By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion proved with a resounding exclamation point Sunday afternoon that even with several players under the weather, it has the city's best women's basketball team.
Facing off against a Norfolk State team ranked higher than the Monarchs, ODU nonetheless crushed its cross-town rival, 65-44, before an appreciative crowd of 2,214 at Chartway Arena.
The victory was the sixth in a row for ODU (8-3), which is also 6-0 at Chartway Arena.
Norfolk State (9-2) had won eight in a row and was No. 74 in the NCAA NET rankings, which is used to help select and seed teams in the NCAA Tournament.
ODU was ranked 129th.
Doubtless, the Monarchs will move up the rankings considerably on Monday.
Three ODU players were under the weather and most others had been sick in recent days. Mikayla Brown was still feeling the effects of a cold and only played 10 minutes.
Even so, the Monarchs overwhelmed Norfolk State with their depth. Coach DeLisha Milton-Jones used 14 players and 12 scored while the ODU bench outscored the Spartans' bench, 31-8.
Asked if Sunday's victory was a statement game, Milton-Jones replied: "Most definitely."
"Every game that we play is a statement game and each opponent showcases something different that we need to attack," she said.
"The motivation that we had for Norfolk State was the fact that they are ranked [highly in the NET]." 
Norfolk State had no answer for senior forward Amari Young, who is ODU's best athlete and deftly broke away nearly every time the Spartans tried to double team her.
She often dribbled around defenders to free herself for shots within a few feet of the basket. She scored 13 points and would have had more but missed some chippies – she made 6 of 14 shots and 1 of 4 foul shots.
"I was upset at myself because I missed little bunnies around the rim," she said.
Point guard Jordan McLaughlin, the junior college transfer, added 12 points, played a near-flawless floor game and added four steals.
Both ODU and Norfolk State rebuilt their rosters in the offseason from the transfer portal and early on the Monarchs had problems dealing with Kierra Wheeler, a 6-foot-1 sophomore center who transferred from Daytona State.
Wheeler had six points and a game-high 10 rebounds, but got herself in foul trouble and eventually fouled out after being assessed a technical and her second intentional foul of the game.
ODU took control of the game in the second quarter, when the Monarchs' aggressive half-court press produced immediate dividends – three turnovers in four possessions, including a pair of forced by center Jada Duckett.
After Duckett made 1 of 2 free throws, she picked Norfolk State's Deja Francis clean and passed to Joy Campbell, whose fast-break layup gave the Monarchs a 22-15 lead.
After Campbell made another free throw to make it 23-15, Young single-handedly expanded the lead to double digits by twice driving around Norfolk State defenders and making short bank shots to build the lead to 27-15.
The Spartans never again got within single digits.
"We felt that if we came out and just jumped on them that we could control the tempo for the rest of the game," McLaughlin said. "When we don't play with a lot of energy, we tend to let teams do to us what we want to do to them.
"So, we told ourselves that if we could kill this game in the beginning and take it 10 minutes at a time that we'd be fine."
The game marked the end of a grueling, eight-day stretch in which the Monarchs played four games, beginning with a road trip to USC Upstate (ODU won, 57-31).
Milton-Jones announced in the locker room that her players would have two days off even though they were scheduled to just have one.
"They earned it because they left everything on the court," she said. "These women, I cannot praise them enough because they have completely bought in.
"Saying that they're tired is probably an understatement. But they should be proud of themselves for everything that they put in.
"And I want all of them to know how very proud I am of them."
Sunday's game was the last at home for ODU for almost a month.
The Monarchs next travel to New Port Richey, Florida, where they meet Mississippi State of the SEC on Dec. 19 and New Mexico of the Mountain West Conference on Dec. 20 in the Sun Coast Challenge.
After a short break for Christmas, they then open Sun Belt Çonference play at Appalachian State on Dec. 29 and at James Madison on Dec. 31.
The Monarchs return home on Friday, Jan. 5, to play their first Sun Belt home game against Louisiana-Monroe.
ODU Women's Basketball Team Makes a Statement with a 65-44 Victory Over Norfolk State
