By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion's men's basketball team played hard Wednesday night at Chartway Arena. In fact, the Monarchs played hard enough to defeat Louisiana, one of the Sun Belt's best teams.
But stymied by their own mistakes, and poor shooting, the Monarchs fell to the Ragin' Cajuns, 68-60.
ODU trailed by just four with 5:21 to go, but a string of six consecutive missed foul shots and two key unforced turnovers ended any hopes of an ODU comeback.
The victory was the ninth in the last 10 games for Louisiana (17-9 overall, 9-4 Sun Belt) and allowed the Ragin' Cajuns to hold onto fourth place in the Sun Belt. The top four Sun Belt teams receive byes into the quarterfinals of the Sun Belt Tournament.
ODU (6-20, 2-11) lost for the 13th time in the last 15 games, and many of those games were heart breakingly close.
Chaunce Jenkins led ODU with 16 points and Tyrone Williams added 13. But the best player for ODU might have been Dani Pounds, the 6-foot-7 freshman from Atlanta, who came off the bench to set career highs with 13 points and nine rebounds in just 18 minutes.
Pounds also played solid defense in the paint.
"It's real frustrating," Pounds said about ODU's losing streak. "But at least I know we had the fight to get there.
"All we have to do is push through that last door and I think we're going to be there."
Interim ODU head coach Kieran Donohue praised his team's effort and said he's pleased that the Monarchs have continued to play hard in spite of the adversity it has faced.
"The missed free throws came at a critical juncture," he said. "A bunch came at a time when we could have closed the gap.
"And we were really defending well. But we've got to find a way to get better. We've got to find a way to capitalize on our opportunities better.
"We guarded them well. We were a pretty darn good basketball team on the defensive end tonight."
And that was reflected in the box score. Louisiana came into Wednesday's game making 45.3 percent of its shots. Against ODU, the Ragin' Cajuns made 23 of 61 shots, or just 37.5 percent.
But Donohue was not pleased his team's shot selection in the first half. ODU missed all but four of 23 three-point shots, and in the first half, he said many of those shots should not have been taken.
"That's been a challenge for us all season," he said. "It feels like we had been making progress in that area.
"We've got to find a way to turn shots down. If we can't shoot an on-balance shot in rhythm, we have to turn them down. And there was a stretch tonight where there were just a few too many of those shots.
"When you take a shot like that and miss, you come away with an empty possession. And that's deflating. The turnovers are deflating, and the missed free throws are deflating, too.
"It just puts more pressure on your defense."
The game was close early on, but Louisiana reeled off 11 unanswered points in a four-minute stretch and led by as many as 15 in the first half.
ODU guard Imo Essien trimmed the lead to 10 at the half with an off-balance three-pointer that went through the net as the buzzer sounded.
The Monarchs then served notice that in the early minutes of the second half that they would not go away quietly, as both Williams and Jenkins made back-to-back shots to trim the lead to six.
Then, with 16:55 to play, Jenkins made a turnaround jump shot to trim the lead to three, 40-37.
Bryce Baker made a three-point shot with 5:21 to go that trimmed the lead to four, 53-49, with 5:21 to go.
But then came the errant foul shots and critical turnovers that ended any hope of an ODU comeback.
ODU hosts Georgia State Saturday at 7 p.m. in the second game of a doubleheader with the ODU women, who host Sun Belt leader Marshall at 2 p.m.
ODU has just three home games left and then two on the road before the Monarchs head to Pensacola, Florida for the Sun Belt Tournament beginning March 5.
"This has been a tough season," Donohue said. "But tomorrow when we come to practice, it's an opportunity for us to be basketball players and coaches. I don't take that for granted and I hope none of our players do.
"I think we see that in the competitiveness of our guys. They were ready to play. They battled right down to the end.
"Was it good enough? No. But we darn sure aren't quitting and that's all we can ask. We've got to keep working and keep fighting."