Group effort helping keep ODU basketball afloat so far

Follow the leader, but who is it?

Who's the heart of this formulating Old Dominion basketball team?

It isn't Kent Bazemore, the Monarchs' lone redshirt senior and the CAA's preseason pick for Player of the Year. Not hardly. Not yet. He's mending from a fractured left foot, fighting flu, battling brittle confidence.

"There's better times ahead for Kent, because he's a mere shadow of himself right now," coach Blaine Taylor said after ODU beat East Carolina 63-58 on Tuesday and improved to 4-3. "I think it speaks volumes that we were better in the game in many lineups when Kent wasn't out there, and that's sad to say."

Bazemore, who has made nearly half his shots the past two seasons, is shooting 30 percent. He leads the team in turnovers. "Going through my own dilemma," he called it. "It's something I'll get over."

He said senior guard Trian Iliadis has shouldered the yoke of leadership. "Trian's the one," Bazemore said.

But is it really top scorer Nick Wright, the redshirt junior from Suffolk who leads the league in slapping the floor before defensive sequences, trying to inspire teammates and rouse fans?

Wright said no, he takes his cues collectively from ODU's seniors - Bazemore, Iliadis, Chris Cooper and Marquel De Lancey. Redshirt freshman guard Dimitri Batten said he agrees, though Batten appeared every bit ODU's center Tuesday, collecting 18 points and nine rebounds and shying from no big moment.

The truth is the identity these new Monarchs seek - that reliability of departed stalwarts Frank Hassell, Ben Finney, Darius James and Keyon Carter that produced NCAA tournament teams the past two years - isn't bought, sold or forced.

Even a coach such as Taylor, with 360 victories in 18 college seasons, can't pull levers behind a curtain and produce mystical chemistry and command.

"We're kind of steady-as-she-goes," Taylor said. Intuitive, that is. Improvised, as need be. Tuesday gave an example: With the ball, protecting a two-point lead, Taylor called timeout with 35 seconds left. And then, sensing confusion, he called another 14 seconds later.

"I can't remember in all my years using two timeouts on one possession," Taylor said, "but we were in a position where we needed to get a shot and get our defense set.... I've used more timeouts with this team trying to make sure certain things are in place so we've got a chance after that."

You do what's needed along the arduous journey of a college basketball season. It worked to form: De Lancey scored on a layup and ODU prevailed in its last home game for three weeks.

It's illustrative in assessing where the Monarchs are and aren't in the early going, however, to know De Lancey's basket was his only one of the night. And that seven ODU players - only eight saw time - chipped in the final 21 points over nine minutes to hold off the Pirates.

Everybody grabbed an oar. That's encouraging for ODU as it forms its necessary core, even as two more sidelined players come on board by mid-December.

"I think over time, it'll come together with me being the leader," Bazemore said. "We're definitely looking for an identity. We're just trying to win at all costs right now."

Tom Robinson, (757) 446-2518, tom.robinson@pilotonline.com

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