LAS VEGAS, Nevada – The Old Dominion men’s basketball team (23-13) won the first ever game of the inaugural Vegas 16 Tournament by a 75-59 score against Tennessee Tech (19-12) on Monday afternoon at the Mandalay Bay Arena. With the win, the Monarchs advance to the semifinals on Tuesday at 9:00 p.m. EST on the CBS Sports Network against UCSB. Old Dominion has now won 13 of its last 16 games.
Old Dominion held just a two-point lead, 32-30, at halftime before out-scoring the Golden Eagles 43-29 in the final 20 minutes.
"We were excited to play and got off to a good start but Tennessee Tech responded," said ODU head coach Jeff Jones. "They came at us and we didn’t respond very well. At halftime the stat that jumped out at us was they had a one rebound advantage. So we pointed that out at halftime. In the second half, we just played a lot tougher."
The Monarchs shot 54.8% (17-31) from the floor in the second half and 51.7% (30-58) for the game. TTU connected on 21-49 (42.9%) from the floor and 7-21 (33.3%) from deep for the contest, while being held to 40% (10-25) shooting from the floor in the second half.
Trey Freeman paced the Monarchs with 18 points on 7-15 shooting to compliment three assists. Aaron Bacote followed with 16 points on 6-11 shooting to go along with four rebounds and three assists. Also in double figures for ODU was Zoran Talley who scored all 14 of his points (7-10 FG) in the second half. Brandan Stith also scored all of his points in the second half (3-6 FG), netting eight points to go along with seven rebounds and three steals. Nik Biberaj did a little bit of everything on Monday, going for nine points on 4-7 shooting, seven rebounds and three assists in 26 minutes of work.
For the game, Old Dominion held advantages in rebounds (35-26), points in the paint (30-12) and second chance points (15-2). For the 40 minutes of play, ODU held a lead for 36:25, while the Golden Eagles led for just 48 seconds. The ballgame experienced a total of five ties and four lead changes.
ODU claimed its largest lead of the contest, 61-42, at the 8:47 mark of the second half, utilizing a 21-4 run over a six minutes span. Tennessee Tech would outscore Old Dominion 17-14 in the closing eight minutes of the second half; however, it was not enough as the Monarchs ended the Golden Eagles season with the 75-59 victory on Monday afternoon in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Tennessee Tech was led by Torrance Rowe’s 22 points on 9-16 shooting from the floor. Ryan Martin recorded a double-double for the Golden Eagles, going for 11 points and 11 rebounds. Also recording double figures for TTU was Hakeem Rogers, who chipped in 11 points.
Tuesday’s semifinal game will be on the air live with Ted Alexander on ESPN Radio 94.1 starting at 8:30 p.m. EST for the pre-game show.
ALL-TIME SERIES vs. UCSB
The only time ODU has played UCSB was Dec. 2 1993 in Santa Barbara's Thunder Dome (Live on ESPN) at midnight EST, in a game that ODU claimed a 92-67 victory. Odell Hodge and Mike Jones (Dematha HS head coach) had 19 each, while Petey Sessoms added 17. Both teams were undefeated at the time. Old Dominion led 61-23 at halftime. ODU started the season 6-0 beating South Carolina and Virginia, before Auburn handed the Monarchs their first loss in Scope.
Tuesday, March 29
Games 5/6: Semifinals –9/11:30 p.m. ET
Wednesday, March 30
Game 7: Championship – 10 p.m. ET
Tournament tickets are priced from $15 per session for the tournament. All sessions include two games except for the championship game. Tickets can be purchased at the Mandalay Bay box office, MandalayBay.com, AXS.com, Vegas16.com or by calling 888-AXS-TIX. The Mandalay Bay Events Center seats 10,000 for basketball and has played host to NBA preseason games.
For more details on tournament, please visit their website: http://www.vegas16.com.