CONWAY, S.C. – A season high 29 points from Robert Davis Jr. helped propel Old Dominion men’s basketball to a 70-66 road win over Coastal Carolina on Thursday night at the HTC Center.
The junior from Detroit, Michigan shot 11-for-18 (61.1%) from the floor and matched his season high with five three-pointers. He also pulled down four rebounds and added one assist in 39 minutes played. KC Shaw finished with 12 points and seven rebounds, and Caelum Swanton-Rodger followed with 10 points, four boards, and two steals.
“Any win is a great win, and a road win is even great. So we’ll take it and get ready for JMU,” said ODU head coach Mike Jones.
“I give all the credit to Coach Jones and our staff,” said Davis Jr. afterwards. “We have changed how our practices have been this week to make sure that we get off to a great start, and it showed up. We were able to come out, play defense full court from the jump, get a couple stops first, and then the buckets started to flow after that.”
Jordan Battle was held to just two points, but helped lead the defensive effort with a new career high of five steals. Battle, who transferred to ODU from Coastal Carolina, added four rebounds and three assists to his final line.
As a team, the Monarchs shot 45.3% (29-for-64) from the field and 33.3% (7-for-21) from beyond the arc. The team struggled at the free-throw line though, shooting 38.5% (5-for-13).
ODU turned 10 Coastal turnovers into 14 points and also edged the Chanticleers in points in the paint (28-20), second-chance points (14-8), and points off the bench (17-6). Old Dominion also won the battle on the glass, 46-34. The Monarchs led for 39:25 and never trailed in the game.
The Monarchs (5-12, 2-3 Sun Belt) won the opening tip and Davis Jr. found Swanton-Rodger cutting to the basket for the first points of the game. Swanton-Rodger then followed with a dunk for the early 4-0 lead. A few minutes later with ODU up 6-3, a steal by Battle led to an open three-pointer for Davis Jr. at the top of the arc. He then added a couple of buckets for a 7-0 run that pushed the Old Dominion lead to double digits, 13-3 at the 12:49 mark.
On snapping the team’s recent habit of slow starts, Jones added, “We didn’t have our Achilles heel show up tonight. It wasn’t beautiful, but what we did do was we were able to be in a position to where we were getting so many stops that the efficiency on the offensive end didn’t kill us. We did a really good job on the defensive end.”
A couple of Reggie Hill deep balls helped the Chanticleers (8-9, 1-4) pull to within five, 20-15 with just over five minutes remaining in the opening half. ODU countered with a 6-0 run as Davis Jr. made a jumper, Swanton-Rodger scored a layup, and LJ Thomas followed with a driving layup from the right side. CCU’s Joshua Beadle and Rasheed Jones then made back-to-back threes before Thomas got another shot to fall. Jones completed an and-one opportunity with five seconds left and the Monarchs took a 28-24 lead into the locker room.
The Chants applied pressure early in the second as Nadjrick Peat converted a couple of free throws before a Hill three ball cut the ODU lead to 30-29 with 18:56 on the clock. The hosts hung around for the next couple of minutes, but a Donovan Raymond dunk at the 14:50 mark opened up a 9-0 scoring run. Shaw followed with a layup, Jared Turner hit a triple, and Thomas made a layup to create some separation, 49-38 with 12:51 left in the game.
Hill snapped Coastal’s scoring drought with a three-pointer, but Scottie Hubbard and Davis Jr. countered with two more makes from distance. A Beadle three-pointer at the 9:16 mark got the home team to within 10 at 57-47, but Davis Jr. sank two more triples for ODU’s largest lead, 63-47 with 8:13 remaining.
With less than five minutes to go, CCU put together a 7-0 run as Jones made a pair of free throws, Hill followed with a layup, and Braeden MacVicar hit a corner three to trim ODU’s lead to six, 68-62 with just over three minutes left. After a Davis Jr. dunk, AJ Dancler and Beadle scored a couple of buckets to get the Chants to within four. From there, they were forced to foul as ODU played keep away and held on for the victory.
“Playing on Thursday instead of Wednesday gave us an extra day to practice,” added Jones. “It was really good to see those guys go out and execute. Give all the credit to our bigs coming over and really making it hard for their guards to get going. That was a really good job by our guys.”
Up Next
ODU will be in Harrisonburg, Virginia this Saturday for a TowneBank Royal Rivalry game against James Madison. Tipoff at the Atlantic Union Bank Center is scheduled for 4 p.m.