The unofficial online home for fans of the Old Dominion University Monarchs. Part of Collegiate Sports Nation (CSN).

Who else is ready for the basketball season to start? Holy Cross lost an exhibition game to a D2 school.

Yes. Thank goodness it's here once again.

CompughterRatings has us winning 71-57. It must be updated based on the exhibitions, too, because it has our offense listed as a B-. Sounds about right to me...

ODU-75
HC-58

Friday cannot get here fast enough. This has been a very tough week for my ODU family (my Mom and I are both ODU alums and my Dad is an ODU professor) and my mom has been in the hospital all week after having surgery.

I'm praying she gets better and that ODU will win so I can have a slight distraction from such a sh*tty week although in the grand scheme of things it wouldn't move the meter very much right now.

Not looking for sympathy or anything, just saying, I'm as ready as anyone to see the season start and get this thing underway! And honestly, after having watched the Virginia State game, I am actually feeling a little more optimistic about our chances at doing something of note this season. That was as solid a 40 minutes of basketball as I saw all of last year, granted it was only against a d2 school, but seriously, I think Palmore will have a much bigger impact than people know!

I know people hate when I bag on Marquel, but let's face it, we were playing 4 on 5 a lot of times last year and not only that, Blaine refused to play Baze and Batten for large stretches together so a lot of times we were just playing 1 or 2 on 5 with Baze trying to create and if not dishing it inside to Cooper.

This year, while we aren't nearly as experienced or strong, we are absolutely more athletic, definitely more skilled (as we've seen in our 3 point shooting escapades thus far) and most importantly, we can field a team of 5 guys who can score with the basketball!!! Marquel really killed us last year because teams could really sag off of him and double Baze whenever he touched the ball because they knew Delancey wouldn't shoot and would rarely even drive (although he did get a little better at it by the end of the season).

I double dog dare teams to sag off of Palmore and then watch him blow right to the hole and if not score, either draw a foul and contact or dish it off to Painter and Wright who can both dunk at the rim.

Now I'm not saying we are an NCAA tourney team or anything, but I initially picked us to go 17-14. I know its still early, but after seeing just how talented Palmore and Bacote are as freshman in person, I feel like we could absolutely challenge for 20 wins yet again.

Also, I think my credibility is pretty solid because I am NOT one to overrate players as most of you know and I certainly don't make statements like "Sam Harris could be All-CAA" based off the blue white game. For instance Anton looked pretty good in his minutes against Va State, but I still really don't see him having much of an impact at all for us this coming season. I hope I'm wrong, but I really don't expect to be.

So with that said, I like Bacote and Palmore ALOT. Like almost as much as I've liked any freshman we've seen of late. They are both very polished and exciting players for true freshman. If I can criticize Blaine for failing to recruit any solid big men of late, I will give him full marks for bringing us some damn solid guards. I also liked what I saw out of Clark in his limited minutes as well. He looked like with a year or two of seasoning, he could be that third guard with Bacote and Palmore with size and strength that could get us back to the NCAA provided we find at least a servicable center or two to back up Anichebe in the coming few years.

But this year, with those three and Batten and Hill, I think we very well might have one of the best two backcourts in the CAA along with Drexel (let's face it, Massonet and Lee are pretty much the best in the CAA and one of the best in the country)! When is the last time, if EVER, you could say that about an ODU team? There have been many years we've had THE best frontcourt in the CAA, but we haven't had a backcourt this DEEP AND talented in a very long time. The Drew/Hunter/Thomas backcourt was very solid, but I think when you consider that none of the guys listed is even a senior yet and 3 of the 5 are freshman, next year we could have one of the best backcourts in the country! Who would have thunk it???!!!

Bring on Holy Cross, let's see how these young guys can play against a D1 team, I am excited to see how much of that speed, quickness and shooting ability we showed in the two exhibitions transfers over to the first real game. I'm sure the %' will go down, if only from nerves about playing their first d1 game, but if they are even in the same ballpark, I will be VERY excited. I think losing Baze, while he was a great player, may end up being a bonus, especially when he took Trian and Delancey with him. Last year, far too often, we stood around watching Baze instead of playing 5 man TEAM basketball.

Baze saved our asses quite a few times to be sure, but I think replacing Delancey with even a freshman Palmore is a huge gain and having a 5 man team with no real ego's to feed is going to lead to some great TEAM basketball. Coming into the year I was quite concerned about the youth of this team and our ability to replace an NBA calibur do it all guard like Baze, and even though I realize it is still early and it was lesser competition, the team basketball we displayed was as exciting as I've seen at ODU in quite some time.

See you guys Friday, hope it translates over from Monday night so we can feel good about the immediate future of this team, not just the long term!

Nice review. I'm hoping to catch at least one of the games this weekend, got a lot going on though. BUT! Over the years I've heard from several of my friends while we were either playing or talking about basketball mention that they don't like ODU ball. This coming from one of my friends on my team who coaches high school. He's younger than I am and he always got frustrated watching our style of play. Slow, old school bang on the boards, miss a ton of shots but get the rebounds.

That being said. I'm willing to bet our student section is improved and turnouts better this season going forward. For obvious reasons of CUSA, but mainly because of the tempo and style of play that people want to watch. I read on here that for the exhibition games student turnout has been better than expected. I expect that to continue and only get better based on what I've heard so far.

Go Blue!

I hope you are right about the student support. They were out in large numbers for Monday night's game against VSU. They were very subdued, though. I guess it's hard to get fired up when your team is wiping the floor with the opponent.

This weekend is exciting. I'm going to try to make it to all three games and football obviously on Saturday.

I hope so too. But word will spread fast if we're putting up 100 points. Or even 80 against better teams.

(11-08-2012 08:49 AM)MONARCHSWIN Wrote:  I hope you are right about the student support. They were out in large numbers for Monday night's game against VSU. They were very subdued, though. I guess it's hard to get fired up when your team is wiping the floor with the opponent.

I wholeheartedly disagree. That is a great time to get excited! The band is the only bit of noise coming from that end of the floor. I will say, however, that the non-student crowd is MUCH better than it was when I was a student. It used to be the non-student folks never stood up, rarely got loud, never filled, and only about half wore ODU colors. Now it feels like the students are getting beat at their own game.

What I'm trying to say is I wish the Ted could be rocking on all four sides more often than the GMU and VCU games. Here's to the student section proving me wrong! I am pleased with the number of students who turned out for the exhibitions, now we just need to get them on their feet and making some noise. I didn't hear the scoreboard chant at all, and there was almost zero heckling going on (aside from the occasional "Virginia State/Mount Olive SUCKS!"). Come on, guys...get creative! Hopefully the ROAR event (or whatever it's called) got things going in the right direction.

Cmon, you don't heckle the exhibition game guys. haha.

student support will never improve without a solid set of vocal leaders....you need 20-30 students that are going to get in there and own the front few rows and lead the charge....otherwise everyone is going to sit on their hands.

Need to put some students on the other end. Broken record. That is all...

Bump.

No need for an additional game thread. Lets get the season started.

Cant wait. First year with season tickets

Congrats! Last year was my first year with season basketball. Sadly I couldn't renew this year. Hopefully next year I'll get them again.

Brion Dunlap's return to ODU...

Even though it seems like a shorter bench this year, I expect Blaine to do a lot of "line changes" to keep the team fresh for the whole weekend.

Do you guys know if there is a video feed available anywhere for this tournament? UTSA v ODU will be broadcast here in San Antonio but I'd like to watch the rest of the games if possible

I don't believe our video streaming service is covering the games we aren't playing in, so doesn't look like it.

Our broadcast options suck, plain and simple. Whether it's the local TV package or web streaming, I am completely underwhelmed with the effort we put forth to broadcast ODU sporting events.

(11-09-2012 01:49 PM)Monarch Maniac 10 Wrote:  Our broadcast options suck, plain and simple. Whether it's the local TV package or web streaming, I am completely underwhelmed with the effort we put forth to broadcast ODU sporting events.

I think we are still in the 1970's deathgrip against modern technology that a different Adminstration had us in for so many decades. Wood hasn't had a chance to extract us from the tangle of self serving contracts that others strangled us with.....where certain peoples' own bottom line, and back pocket, was/is more important than getting our BRAND out there. It is the 21st Century for crying out loud, not some archaic feudal system of patronage.