By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – The Old Dominion men’s basketball team dug itself into a huge early hole and in spite of a valiant rally in the final minutes, fell to Georgia Southern, 93-86, Saturday at Chartway Arena.
The victory was the ninth in a row for Georgia Southern (12-5 overall, 4-0 Sun Belt), which hasn’t lost a game since late November.
The loss was the fourth in a row and ninth in the last 10 games for ODU (4-12, 1-3 Sun Belt) and followed a familiar script for the Monarchs.
ODU got off to poor starts on Dec. 28 at Maryland and at home against App State earlier this week, as well as several earlier losses.
“We beat ourselves tonight and I’m man enough to say I played at part in that,” said Robert Davis Jr., who had 15 points.
“The slow starts are not something other teams are doing to us. We’re doing it to ourselves.”
The fact that Georgia Southern could be the Sun Belt's best team provided no solace for ODU head coach Mike Jones, who spent longer than usual in the locker room after the game with his team. He said he did not mince words with his players and hinted that if his starters can’t get it done, he may change his starting lineup.
“I told them that things have to change,” he said. “What that is, we’ll figure that out by the time we tip it off in our next game.
“We cannot continue to just show up and be like, ‘Hey fellas, we need a better start,’ and hope that happens. We have to change things.”
KC Shaw, who led ODU with 23 points, said, “The big thing for us is our discipline. We’ve got to play with discipline.”
The game began about as badly as ODU could have feared. The Monarchs missed their first eight shots and committed four turnovers in the first seven minutes as Georgia Southern bolted to a 20-2 lead.
Drew McKenna made a driving layup to end an 18-0 Georgia Southern run.
That basket began a 17-7 ODU run in which Shaw tallied eight points to trim the 18-point lead to eight, 27-19 midway through the first half.
But the Eagles then reasserted control, as Khayri Dunn and Nakevieon White made back-to-back three-point shots for Georgia Southern and then Dunn made another three-pointer with 2:02 left that pushed the lead back to 15.
The lead was as much as 23 midway through the second half, and the game seemed hopelessly out of reach when the Monarchs suddenly found life.
Shaw made field goals on three consecutive possessions, and Davis added a fallaway three-point shot and then another short jumper, and just like that, the Georgia Southern lead had been trimmed to 11, 62-51.
Davis made another three-pointer with 5:42 left to cut the lead to seven, but once again, Georgia Southern scored twice and built the lead back to double figures.
Davis made a layup, was fouled, and made the foul shot to cut the lead to five, 85-80, with 1:02 left.
ODU then desperately pressed full court, trying to force a turnover, and the result was a breakaway dunk shot from Dwayne Williams Jr. that sealed the victory.
“We wanted to press early in the game,” Jones said. “We felt like our press would be effective.
“But when you’re down 20-2, when you don’t score, you can’t press.”
ODU plays its next four games on the road, beginning Thursday at Coastal Carolina, then at James Madison on Saturday, Jan. 10.
The following week ODU is at Georgia Southern on Jan. 15 and App State on Jan. 17 before returning home to host Troy on Jan. 21 and Louisiana on Jan. 24.
Jones had high hopes for this team before the season began. And while he’s been disappointed with the season so far, with 14 Sun Belt games left to play, he said it’s not too late to turn things around.
“The biggest thing for us is the goals that we had when the season began, I mean, they’re all right there in front of us,” he said. “There’s not one thing that we said we wanted to accomplish this year that we’re still not capable of accomplishing.
“Honesty, I think that feeds that fight, that feeds into that we’re not going to quit, we’re not going to give up, we’re not going to bag it.
“We need to win a basketball game and then when we win a basketball game, we can worry about winning another basketball game. And then we can just watch the confidence grow."
Minium is ODU's Senior Executive Writer for Athletics. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
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