Men's Basketball Drops MAC-Sun Belt Challenge Opener At Ball State 73-68

MUNCIE, Ind. – Chaunce Jenkins scored 20 points, while Vasean Allette had 15 points and Tyrone Williams recorded an 11 point-10 rebound double-double for Old Dominion men's basketball, but a second half rally came up short as ODU dropped a 73-68 decision to Ball State in the MAC-Sun Belt Challenge on Saturday at Worthen Arena.
 
"Plenty of lessons we need to learn from this. We can't get our heads down as it's no fun to lose, but to regroup and fight back the way we did after getting punched in the face in the beginning was good," said ODU Head Coach Jeff Jones.
 
The Cardinals jumped out to a 16-6 lead on an Anderson 3-pointer at the 13:40 mark. A pair of Mickey Pearson free throws kept the margin at 10 points leading 20-10 with 11:01 left. ODU whittled away at the lead and went on a 12-3 run over a 3:38 span to tie the game at 32 on a Tyrone Williams floater with 2:28 left in the half.
 
A putback layup from R.J. Blakney and a driving layup from Vasean Allette gave ODU its first lead at 36-34 with 78 seconds left in the half. Ball State scored the last four points to take a 38-36 lead into halftime.
 
In the second half that saw four ties and six lead changes, Old Dominion used an 8-0 run over a three-minute span to take its largest lead of the night at 53-49 following a turnaround jumper from Blakney with 9:14 left.
 
A Dani Pounds layup put the Monarchs up 55-54 at the 6:58 mark, but the host responded with a 7-0 spurt as a Basheer Jihad driving layup gave the Cardinals a 61-55 lead with 4:46 on the clock. ODU shot their way back in with back-to-back 3-pointers from Williams and Jenkins to even the contest at 61 with 2:27 left.
 
From there, the Cardinals went seven-of-nine in the last 27 seconds from the line to ice the win.
 
For the game, ODU shot 29-of-57 (50.9%), 4-of-14 from 3-point range (28.6%), 6-of-11 from the foul line (54.5%) and out-rebounded Ball State 34-33.
 
Jalin Anderson scored 29 points to lead four in double figures for Ball State (2-0)
 
Old Dominion heads to 14^th-ranked Arkansas for a Monday night matchup with the Razorbacks at 8 p.m.