PENSACOLA, Fla. – The Old Dominion women’s basketball team could not put the ball in the basket down the stretch against Georgia State Friday in the Sun Belt Conference Tournament and thus saw its season come to a quick end.
ODU led most of the way but was outscored, 7-2, in the final 57 seconds and fell to Georgia State, 65-62, at the Pensacola Bay Center.
ODU (17-15), the fifth seed, made three of six shots in the fourth quarter, but it was the shots they never got to take that proved to be the difference for the Monarchs.
They committed nine of their 17 turnovers in the fourth quarter, including a critical throwaway with seven seconds left.
The Monarchs trailed by two, 63-61, when Simaru Fields attempted to pass the ball to a teammate but the ball sailed out of bounds.
Crystal Henderson, who scored a career-high 32 points for Georgia State, then made two free throws with four seconds left that put the game on ice.
Mikyla Tolivert added 28 points for Georgia State (17-15), the eighth seed, which will play fourth-seeded Coastal Carolina Saturday at 1 in the Sun Belt quarterfinals.
Coastal (22-7) won nine of its last 10 games, with its lone loss coming at home to ODU on Feb. 26, 81-65.
Tolivert and Henderson tallied 60 of Georgia State’s 65 points.
ODU Head Coach DeLisha Milton-Jones said the Monarchs needed to slow at least one of them down.
“It was a rough, physical game, but it was the type of game we’re accustomed to playing,” she said. “Our main issue was that, while you might have one player have a monster game, you can’t allow two players to have monster games.
“Had we slowed one of them down, it would have been a different ballgame.”
Playing in her final game for the Monarchs, senior Brenda Fontana led ODU with 17 points and seven rebounds. She and fellow senior En’Dya Buford (nine points, seven rebounds) fouled out.
Junior Kelsey Thompson had 15 points and 10 rebounds while Fields added 11 points and senior Simone Cunningham six points and 12 rebounds.
“Georgia State has a great rhythm and momentum going about them,” Milton-Jones said. “They’re playing well.
“They are the team that got hot at the right moment.”
The Monarchs were among the best teams in the Sun Belt until late January, when they began a six-game losing streak. The Monarchs recovered, winning three of their next four, but never quite regained their former swagger.
Milton-Jones had to deal with a team burdened with grief as eight players and two members of her staff dealt with the deaths of relatives over the last year or so.
“It’s unfortunate that our season has come to a screeching halt, but when you really look back at everything that we’ve been through as a program with our players, I really commend them for showing up every day because it wasn’t easy,” she said.
“They’re tremendous students and beautiful people, and we were still able to manage to get 17 wins out of a season that really could have been 12 wins.”
Nonetheless, she lamented ODU’s many missed opportunities.
“If I’m being honest, we shot ourselves in the foot today,” she said, noting errors, such as a technical foul on Thompson and an offensive foul from Camryn Hill, “to the plethora of turnovers we had at the most critical moments.
“To have 17 turnovers to a team that doesn’t really pressure you really lends itself to questioning, ‘What were we doing with the ball and why did we have so many empty possessions?’”
The Monarchs were able to pound the ball inside to Fontana for much of the first half, in which she scored 12 points. It was a Fontana three-pointer that gave the Monarchs their biggest lead, 31-24, with 1:21 left in the half.
Henderson made a layup, was fouled and made the foul shot to trim the lead to four at halftime.
Buford made a jump shot with 5:43 left in the game that gave ODU a 54-51 lead. A basket or two down the stretch might have been enough to put the Monarchs over the hump, but they missed the only three shots they took and committed four turnovers the rest of the way.
“I feel like we had a lot of good components to make up a good team,” Cunningham said. “But our biggest thing was discipline, and just being able to execute at the right times.
“I feel like that’s what showed up today.
“I agree with Coach D that 17 wins is still a pretty good season. But once you get here, no one wants to go home after the first game.”
