PENSACOLA, FL (WTKR)- Old Dominion entered the Sun Belt Conference Tournament as one of the hottest teams in the league. It didn't take long for Texas State to cool the Monarchs off.
ODU shot just 23 percent from the floor, connecting on just 12 field goal attempts, and fell to the Bobcats, 65-36, in the second round of the conference tournament on Thursday in Pensacola.
A 16-0 Texas State run put the Monarchs in an early 16-1 hole and they could never recover. The silver and blue did not make a field goal until the 10:47 mark of the first half, a Tyreek Scott-Grayson layup, and Old Dominion would find itself down 32-14 at halftime.
Jeff Jones's squad could not muster a comeback after the break, getting no closer than 16 points the rest of the way and trailing by as many as 33 points.
"They outplayed us in every aspect of the game," Jones said after the loss. "They outplayed us, they out-hustled us, they out-toughed us. They played the way that we anticipated them to, we just didn't have a response."
The usual sources of offense struggled for the Monarchs on Thursday. Scott-Grayson, Mekhi Long and Chaunce Jenkins shot a combined 5-of-28, with Jenkins missing on all eight of his shot attempts. Texas State out-rebounded ODU, 43-32, and bested the silver and blue in second chance points, 15-4.
"Chaunce was never able to get on track," noted Jones. "They did a great job of defending him off the dribble and without him creating we didn't have a whole lot of good options."
Scott-Grayson and Dericko Williams led Old Dominion with eight points each. The Bobcats' Mason Harrell scored a game-high 20 points.
The Monarchs return to Norfolk with a 19-12 record and will wait to see if they receive an invitation to a postseason tournament. ODU won nine of its final 12 regular season games and picked up six more wins than a season ago.
