Bazemore's return makes for merry ODU exhibition

NORFOLK

December came early for Kent Bazemore.

When Old Dominion's best basketball player had surgery in late July to repair a stress fracture in his left foot, the estimate was he would return in early December.

With 16:16 left in the first half of Friday night's 69-43 exhibition victory over Elizabeth City State, however, Bazemore checked into the game, immediately brightening the Monarchs' early- season prospects.

"Me and coach talked about it," Bazemore said. "There were a lot of people asking questions. We were getting tired of it. He asked me how I was feeling all week, and I felt good. He put me out there."

Bazemore, the Colonial Athletic Association's preseason Player of the Year, played just six minutes, all in the first half. He scored seven points on 3-of-5 shooting. He said he felt a step slow, as well as a little winded.

That's to be expected. Bazemore has been running only a few weeks, he said. He was cleared to play Wednesday when team doctor John Schaffer examined his X-rays and pronounced him good to go.

That gave coach Blaine Taylor an opportunity to get Bazemore some game action prior to next Saturday's season opener against Northern Iowa.

"We just felt, the consensus among us, is that he's ready to do stuff, but he's not ready to do all the stuff," Taylor said. "If we could get him a few minutes now, it would kind of get it out of the way for him and the fans and everybody, to just kind of get over the fact that Baze can probably run to the scorer's table and play some basketball."

Bazemore expects to play more minutes in the season opener. In his absence, several younger players have picked up some of the offensive slack. Redshirt freshman Dimitri Batten led ODU with 12 points after scoring 17 against Barton College on Tuesday night. True freshman Jason Pimentel had eight points and eight rebounds. Classmate Breon Key had nine points and two assists.

Old Dominion held Division II Elizabeth City to 27 percent shooting and grabbed 45 rebounds to the Vikings' 32.

"I thought we did a pretty good job contesting shots and being disciplined across the board," Taylor said.