Monarchs Fall In Regular Season Finale 92-75 At Georgia Southern

STATESBORO, Ga. - Chaunce Jenkins scored 24 points to lead three in double figures on Friday night as Old Dominion dropped a 92-75 decision to Georgia Southern at Hanner Fieldhouse to close out the regular season.
 
ODU (7-24, 3-15) will play in the 8:30 p.m. EST game on Tuesday night at the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Pensacola, Florida against 11th-seeded Texas State.
 
"I thought we battled pretty well to start the first half. The end of the half hurt us. We lost focus defensively and they made us pay every single time. That separation at the end of the first half did us in. We made strides defensively the last few games, but we took steps back in that category," said ODU Interim Head Coach Kieran Donohue.
 
The Monarchs opened the game with a layup from Leeroy Odiahi and a 3-ball from Tyrone Williams to lead 5-2 at the 18:43 mark. R.J. Blakney garnered an offensive rebound and found Jenkins for a layup to put ODU up 8-7 with 17 minutes left. That was during a 16-3 run by the Eagles with a Moore 3-pointer putting the hosts up 18-8 with 14:14 on the clock.
 
The Monarchs cut the deficit in half as Devin Ceaser went 1-of-2 from the line to trail 24-19 with 7:55 remaining. A 3-pointer from Eren Banks and a step back jumper from Malik Tidwell pushed the Georgia Southern lead back to 10 points at 29-19 with 6:29 on the clock.
 
R.J. Blakney pulled the Monarchs back to five points going 1-of-2 from the line with four minutes left for a 31-26 deficit. The hosts closed the half on a 14-4 run to take a 45-30 halftime lead on a Moore 3-pointer.
 
The Monarchs scored the first four points of the second half on a pair of Blakney free throws and a Dani Pounds layup to trim the deficit to 45-34 1:06 into the half. The lead grew back to 19 points on a Nate Brafford layup with 15:20 remaining to push the lead to 54-35.
 
ODU made one last deep push scoring the next seven points to trail 54-42 with 14:43 left on a Jenkins bucket. That was as close as the Monarchs got.
 
Joining Jenkins in double figures was Blakney with 12 points and four rebounds and Williams with 11 points. Wade had a season high nine points and lead the team with seven rebounds.
 
On the night, the Monarchs were 26-of-62 from the floor (41.9%), 6-of-20 from 3-point range (30%), and 17-of-30 from the line (56.7%). They were outrebounded 43-34 on the night and had 11 assists to go with seven turnovers.
 
Moore was the leading scorer on the night with 32 points and five assists to lead Georgia Southern (8-23, 8-10). Malik Tidwell added 14 points and Brafford had 10 as they were 30-of-63 from the floor (47.6%), 12-of-29 from 3-point range (41.4%) and were a perfect 20-of-20 from the line.