BOSTON – Prior to the season, the Colonial Athletic Association was a hotbed of questions for those who like to predict how a conference will go. Right in the middle of that was the two-time defending champions, as Old Dominion had been picked to win the conference two years in a row and did just that but was picked fifth this time around due to heavy personnel losses. The Monarchs are doing what they have done for a while now: win games. The latest example was Saturday’s 69-59 win at Northeastern that had a lot of positives for this team.
A far cry from last season, the Monarchs came into Saturday’s even on the glass with their opponents on the season. They were out-rebounded twice by double digits in losses to Kentucky and Vermont, which was unthinkable last year. After the loss to Kentucky, head coach Blaine Taylor said his team needed to be better on the boards, and while they didn’t do that right away, they sure did so on Saturday. He emphasized this facet of the game leading up to it, and the team got the message.
“He said this would be a big rebounding game,” said senior Chris Cooper, who led the way with 12 rebounds to go with 17 points.
In fact, Old Dominion controlled the inside all along. They got the ball inside just about anytime they wanted to offensively, and they controlled the glass against a Northeastern team that entered Saturday with the CAA’s best rebounding margin at +8. The numbers don’t back up how much better they were inside: they out-rebounded the Huskies 35-30 and didn’t have very significant advantages in points in the paint or second-chance points. They did have a big advantage at the foul line, going 27-34 while Northeastern only attempted 16 free throws.
Old Dominion has turned to a couple of players who were mainly reserves prior to this season to anchor them inside, and thus far Cooper and Nick Wright have done just that. Wright missed the first three games of the season due to injury, but since his return has played well. Cooper, who actually started 24 games a year ago, is averaging nearly a double-double on the season and had another one on Saturday. The potential seemed to always be there, but he was stuck behind a few pretty good upperclassmen earlier in his career.
“I don’t think Chris has played as well as he can, I probably yelled at him more than anyone out there,” said Taylor. “He can do better. What he’s doing is he’s helping us.”
As important as the frontcourt is, guards make a big difference in college basketball and that includes this team. The Monarch guards slowed down Northeastern’s guards on Saturday, holding Joel Smith to a 2-9 afternoon from the field and forcing six turnovers by Jonathan Lee. Trian Iliadis, who is handling the ball much more than he did in the past, and redshirt freshman Dimitri Batten were the primary Monarchs who did the job and combined for six assists and eight steals on Saturday as they forced 22 Northeastern turnovers.
Not only that, but they also helped lead the way with overcoming Northeastern’s pressure. The Huskies went after them all game long, and the Monarchs reacted very well to it. It was clear they prepared well, and they turned that into good game play.
“I think we handled a lot of pressure,” said Taylor, who added that Iliadis will likely see more minutes at the point. “Their style is such that they’re aggressive. I thought we worked hard to make plays when they were there.”
The other backcourt key is do-everything senior Kent Bazemore, who wasn’t even projected to be playing right now. Bazemore broke the fifth metatarsal bone in his left foot in the summer, but hasn’t missed a game yet and had one of his best ones of the season on Saturday with 21 points and eight rebounds. Bazemore said getting into game shape was a challenge, and he has been hit with minor ailments such as the stomach flu recently but said he feels his legs coming back.
Since the start of this season, the Monarchs have shown incremental improvement. It’s had to come the hard way from time to time, as Taylor noted, but this team is now clearly in a better place than they were in November.
“I think if you’ve followed us start to now, it’s been better, better, better, better, better in small steps that now add up to a number of steps when you add them all together,” said Taylor.
The Monarchs haven’t exactly rolled through their non-conference schedule, and no one expected them to. They still have good challenges left with Fairfield (in Springfield, MA for the Hall of Fame Holiday Showcase), at Central Florida and Richmond and at home against Missouri. But this is a team that looks to be getting better, and there’s a feeling this team is still a good ways from its ceiling, especially since they’re still figuring out what having Bazemore means after some preparation to be without him for the first month. When January comes this team looks like it will be doing what they usually do – winning games and contending in the CAA.
