Thursday night, Old Dominion was projected as the underdog going into the 3rd round of the Sun Belt Men’s Basketball Tournament held in Pensacola, FL against Texas State. ODU quickly proved them wrong after the late Robert Davis Jr.’s wicked 3-point shot to seal the 64-61 victory in order to advance to the 4th round.
“That was an extremely physical game and for a young team like we are, an inexperienced team like we are, to respond the way we did, this is what March Madness is all about.” said Head Coach Mike Jones of the Monarchs. This season brought an abundance of new players to the ODU team with only six familiar faces in the mix from last year’s roster such as Senior RJ Blakney and Sophomore Dani Pounds, with a brand new coaching staff to match.
This was a huge win for the Monarchs, as they have now secured two post-season wins, which has not been done by the team since 2019 where they went on to defeat Western Kentucky in the C-USA Championship. The Bobcats are very familiar with the post-season, as they have eliminated ODU from the SBC tournament the past 2 years in a row.
Robert Davis Jr. led ODU with a total of 23 points, while Texas State was led offensively by Tylan Pope with 15 total points. We saw Sean Durugordon with ODU pop off to start the matchup with back-to-back-to-back shots, scoring 15 points within the first 8:20 minutes of the match. This led the Monarchs off with a strong lead of 19-7 halfway through the first half.
ODU held the lead consistently throughout the first half until Texas State’s Kaden Gumbs tied it up with a 2 point field goal, leaving 2:00 left in the period. The Bobcats continued with two turnovers, but gained the lead to end the half 29-27.
The second half began with Davis taking back ODU’s lead with a 3 pointer at 19:01 on the clock. The Bobcats rallied back to keep the score within a 2 point range for the first 4 minutes of the half. After multiple missed jump shot attempts by Texas State, ODU found an opening to gain a 7 point lead. With 11:57 left to go in the period, the Bobcats tied it up 45-45 with the help of Tyrel Morgan’s quick layup in the paint. The Bobcat’s gained their 47-45 lead with 10:22 left thanks to Christian Turner’s quick layup in the paint. They held on until 3:01, when three field goal attempts were made by Davis to extend the score to 57-57.
With the back and forth battle between the teams, the Bobcats kept the score tight up until just over a second remaining in the game. ODU’s Robert Davis Jr stepped away with a killer 3 point shot to secure the 64-61 lead with 1.1 seconds remaining.
Davis took pride in this play, as he mentioned, “We work on that play literally every day in practice. Coach Jones said, ‘Go take us home,’ and I guess I did.”
The Bobcats still kept it interesting when Christian Turner attempted a quick half-court shot, but ODU’s Caelum Swanton-Rodger’s fouled against Turner before he could jump off. The Bobcat’s chance to come back started to look up, but after Turner’s three missed free throw shots, the Monarchs secured the 64-61 win.