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

This Thursday the ODU Monarchs return home and will face off against the the University of Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles. The Golden Eagles are coached by Joye_Lee-McNelis. She graduated from South Miss, was the fifth player in school history to score 1,000 points. She returned to her alma mater after a 13 year career as head coach at Memphis. She has been with Southern Miss for 16 seasons now. When she was in Memphis, she had been to the NCAA tournament. While with Southern Miss, the WNIT tournament is the furthest her teams have advanced. But the job is coach Joye's as long as she wants it.

For the season, the Golden Eagles are 11-7, 3-4. They have an RPI ranking of 198 and SOS of 205. On the road, they are 2-3.

Vs William Carey W 77-47 (non-division one school, does not count in rankings)
@ #10 Mississippi St L 58-91 Record: 18-3 RPI: 11
Vs SE Louisiana W 62-54 Record: 6-11 RPI: 232
@ LA Monroe W 57-42 Record: 3-16 RPI: 346
Vs Mississippi W 59-53 Record: 7-13 RPI: 275
Lady Eagle Thanksgiving Classic
Vs VCU W 51-39 Record: 11-8 RPI: 113
Vs Tulane L 58-62 Record: 11-9 RPI: 125
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Vs South Alabama W 62-55 Record: 8-10 RPI: 262
@ Houston L 60-75 Record: 10-10 RPI: 161
Vs Faulkner University W 71-59 (non-division one school, does not count in rankings)
Vs La Tech W 66-60 Record: 8-8 (2-5) RPI: 250
Vs UTEP L 60-75 Record: 12-6 (5-2) RPI: 215
Vs UTSA W 82-65 Record: 3-12 (2-5) RPI: 303
@ North Texass W 65-57 Record: 7-10 (3-5) RPI: 236
@ Rice L 64-75 Record: 13-6 (8-0) RPI: 101
Vs UAB L 68-74 Record: 11-7 (5-3) RPI: 112
Vs Middle Tenn St L 69-77 Record: 13-7 (5-3) RPI: 52
@ ODU Record: 16-3 (6-1) RPI: 32


Overall they rank 8th in the conference in defense and 8th in the conference in scoring. But if look at just Con-USA stats (which I think is fair since we have a fairly decent sample size) they would rank 6th in ppg and 12th in defense.

Golden Eagles Starting Five
05 Hailes, Shonte G 5'6" Sr 16.9 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 3.6 apg, 1.7 spg 45.0 FG%, 32.3 3P%, 73.4 FT%, 35.2 mpg
25 Mayze, Alarie G/F 5'10" Sr 8.6 ppg, 4.4 rpg, 1.9 apg, 2.2 spg, 52.3 FG%, 36.6 3P%, 50.0 FT%, 29.2 mpg
34 Leaphart, Respect F 6'0" Sr 13.9 ppg, 5.7 rpg, 1.2 apg, 1.6 spg, 48.1 FG%, 25.0 3P%, 66.7 FT%, 20.9 mpg
42 Jones, Kelsey C 6'3" Rd So 8.9 ppg, 5.9 rpg, 0.5 apg, 1.2 spg, 52.5 FG%, 0.00 3P%, 77.3 FT%, 20.9 mpg
21 Almond, Daishai G 5'9" So 5.6 ppg, 3.9 rpg, 4.0 apg, 1.6 spg, 35.7 FG%, 0.00 3P%, 88.2 FT%, 24.6 mpg
Top Bench
15 Landing, Amber C 6'4" Rd Sr 2.2 ppg, 3.6 rpg, 0.4 apg, 1.6 bpg, 31.6 FG%, 0.00 3P%, 50.0 FT%, 14.6 mpg
02 Kennedy, Allie G 5'6" Jr 3.6 ppg, 1.1 rpg, 0.8 apg, 0.9 spg, 21.1 FG%, 21.4 3P%,, 93.3 FT%, 16.7 mpg

Strengths of this team are it's sollid defensive rebounding, assists, and free throw shooting. Hailes is the team's leader, and she goes both inside and outside. Leads the team in three point attempts and assists per game. Mayzae is shooting 50.0 of her field goals. She is another solid player. Kelsey Jones at 6'3" is more of offensive threat, but the 6'4" Amber Landing is a defensive player first. On defense, look for the Golden Eagles to trap the ball.

Inside the Numbers.
................USM.......ODU
PPG..........65.8.......66.1
OPPG.......64.1.......53.1
FG%........41.3........40.9
OFG%......41.6.......34.2
FGPG.......24.7........24.1
OFGPG.....22.9.......19.0
3P%...........28.2.......31.2
O3P%.........29.9......23.2
3PPG..........3.8........6.4
O3PPG.......5.7........4.4
RPG...........37.3......41.9
ORPG........35.4.......35.7
APG...........14.2.......11.1
TPG...........17.3.......14.7
SPG...........10.5........8.6
BPG..........3.5..........3.8
AST/TO ratio:
USM: 0.8, ODU: 0.8


For ODU this is a chance to keep on rolling in a building that they have NOT lost at all season long. Rice does not play on Thursday, so ODU can get a little bit closer in the standings this week. With regard to Kobe Bryant, I really do think he could have helped promote and gain the interest of fans when it comes to women's basketball, especially on the college level.

Conference USA.
Rice 8-0
ODU 6-1
UTEP 5-2
UAB 5-3
Middle Tennessee St 5-3
WKU 4-3
Charlotte 3-4
Southern Miss 3-4
FAU 3-5
North Texas 3-5
La Tech 2-5
Marshall 2-5
UTSA 2-5
FIU 1-7

They beat VCU and held them to just 39 pts. USM does have a couple bigs and a couple shooters. Hopefully the Monarch Mojo continues at home with a win.

This would be a big, big win for Southern, especially on ODU’s home court. They’re close to ODU in several statical categories, but Southern gives up almost as many points as they score. The Monarchs don’t. ODU should win this one, but, if not focused, this is one that could get away from the Monarchs.

The one thing that continues to haunt USM's team is we turn it over WAY TOO MUCH! We've had 5-6 games of 20+ turnovers and it seems like over half of them are unforced ones where it's a bad pass on a fast break, throwing it out of reach on passes in the half court offense, or just not being "safe" when making passes and forcing it when it's not there. On the flip side have been pretty good getting steals as we've had 10 or more in 7 of our last 8 games with the only non double digit steal game being 9.

Teams that trap; Don't like to be TRAPPED !!!

Good job ladies! Win 67-50

Sent from my SM-N975U using Tapatalk

I hope Wayne’s injury isn’t too serious and anybody know what happened to blagmon

The game was closer than the final score. Wayne looked to injury her ankle.

In less than seven minutes, ODU had six turnovers. Which is why we fell 10 points in the hole. Then the injury to USM's #5 Shonte Hailes really changed around the game for them. She had 14 points in 13 minutes of play. After that, USM really struggled to get their offense going. Hudson's 15 points in the first half did keep ODU in the ballgame. (Two of her three's were almost in the exact same spot) Edwards though got a rebound at the very end of the game to give her a double double. In fact, she almost had a triple double. 14 points, 10 boards, 8 assists.

USM did a good job of packing it the paint in the first half. It was hard for us to go inside. I give Southern Miss a lot of credit. They gave us a better game than I thought.

It's interesting to note that Amaya played the entire game without her knee brace on. (maybe she has done this before, just didn't notice) Last year she sat due to ACL that she suffered during preseason. You can tell her speed is much faster without the brace. And coming out of high school, speed was a big part of her game. Most players hate playing with the brace on at first, and then when they actually play without it on....they have to relearn how to go at full speed without it. It takes some time.

As for Wayne. It look like an ankle injury. When she was walking, she wasn't putting pressure on her foot...which is not a good sign. Personally I wouldn't expect her on the floor against La Tech this Saturday. She does a lot for us on both sides of the ball....so big loss. And sadly, the front line is where we are thin at with Maggie already out for the season.

What a freak injury to roll your ankle like Wayne did, trying to heave a 3/4 shot at the halftime buzzer. Our clock management was not good leading up to the final seconds. She's my fav player does everything, let's hope for a quick recovery. That game took its toll on both teams. #5 USM was a player and having a good night. For most the the first half she was outscoring the Monarchs by herself.

(01-31-2020 09:04 AM)DaBigBlue Wrote:  What a freak injury to roll your ankle like Wayne did, trying to heave a 3/4 shot at the halftime buzzer. Our clock management was not good leading up to the final seconds. She's my fav player does everything, let's hope for a quick recovery. That game took its toll on both teams. #5 USM was a player and having a good night. For most the the first half she was outscoring the Monarchs by herself.

I feel the game was very physical and injuries happened that game to 2 of the best players on both teams

I hope both are alright

Are the ladies close to being ranked in top 25?

(02-02-2020 08:53 PM)Obiwan Wrote:  Are the ladies close to being ranked in top 25?

I think two road wins this coming week plus a win against Rice when they get home and you could see them start getting votes. They’d be 21-3 at that point and are already 30th in RPI. For example, FGCU has almost mirror numbers as us as far as RPI, SOS and overall ranking and got 7 votes this past week.