Old Dominion wins CAA tourney to clinch NCAA spot

RICHMOND

Gerald Lee stood amid a sea of Old Dominion fans, hoisting a Finnish flag. A few feet away, tears ran down the cheeks of fellow senior Marsharee Neely.

There were hugs and high fives all around as players coaches and fans mingled at halfcourt, celebrating the completion of a year-long goal, the Colonial Athletic Association tournament championship.

Picked to win the conference back in October, the Monarchs cut down the nets as regular-season champions last  month. On Monday night at the Richmond Coliseum, they cleaned up their last piece of conference business, holding off William and Mary 60-53.

With the win comes an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament. But this wasn’t about the bid, Lee said. The Monarchs, if bracketology pundits are to be believed, had already done enough to sew up an at-large invitation.

“We wanted to win this championship and we wanted those rings,” Lee said. “That’s been our goal all four years.”

 To get the title, the Monarchs (26-8) had to go through Towson, VCU and a William and Mary team that was chasing some history of its own.  They finished the job Monday by beating the Tribe at its own game, hitting 7 of 19  3-pointers against a packed-in William and Mary zone defense.

ODU also forced William and Mary into 39 percent shooting, building a 15-point lead early in the second half and then responding to every Tribe threat.

“To win both the league and the tournament is not easy,” ODU coach Blaine Taylor said. “Those other people want it as bad as you.”

William and Mary among them. The Tribe (22-10) had won close games all year, defying its 10th-place pre-season prediction and decades of basketball futility to come to the brink of its first  NCAA appearance.

A William and Mary win would have made national news, but the potential underdog feel-good story was pre-empted by the better team. The win was ODU’s third over the Tribe this season.

As in the first two, the Monarchs’ advantages in size and quickness played a big part. But with Lee and fellow big man Frank Hassell surrounded all night, ODU was forced to fire away from the perimeter more than usual.

“I figured we needed to make some jump shots,” Taylor said. “They were crowding around Gerald trying to turn him into corned beef hash.”

Darius James (12 points) hit the first one, a good omen for ODU. From then on, whenever the Monarchs needed one, someone responded, whether it was James, Ben Finney or Neely.

The Tribe had no answers, and 22 of its own 31 3-point attempts missed. Leading scorer David Schneider went 2 for 13. Only the shooting of Danny Sumner (19 points) and the Tribe’s physical inside defense kept things close late.

Still, Schneider called it a “truly magical” season for William and Mary, which now awaits a possible NIT bid.  Such a berth would be just the second postseason trip in school history.

William and Mary coach Tony Shaver said he’d never been prouder of a team in three decades  of coaching. “This team came within minutes of playing in the NCAA tournament,” he said.

ODU will be playing in its third in six years.

After the final horn sounded, Lee raised his arms at midcourt, where he was met by the first of several hundred fans.

Later, a pair of fans picked up the 6-foot-10, 250-pound Lee and held him above the throng, at least for a moment or two. “Football players, I think,” he said.

A fan handed Lee the flag of his native land. The quiet senior smiled as broadly as he has in his ODU career. Neely grinned, too, through the tears.

“Nothing to do but hug and cry,” he said. “Hug and cry.”

Ed Miller, (757) 446-2372, ed.miller@pilotonline.com