Donovan still sits in first with 1,527 points in two seasons. Simms also became the 32nd Lady Monarch to reach 1,000 career points and currently has 1,345 career points, 22nd in ODU history.
The standout guard also set a new ODU single-game record for free-throws made and attempted when she went 18-for-21 from the free-throw line at UTSA. The previous record for attempts was set by Lucienne Berthieu against Southern Methodist (12-19) on Mar. 20, 2000. The mark for free-throws made was set by Shareese Grant (17-18) against Rutgers on Dec. 5, 2004.
The Lady Monarchs lose just one player, LaQuanda Younger, to graduation and will welcome back 11 players, including Timmons and Odegua Oigbokie who sat out much of the season due to injuries. Along with the talented returners, Barefoot and staff also brought in three stellar newcomers, including Tyasia Moore a 2016 Maryland High School State Champion.
Off the court, the Lady Monarchs had seven players receive Conference USA Commissioner’s Honor Roll recognition and the team was one of six Old Dominion programs to achieve a perfect APR score for the 2014-15 school year.
The Lady Monarchs will look forward to moving into the Bernett and Blanche Mitchum Basketball Performance Center in the spring of 2017. Coach Barefoot made a generous $25,000 commitment to the facility in honor of the late Sara Jones, a volunteer assistant coach who passed away from breast cancer in 2014. The facility will be adjacent to the Ted Constant Center, where the Lady Monarchs ranked in the top 13 percent in attendance in the nation at No. 47 out of 349 Division I programs.