ODU Women's Basketball Defeats VCU 53-51 In Overtime On Simone Cunningham Basket With 10 Seconds Left
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – It was a game between two of the nation’s better defensive teams. And on a night when the refs let both teams play physically, fans expecting a grind-it-out, down-to-the-wire contest weren’t disappointed.
Old Dominion got a hustle rebound and second-chance basket from Simone Cunningham with 10 seconds left and held on to eke past VCU, 53-51, in overtime Thursday at Chartway Arena.
The game was not a thing of beauty – ODU shot 31.7 percent and VCU 36.4 percent as the teams combined for 32 turnovers. But that mattered not to the winners in what has long been an intense women’s basketball rivalry.
“What a big-time, gutsy win,” said DeLisha Milton-Jones, ODU’s head coach. “You have two great programs giving it a tremendous effort.
“VCU is a rivalry game that we take to heart the way we do James Madison or William & Mary.
“It felt like Mike Tyson versus (Evander) Holyfield, you know, two teams going blow for blow, shot for shot, defensive stop to defensive stop.
“I’m really proud our players figured out a way to win this game.”
Cunningham, a 5-foot-10 senior from Pleasant Grove, Alabama, said the returning players told the 10 newcomers the importance of the ODU-VCU rivalry.
“We went down there last year and didn’t get the win like we wanted to,” Cunningham said. “And so everyone who returned, we definitely had that animosity built up for this game.
“We explained to the newcomers that, ‘Hey, this is a big game and we need to win this under any circumstances.’ And we came out and did that.”
ODU (4-1), which has won four in a row since a season-opening loss at Ball State, led nearly all of the game. But the Monarchs were outrebounded by the taller Rams, 44-37, and VCU (2-2) used that dominance to slowly erase what had been a nine-point ODU lead.
ODU did not score in the final 4:33 of the fourth quarter and VCU only scored once, on a Deniz Torgut putback of a missed Ram shot with 1:37 left that knotted the score at 46-all.
Simaru Fields gave ODU the lead with a jumper from the top of the key a minute into overtime and VCU’s Jennifer Ezeh answered a minute later by rebounding the miss of her own shot and laying it in.
Kelsey Thompson then gave ODU a 51-48 lead on a three-point shot that banked into the basket and had a crowd of 1,949 on its feet.
But VCU’s Mary-Anne Asare then rebounded her own miss and tossed in a three-pointer with 42 seconds left and the score was tied once again.
After another ODU miss, the Monarchs rebounded and worked the clock and with 15 seconds left, Thompson missed a three-pointer.
Cunningham, who had stationed herself in the lane just behind VCU’s Mykel Parham, leapt and pulled the ball away from her. She then used a spin move to get past Parham and got her shot to fall for the decisive basket.
VCU’s Ezeh missed an attempt to tie the score with seven seconds left and Fields redounded.
VCU was without its leading scorer and primary ballhandler Timaya Lewis-Eutsey, a junior guard who averaged 18 points in the Rams’ first three games.
Meanwhile, ODU was without veteran Brenda Fontana much of the game as she was in foul trouble early.
Cunningham led ODU with 13 points while Thompson had 12 points and Fields 11 to go with a team-high seven rebounds.
Milton-Jones said she is satisfied with where her team is at in this early point of the season.
“I think we’re in a good place,” she said. “We play our non-conference schedule so that it prepares us for the Sun Belt season.
“We’re going through that process where we’re trying to figure out who we are going to become once conference play hits us.
“I love the fact that we’ve been able to win games while we’re going through our metamorphosis.”
The Monarchs return home on Tuesday, Nov. 26, to face William & Mary. They then head to Daytona Beach to take on Ohio State (Thanksgiving Day) and Oakland on Saturday, Nov. 30 in the Daytona Beach Classic.