FAIRFAX, Va. – Old Dominion men’s basketball fought back from a 23-point first-half deficit, but dropped its road game at George Mason, 73-61 on Saturday afternoon at EagleBank Arena.
“We ran out of gas and we did not play intelligent basketball down the stretch,” said ODU head coach Mike Jones. “You can point to a lot of different things, but we’ve got to execute better at the end of games, and these are things that we work on. So it is very frustrating.”
KC Shaw scored 14 points with six rebounds, Jordan Battle also had 14 points with seven boards, and Caelum Swanton-Rodger finished with 13 points and nine rebounds. The Monarchs shot 41.5% (22-for-53) from the floor, 37.5% (6-for-16) from beyond the arc, and 78.6% (11-for-14) at the free-throw line.
George Mason’s Riley Allenspach scored 17 of his 26 points in the first five and a half minutes of the game as the Patriots (10-1) raced out to a 17-point lead, 19-2. The junior from Charlotte, North Carolina made his third three-pointer to push that lead to 23, 31-8 at the 8:12 mark.
That’s when the Monarchs (3-8) found their way back into the game with 18 unanswered points. Swanton-Rodger started off the run with a layup and Shaw followed with a 2-for-2 effort at the line. Threes by Robert Davis Jr. and Jared Turner helped trim the Patriot lead to 31-20 with four minutes left in the half. After a pair of buckets from Swanton-Rodger and Shaw, Battle earned a trip to the line and made both of his shots as ODU was back within five, 31-26.
Shaw hit another jumper and went 1-for-2 at the charity stripe to make it 34-29. GMU’s Fatt Hill then closed out the opening stanza with a pair of buckets as ODU went into the locker room trailing 38-29.
In the second half, the Patriots pushed their lead to 13, 43-30 at the 17:37 mark. Battle followed up a layup with a three ball to cut the deficit to single digits, 43-35. Davis Jr. found Battle for a deep ball with 11:20 on the clock, and Turner hit another three with 8:40 to play as ODU was back within four, 55-51.
After GMU’s Jahari Long responded with a triple, Scottie Hubbard made his shot from distance. Shaw added a long two and Zacch Wiggins then knotted the game at 58-58 on a driving layup at the 6:16 mark.
From there, the hosts put the game out of reach with a 14-1 run to go up 72-59 with 47 seconds left. Swanton-Rodger made one more layup and Hill rounded out the scoring with a made free throw.
ODU scored more second-chance points, 10-8, but GMU had more production in the paint (38-26), off turnovers (15-10), on fast breaks (13-4), and off the bench (29-15).
Up Next
Old Dominion opens Sun Belt Conference play at home this Wednesday, Dec. 17 with a TowneBank Royal Rivalry matchup with James Madison. Tipoff at Chartway Arena is set for 8 p.m.