Drexel Dominates ODU (Recap of ODU - Drexel CAA Semifinal)

When Drexel stepped on the Richmond Coliseum court to face Old Dominion right before tipoff of the first CAA Semifinal, the Drexel Band played the theme from "Rocky".  Though they were the #1 seed in the CAA Tournament, Drexel was truly David.  Outside of their DACPack faithful, several fans behind their bench and a few fans left from the other former America East schools that were gone by Saturday night, the Dragons were clearly in the minority.  Richmond Coliseum was mostly a sea of fans from the three Virginia schools that made up the other three semifinalists.

Standing in the Dragons' way were the Monarchs, a team that had won the CAA championship the last two seasons.  Blaine Taylor and several of his veteran players; Kent Bazemore and Chris Cooper were eager to end the Dragons' eighteen game winning streak.  ODU had scored eighty eight points in their quarterfinal win over Delaware and barely lost at home by a point to Drexel at the end of the regular season.

One of the most wonderful things about the CAA Tournament is all the great pep bands.  Not only did Drexel shine with "Rocky" but ODU's band had a great version of Aha's "Take on Me".  However, the musical highlight of the day was hearing Chris "VCUPav" Crowley clear as day, belting out the national anthem in a beautiful, operatic voice.  Now I know where he got the horns he wears; it must have been a production at the New York Metropolitan Opera House.

When you have two of the better defensive teams in the CAA playing each other, chances are you're going to get a low scoring, physical slugfest.  Sure enough, neither team could score a basket in the first two and half minutes of the game.  It had all the makings of a "First to fifty wins" game, just like Drexel's win over UNCW the day before.

The Dragons broke through the scoreless drought with a 9-0 run. The Monarchs missed on their first six shot attempts as the shots that fell against the Blue Hens the day before were now hitting off the rims with clanks and thuds.  Two Chris Fouch three pointers extended Drexel's lead to 15-3.

ODU responded with a 7-0 run to cut the lead to 15-10 with a little less than seven minutes left in the half.  But the Monarchs missed their last four shots in the half, all three point attempts.  The Dragons would go into halftime up ten, 27-17.

Drexel only shot thirty three percent in the first half.  But they held ODU to twenty seven percent from the field, including two of nine from beyond the arc.  Bazemore, who lit up Delaware the day before for fifteen first half points, was held to four points, shooting one of six from the field.

Any hope that the Monarchs' fans had for a comeback quickly evaporated in the first four minutes of the second half.  The Dragons outscored the Monarchs 14-8 to build their lead to sixteen, 41-25.  During this span, Frantz Massenat, Drexel's star sophomore point guard, buried a three pointer and then later would hit three free throws after being fouled by Bazemore.  In that span of four minutes, Bazemore committed two turnovers and picked up three quick fouls, as he seemed completely thrown off by Massenat on both sides of the court.

ODU never really threatened again, though they cut the lead in half, 46-38, with Cooper scoring on a three point play.  But in the span of ninety seconds, Drexel had the lead back up to fifteen, 55-40, after Damion Lee hit his own three point play. From there, the Monarchs never got closer than ten points.  The Dragons, the best three point defensive team in the CAA held the Monarchs to one of nine shooting from beyond the arc in the second half.

Drexel extended the lead to as much as nineteen before settling for a very convincing 68-51 win over ODU in a front of a very hostile crowd. How convincing was it?  The team that had played #1 Kentucky tough before losing by ten and the team that battled #5 Missouri at home before losing by seven had been drubbed by seventeen points.  It was the largest margin of loss for the Monarchs this season.

The Dragons had four scorers in double figures as Massenat had twenty points, Lee added seventeen, Fouch had sixteen points and Givens had twelve points to go with twelve rebounds. Drexel shot forty eight percent from the field in the second half and thirteen of sixteen from the line.  Massenat made nine of ten free throws from the line.

Bazemore and Cooper were the only ODU players in double figures, as each scored twelve points. Bazemore was six of twenty from the field, including missing all five of his three point attempts.  Drexel Head Coach Bruiser Flint noted in his post game news conference that his players "stepped out a lot harder" on Bazemore in this game than they did in the regular season finale.  In that regular season finale, Bazemore had scored thirty seven points.

In his post game news conference, Taylor was thoroughly convinced that Drexel was a NCAA Tournament team.  He mentioned how his team played tough against Kentucky and Missouri. Then Taylor stated that "I really think for instance a Drexel-Missouri matchup would be a very entertaining game and I give Drexel every opportunity to have success in that game."

I had seen both the ODU-Kentucky and ODU-Missouri games on television.  Drexel's performance against Old Dominion was as good or even better than Kentucky's and Missouri's performances.   I hadn't seen a Blaine Taylor team dominated like that in a very long time. The Dragons gave the Monarchs their worst loss in the CAA tournament since 2004 (VCU also defeated them in the CAA Semifinals by seventeen points). Taylor was right. Drexel deserved to be in the NCAA Tournament.

Unfortunately for Taylor and Drexel, a week later the NCAA Committee wrongly thought otherwise.

Giant Bazemore (Recap of Delaware - ODU CAA Quarterfinal)

In November 2010, I wrote an article for my web site on Old Dominion called "The Ground and Pound of College Basketball".  In that article, I talked about how Coach Blaine Taylor has a "philosophy of inside play, suffocating defense and depth that grinds opponents down".  The Monarchs are a team that usually has a nine-ten man rotation that wears opponents down over the span of forty minutes.  The games are generally low scoring, as Old Dominion has been one of the better scoring defensive teams in the CAA the past several seasons.

So when fourth seeded ODU took on fifth seeded Delaware in the second game of the afternoon quarterfinal session, most people expected a repeat of the first quarterfinal game between UNCW and Drexel, won by the Dragons 59-47.  Everyone that covers CAA basketball (otherwise known as #CAAHoops on Twitter) figured on a low scoring, physical affair.  What we all got was completely different.

In one of the funnier moments of the tournament, the Delaware pep band was playing Led Zeppelin's "Immigrant Song" when the Blue Hens came out onto the court.  After a few seconds, the band changed to the Delaware fight song.  But the Immigrant Song sounded more ominous, so they should have stuck with it.

Unfortunately, there was no one in the Delaware student section to see it, outside of the Delaware cheerleaders, dance team and mascot.  It was incredibly disappointing to see, considering the Blue Hens had went 12-6 in conference during the season.  Since the entire starting five is back next season and as Defiantly Dutch notes "the band does killer versions of Foo Fighters' songs", one can hope that there will be a lot better student section attendance at next year's CAA Tournament.

The Old Dominion student section fans made up for the Delaware Student section fans.  First, they started a huge ODU chant three minutes before tip off.  But the creme de la creme was a giant Kent Bazemore cardboard cutout that spanned half the student section.  "Giant Bazemore" feature Kent with his two long arms and in each hand, he was palming a basketball.  It was really cool to see in person.

The first twelve minutes would be very entertaining. The Monarchs quickly went out to a 5-0 lead. But just as quickly, their starting forward Chris Cooper picked up two fouls as well. The Blue Hens responded with an 8-2 spurt to take an 8-7 lead.  Nick Wright hit a three point play to put the Monarchs back up 10-8.  Delaware's  Jamelle Hagins tied the score at ten. But ODU regained the lead 12-10 on a Donte Hill layup. The Monarchs would hold the lead, up 29-24 with just eight minutes left in the half.

Amazingly, the last eight minutes of the half would be even more exciting than the first twelve minutes.  The Blue Hens scored the next six points, including a three by Kyle Anderson, to take a 30-29 lead.  But after Chris Cooper hit one of two free throws, "Regular Size Bazemore" nailed a three pointer to put the Monarchs back up 33-30.

This would become a common theme as Delaware would tie, take the lead, only to see ODU tie and take the lead.  There were seven ties and ten lead changes in the first half.  The Monarchs would finally score eight of the last ten poinfs of the half as "Regular Size Bazemore" buried a three pointer from long beyond NBA range, then hit an old fashioned three pointer to put ODU up 47-42 at the half.

It was the most exciting first half of the tournament.  Three Monarchs were already in double figures in scoring at the half. Bazemore scored fifteen first half points.  Devon Saddler led Delaware with eleven points.  ODU was six of ten from beyond the arc while Delaware was four of eleven.  The other stats were pretty similar.   The question was, could both teams keep up this frenetic pace for another twenty minutes.

It turned out one of the two teams could.  The Monarchs picked up right where they left off as they hit five of their first six shots. Bazemore buried another three pointer in the 13-4 run that put ODU up 60-46 with fourteen minutes left in the game. All that Delaware could do during that time was for the Blue Hen mascot to put a box on his head.  They didn't have anything to compare with "Giant Bazemore" or "Regular Size Bazemore" for that matter.  The best they could do was the pep band playing the "Sanford and Son" theme song, which was quite good.

Much to their credit, the Blue Hens didn't give up.  They shot forty seven percent from the field in the second half.  Saddler scored another twelve points on five of seven shooting.  But he also committed five second half turnovers.  That helped to lead to ten points off turnovers for the Monarchs.

Despite their pep band trying to rally the team to the theme song of the "Underdog" TV show, the problem for Delaware was that as well as they shot the ball, ODU was even shooting the ball better in the second half. The Monarchs shot forty eight percent in the second half.  Cooper had twelve second half points while "Regular Size Bazemore" had nine points.   Old Dominion would go onto win the game 88-74.

The eighty eight points was their highest output since they scored nine eight points vs. Longwood in November of 2009. "Regular Size Bazemore" nearly had a double double with twenty four points and nine rebounds.  He also added four assists.  Bazemore was one of five Monarchs in double figures in scoring.

After the game, ODU coach Blaine Taylor was asked if he was concerned that his team could play at that pace.  He responded that he "actually wanted to play faster", which stunned the media in the conference room.  Most of us were used to seeing the "Ground and Pound" Monarchs.

Perhaps it was "Giant Bazemore" that inspired Taylor to have his team play that way.  It certainly worked for "Regular Size Bazemore".  He certainly played like a giant in this game.