PENSACOLA, FL. (WTKR) — Old Dominion punched the Sun Belt's best team in the mouth early and often in the league's tournament finals, putting Marshall on its heals for much of the first half.
A nightmare third quarter, however, allowed the Thundering Herd to storm back into the game and claim a narrow 76-70 win over the Monarchs.
"This was a hard loss to take," ODU head coach Delisha Milton-Jones said. "It wasn't so much as what Marshall did to us as to what we did ourselves."
ODU, which had lost to Marshall by double digits in both of their regular season matchups, stood tall against the No. 1 seed. Leading 17-14 after a quarter, the silver and blue built up a 10-point second quarter advantage after a Jordan McLaughlin three.
Going to halftime, Milton-Jones' group held a 39-31 lead with plenty of confidence.
"I thought we did a tremendous job of getting back in transition defense in the first half," the head coach said. "I also thought we did a tremendous job taking care of the basketball. We had less than eight turnovers in the entire half. My goal was for us to have 12 turnovers for the game."
That goal would fall short in the second half.
ODU turned the ball over 10 times in the third quarter while scoring only eight points in the frame, allowing Marshall to get back off the mat. The Thundering Herd tied the game at 47-47, then took the lead on an Abby Beeman three-pointer which was followed by another jumper from the Sun Belt Player of the Year.
"It's almost like we got on our heels a little bit, sped us up some," Milton-Jones said. "We turned the ball over way more than we're accustomed to doing."
The Monarchs ultimately finished with 26 turnovers, allowing the No. 1 seed to score 30 points off those takeaways.
Trailing 52-47, the silver and blue couldn't find a way to stop the bleeding in the final frame, surrendering a 12-2 run in the first 4:10 of the quarter as Marshall's lead ballooned to 64-49 with 5:51 to play.
ODU, however, put together one last rally to make it a game. The Monarchs went on a 13-3 run, cutting the lead down to 67-62 with 2:17 to play with the help of a pair of Halima Salat triples and a pair of jumpers from Kaye Clark and Joy Campbell.
"We take on the identity of our coach," said McLaughlin, who finished with 15 points. "She's not one to just lay down and give someone a game. She tells us to have heart, have pride in what we do."
With the lead down to five, though, the silver and blue couldn't close out the rally as Marshall hit eight free throws to seal the game up.
For the game, ODU shot 49 percent from the floor compared to 37 percent from Marshall. The Thundering Herd, however, posted 16 offensive rebounds to go along with 26 turnovers and went 21-27 from the free throw line.
After two games against the Thundering Herd that were lopsided, ODU showed much more fight in its tournament finale.
"We put up a fight tonight, unfortunately Marshall came out with the win," Clark said. The guard finished with a team-high 16 points. "We're still here to show that we're ODU for the rest of the season."
The head coach was vocal in her desire to see more Sun Belt teams get a shot at the NCAA Tournament.
"The Sun Belt is a wonderful conference. It should not be a one-bid league," Milton-Jones said. "When you have the teams that we have that can beat Power 5's and we've shown that with how we build our non-conference schedule, I really think it's disheartening to know that only one team will come out of this conference."
At 22-9, Old Dominion now awaits its WNIT fait. Milton-Jones believes the team will get a call to play in the tournament and if it does, they'll accept.
"If there's any basketball left to play, that's what we want to do and that's what we love to do," McLaughlin said. "We're going to take it as we go and go out with a bang."
