MBB: Old Dominion Athletic Conference

[Seatfiller]

Roanoke beat Emory and Henry last night in the first round of the ODAC tourney 98-73.  Roanoke took a 12-0 lead and maintained the lead all throughout the game. Roanoke will most likely play Randolph Macon on Tuesday. The games for today are:

Randolph Macon at Bridgewater

Shenandoah at Ferrum

EMU at Lynchburg

[Seatfiller]

Odac is adding another member....Averett University. Starting next year they will be a full time member.

https://www.odaconline.com/general/2020-21/releases/030821-averett-membership

With the amount of teams in the odac (will be 14 on the men's side) they should think about splitting the conference in 2.

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ Did you factor in that E&H is leaving for D2?

[thescottharris]

Odac is adding another member....Averett University. Starting next year they will be a full time member.

https://www.odaconline.com/general/2020-21/releases/030821-averett-membership

With the amount of teams in the odac (will be 14 on the men's side) they should think about splitting the conference in 2.

Article says full-time member for 2022-23 academic year, so that's two academic years from now, and that will give the ODAC 13 members for male sports.

And this is a good move from a geographic perspective and for football scheduling and will be a plus addition in a few sports, but Averett is pretty dreadful at quite a few sports. They were 1-17 in baseball last year and 8-30 the year before. Men's lacrosse has annually been quite possibly the worst or very close to the worst D3 lacrosse team in the country ever since they added the sport, but at least they are showing signs of improvement and beating other teams that are in that annual discussion, so perhaps they are D- caliber team instead of an F. Men's soccer has lost double-digit games the previous two seasons, and women's soccer has lost 22 consecutive games.

[Seatfiller]

^^^ Did you factor in that E&H is leaving for D2?

You're right I forgot. Still crazy to me that E and H is going D2. Odac semifinals are today with Randolph Macon playing at Roanoke and Lynchburg at Ferrum. Roanoke is going to need a lot of things to take place to have a shot at beating Randolph Macon. If they can keep Randolph Macon off of the offensive boards it could be a close game, but I'm thinking it will be a 10 point RMC final.

I also just looked at the schedule and Emory and Henry is playing Warren Wilson today. It's interesting they're still allowing teams to play games even though they already lost in the conference tourney. I can't remember a D3 team doing that before.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

^^^ Did you factor in that E&H is leaving for D2?

You're right I forgot. Still crazy to me that E and H is going D2. Odac semifinals are today with Randolph Macon playing at Roanoke and Lynchburg at Ferrum. Roanoke is going to need a lot of things to take place to have a shot at beating Randolph Macon. If they can keep Randolph Macon off of the offensive boards it could be a close game, but I'm thinking it will be a 10 point RMC final.

I also just looked at the schedule and Emory and Henry is playing Warren Wilson today. It's interesting they're still allowing teams to play games even though they already lost in the conference tourney. I can't remember a D3 team doing that before.

Normally the NCAA doesn't allow it, but with the flexible schedule this year, if they have contact days and games remaining, they can play and practice right up to the end of the academic year.

[thescottharris]

Ferrum was up 8 with about 2:20 left in regulation and ended up losing in OT. TC Thacker with 23 points and 26 rebounds, breaking the ODAC record for single-game rebounds. Second chance points was the big difference, Lynchburg led 23-6 in that stat, largely because of Thacker as he scored or got the offensive rebound that led to a score for 18 of those 23 points. That guy is just a ridiculously dominant rebounder, fewest boards he's had in a game this year was 12 in his first game back from having COVID., also has games of 18 and 19 rebounds this year.

Now Lynchburg will be hosting both the men's and women's ODAC title games. Will be interesting to see if they will host both on Thursday or not, schools have the option to play them on different days.

[y_jack_lok]

R-MC survives at Roanoke. The Jackets had an 11 point lead with about a minute left but didn't handle the Roanoke press on the inbounds very well. Definitely the most challenged the Jackets have been in 10 games.

[thescottharris]

R-MC survives at Roanoke. The Jackets had an 11 point lead with about a minute left but didn't handle the Roanoke press on the inbounds very well. Definitely the most challenged the Jackets have been in 10 games.

Macon barely beat Ferrum, only led by 1 with 32 seconds to play and never led by more than five in the final 10 minutes of the game. Actually trailed for several minutes over the last 10 minutes.

[y_jack_lok]

^^^ Oops, forgot about that game.

[Seatfiller]

R-MC survives at Roanoke. The Jackets had an 11 point lead with about a minute left but didn't handle the Roanoke press on the inbounds very well. Definitely the most challenged the Jackets have been in 10 games.

It was a great game, RMC like I've known all along is a legitimate national title contender team. It sucks for them that they don't get a chance to go for the D3 national championship as they would be my favorite to win it. I actually thought they had a good chance last year to win it.  Overall I'm not disappointed in RC, we played hard just couldn't hang with them.

In other news RMC won the odac championship last night 70-62.  Lynchburg fought hard and it was close until 10 minutes left in the second half.  RMC is just a well run team who doesn't seem to panic when the game is close.

[thescottharris]

R-MC probably should have won that game by double digits easily, but for some reason they went into their burn offense with 4-5 minutes left and it frankly produced horrific offense, allowing Lynchburg to gradually chip away at the lead. Went 1-6 with two turnovers before Lynchburg started fouling. If they had stuck with what had been working, that 12-point lead with 4:47 remaining probably ends up being extended to 20.

And the only make  in the final 4:47 was when Funderburg fell down on offense, didn't have time to get back on defense, and scored a wide open layup with no Lynchburg player past halfcourt after a teammate got a steal.

Ultimately, the terrible burn offense didn't matter as R-MC hung strong on defense and closed the game on the foul line as Lynchburg was forced to foul to extend the game.

Buzz Anthony took over in the second half after a largely nondescript first half, scoring, I believe, 16 of his 20 in the second half. That's why he's the best in the league.

Ian Robertson could have easily had 20, but he missed a few open threes. For some reason the Lynchburg players played him like he couldn't shoot when the coaches were screaming at them to stop leaving to over help and to stop doubling off him. If you had to pick ONE thing he could kill you with on offense, it's three pointers, and they kept giving him open looks. I don't think he attempted a single three pointer that you could say was ideally contested unless he happened to force one up at the end of the shot clock. Meanwhile, Lynchburg largely did a pretty decent job guarding everyone else beyond the arc.

[Macon]

RMC scheduled to play #2 Trine tomorrow in Ashland.  RMC is also trying to schedule other top ranked teams. maybe Yeshiva.

[Seatfiller]

RMC scheduled to play #2 Trine tomorrow in Ashland.  RMC is also trying to schedule other top ranked teams. maybe Yeshiva.

RMC beat Trine today 69-55. From the write up it seems like RMC was up double digits for most of the game. Like we've known all along, RMC is legit.

[Ryan Scott (Hoops Fan)]

There was a 12-0 RMC run midway through the first half, otherwise it was pretty even. RMC was the better team, for sure, but Trine earned a lot of respect and experience today.