ODU Men's Basketball Claims A Big Victory Over Texas State, 75-64
By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – The first two seasons in the Sun Belt Conference ended with painful losses for the Old Dominion men’s basketball team.
On Wednesday night, before a Chartway Arena crowd of 5,474, the Monarchs won a big game, and also gained a measure of revenge.
ODU guard Sean Durugordon scored 20 points, had 13 rebounds, and blocked a three-point shot with 48 seconds left that helped blunt a late Texas State rally, as the Monarchs held off the Bobcats, 75-64.
ODU (11-13 overall, 7-5 Sun Belt) led by five, 69-64, when Durugordon blocked an attempted three-point shot by Texas State’s Coleton Benson. Just 11 seconds later, R.J. Blakney blocked another three-pointer to again preserve the five-point ODU lead.
Texas State was then forced to foul and Durugordon made four of four shots and Robert Davis Jr. two of two.
Davis finished with 18 points and point guard Jaden Johnson had 14 points and five rebounds. Caelum Swanton-Rodger, the 7-foot transfer from Maryland, had one of his best efforts of the season as he scored 10 points and had nine rebounds.
ODU did not shoot well, but outrebounded Texas State, 45-27, and grabbed 23 offensive rebounds, including nine from Durugordon.
“I have not been more proud of our team than I am right now sitting here tonight,” said Mike Jones, the ODU head coach. “I hope I feel like this a lot more this season.
“That was incredible. Once again, we had a great crowd and great energy. But I couldn’t be more proud of the toughness we showed tonight, the togetherness we showed tonight.”
It was the third win in the last four games for ODU, which appears to have righted the ship after losing three home games in a row in mid January. And this team is playing far better than the team that lost eight of its first 11 games.
“We’re growing up,” Jones said. “We’re trusting each other.
“We’re a more connected unit right now. As we grow together and things go wrong and something needs to happen, it’s not like our guys are saying, ‘I’ve got the fix this,’ because we got five guys on the court that are used to be that guy that fixes it.
“We’ve gotten much closer, much more on the same page. Our guys are just trusting each other.”
There are few holdovers at ODU from the last two seasons, but Imo Essien, the point guard from Wylie, Texas, who is sitting out this season with an injury, informed his teammates of ODU’s ill-fated Sun Belt Conference Tournament history the last two seasons.
ODU rolled into the 2023 Sun Belt Tournament with a 19-12 record and having won six of its last seven games. But the Monarchs played their poorest game of the year and fell to the Bobcats, 65-36, in Pensacola, Florida.
A year later, the Monarchs led most of the way against Texas State in the first round of the tournament, but beset with foul trouble and hobbled by the flu, ODU fell to the Bobcats in overtime, 92-83.
“I told the guys about those games,” Essien said. “A lot of them knew it anyway.”
That included Jones, an ODU graduate who watched the loss two years ago on TV while he was coaching at Maryland.
“I rarely got to watch an ODU game from start to finish, but I did for that game,” he said. “I remember Texas State kicking our rear ends.”
ODU weathered two long cold streaks, the kind that might have caused the team to cave a few months ago.
After taking a 4-0 lead, ODU missed its next 11 shots. The Monarchs trailed most of the first half but Davis made back-to-back three-point shots, and Durogordon a free throw in the final 2:41 and the Monarchs led, 38-35, at the half.
Blakney gave ODU a 50-39 lead with 15:40 left and the Monarchs outscored the Bobcats 10-1 over a seven-minute stretch and led 51-49 with 6:36 left. Two minutes later, Blakney picked off a Texas State pass and dunked the Monarchs to an eight-point lead.
ODU has been shorn of depth by injuries and illness as Jones used just three players off his bench.
Stephaun Walker, the transfer from Robert Morris who averages 6.3 points and 7.1 rebounds, was in crutches after having surgery earlier this week.
Substitute forward Dani Pounds is out with an injury, although he is expected to return. Guard Devin Ceaser, who averaged 11.5 points, has missed 12 games and his status is still unclear.
"We are as banged up as we can possibly be," Jones said. "To be able to get it done tonight, I could not be more proud of our team."
ODU ventures to Eastern Michigan on Saturday and then Georgia State and Georgia Southern next week before playing its final two home games against Marshall on Thursday, Feb. 20 and Georgia State on Saturday, Feb. 22.