You had to feel for the Old Dominion basketball team after Thursday's 83-80 loss to Florida International. The Monarchs played so hard and so well and with such passion, in spite of losing their best player and team leader to an injury, that this defeat with particularly painful.
I thought they outplayed FIU. Coach Jeff Jones disagreed. Regardless, the loss added to the frustration of a season that was already headed in the wrong direction.
The Monarchs have played hard, if not necessarily always well, most of the season. They outplayed teams on the road, including Western Kentucky, and lost by fumbling the ball away in the final minutes.
As most of you know, that's the opposite of what happened last season, when the Monarchs won 13 games by a margin of six points or less and won the Conference USA title. Part of the season for last year's success, Jones concedes, is that ODU not only made tough shots, but the ball often bounced their way.
That hasn't happened for this season's Monarchs (7-13, 3-4 C-USA), who host Florida Atlantic Saturday at Chartway Arena (the game might sell out, so if you haven't gotten your tickets, I'd do so now).
The Monarchs have lost eight games by seven points or less this season.
Midway through the first half came the cruelest blow of all. Jason Wade, the MVP of this team, went down a knee injury. He was fouled pretty physically by FIU while trying to drive to the basket and crumpled into a heap.
"I'm hesitant, I don't want to speculate," Jones said when asked about the injury. He then said he and coaches and players will "go home and say a prayer for Jason."
Jones said late Friday that Jason was to have an MRI done that night. Results likely won't be available until Saturday.
The Monarchs could have folded when they lost Wade, but instead played the rest of the game with a ton of passion.
Forward Joe Reece, who is the most improved player from last season, stepped up in a big way. He replaced Wade at power forward and had a career high 14 points and 7 rebounds, and revved up the crowd with several thunderous dunks.
Kalu Ezipke, at times inconsistent this season, had his best game of the season, scoring a career high 15 points. He also had seven rebounds, two steals and a blocked shot.
Xavier Green showed signs of pulling out of his shooting slump and played a great floor game – he had 11 points, seven assists and eight rebounds.
The game came down to making shots. FIU made shots down the stretch and ODU didn't. A.J. Oliver had a chance to win it with a 3-pointer in the final seconds, but the ball fell just short.
"I rushed it," he said.
No worries for A.J. He made 4 of 10 three-point shots and like his teammates, played hard and well and scored 14 points. This isn't on him.
FIU's basketball team is surprisingly good. FIU is a huge school on the west side of Miami but it's media profile is poor and its athletic facilities are difficult to sell. Yet in just his second season at FIU, coach Jeremy Ballard has put together a physical team that traps and press, has a big-time shock blocker inside and can shoot the lights out.
This team is big enough and physical enough to really give someone a run if the Panthers win the Conference USA title and head to the NCAA tournament.
Jones said that "We didn't lose that game. FIU beat us.
"I guess what I am trying to say by phrasing it that way is I thought we played pretty well.
"I know dang well that we played hard and really gutted it out. FIU just played better. They made big shots, they made tough shots."
And in the game's final minutes, they got every break they needed to rally.
I Tweeted during the game that I don't like getting down on game officials. The three referees surely did their best. Basketball is an extremely fast game, so fast that it's often impossible to see a play clearly without the benefit of the replay.
The fans and reporters on press row saw replays, and they did not tell a good story. In the final minutes, there were two phantom fouls on FIU three-point shots, a rebound foul on Reece that was questionable at best and a ball knocked out of bounds by FIU. The ref awarded the ball back to the Panthers. He didn't have a good angle on the out-of-bounds ball, but replays showed that a Panther touched it last.
When I asked Jones what I thought of the phantom fouls, he stared at me sternly for 10 or 15 seconds and didn't way a word. When I asked whether he was allowed to answer that question, he kept on staring.
The stare tells you all that you need to know.
No one cheated ODU. God love them, the refs catch so much flak from fans even when they call a perfect game. Calls tend to even out over a season.
Let's hope that's the case, and that the Monarch bench continues to step up as it did on Thursday.
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: The Ball, and the Breaks, Aren’t Bouncing ODU’s Way This Basketball Season
