Women's Basketball Succumbs to Texas State Rally, 65-60, In Annual Alumni Game
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion women’s basketball team was sitting pretty midway through the third quarter, as the Monarchs led Texas State by 19 points and appeared headed for a victory.
But then the Bobcats went on a tear, outscoring the Monarchs, 40-16, over the last 15 minutes to claim a, 65-60, victory over ODU at Chartway Arena.
Jaylin Foster scored 12 of her 14 points and Ja’Mia Harris all 11 of her points in the fourth quarter at a time when ODU’s offense fell apart.
The Monarchs had just seven turnovers in the first half but then committed 16 in the second.
“It was the turnovers that killed us,” said DeLisha Milton-Jones, ODU’s head coach.
“I told our players during a timeout that the only reason why they’re making a run is because we’re turning it over.
“I don’t know why we turned it over like we did, but we appeared to lose focus.”
Old Dominion (13-6 overall, 5-2 Sun Belt) entered Saturday having won seven of their last eight games.
Texas State (9-8, 3-3) had lost four of its last five games entering Saturday’s contest.
The game had a lackluster start, with neither team playing well. Saniya Burks made a three-pointer at the buzzer to give Texas State a 14-10 lead at the end of the first quarter.
Blake Mathews scored a driving layup to make it 16-10, but ODU then scored eight consecutive points to take an 18-16 lead, leading to a timeout call from Texas State coach Zenarae Antoine.
Milton-Jones then put her team in a zone defense that caught the Bobcats by surprise and disrupted their offense.
The Monarchs took a 10-point lead, 33-23, on an eight-point outburst in the final 1:33 of the half, thanks to two En'Dya Buford three-point shots and a layup by Mariah Clayton.
ODU took a 19-point lead midway through the third quarter, 44-25, on a Clayton hook shot. But then the bottom fell out for ODU.
Harris trimmed the lead to three, 56-53, with a three-point play, and then Foster made it a two-point game with a jump shot a minute later.
Texas State took the lead for good, 61-60, with 1:07 left on a fallway three-point shot by Harris.
The Monarchs missed three shots and had a turnover in the final minute. Texas State, meanwhile, made four of six free throws.
Buford, the graduate student from Memphis, was by far ODU’s most effective player, with 17 points, six assists, eight rebounds, five steals and one block. Brenda Fontana added 13 points.
ODU shot 20 of 58 from inside the arc (34.5 percent) and 3 of 19, (15.8 percent) from three, and were outscored in the paint, 38-28.
Milton-Jones went from her traditional man-to-man defense into a zone late in the second quarter in a move that allowed ODU to open up a big lead. The zone defense caught the Bobcats by surprise.
“We needed to crowd the paint because our man-to-man defense just wasn’t moving at the rate that I like to see,” Milton-Jones said. “So, we shifted to the zone, and the zone stopped moving for some reason.”
She said for whatever reason, her team was listless from the start.
“We didn’t have that spunk or energy that we needed,” she said. “I kept imploring my players, ‘Hey, you guys have got to find it. Today is one of those days where things could turn around quickly.”
Which they did.
It was Alumni Day for ODU and former Monarch head coaches Marianne Stanley and Wendy Larry and assistant coach Barbara Thaxton drew a standing ovation from the crowd of 1,749 when introduced at halftime.
CLICK HERE FOR PROFILE ON MARIANNE STANLEY
Stanley won 269 games and three national championships in 10 years at ODU.
Larry and Thaxton were assistants under Stanley. Larry succeeded her as head coach and went 559-203 in 24 seasons, took the Lady Monarchs to 20 NCAA Tournaments and won 17 Colonial Athletic Association championships in a row.
The trio walked arm-in-arm onto the court at halftime.
The ODU men played the second game of a doubleheader against Georgia Southern and the University honored all its basketball national champions --the 1975 men’s team, which won a Division II national crown; the 1979 and 1980 women’s teams, which won AIAW titles; and the 1985 team, which won the NCAA Tournament.
ODU hits the road for games on Jan. 23 at App State and Jan. 25 at Georgia State.
The Monarchs then return home for games on Jan. 29 against Georgia State and Feb. 1 against James Madison, the Sun Belt leader.