NORFOLK, Va. — College basketball for Old Dominion University is about two weeks away, and the men's team is anxious to get it started. Pre-season reviews have the Monarchs finishing 5th in the Conference USA standings. Head coach, Jeff Jones who enters his 9th season at the school, feels projections like that during his time at American and now ODU are a bit deceiving. "Who knows?", he said during his pre-season press conference. "I think when you look at each year and the pre-season polls, we on a regular basis surpass whatever it was that they picked us."
Jones is hoping to see an improvement in shooting from the outside for his team. ODU was dead last in the conference from the 3-point line. They took a hit when guard and leading scorer, Malik Curry went the transfer portal route and will be at West Virginia. Among those returning is A.J. Oliver, who was third on the team in scoring along with North Carolina Central's, C.J. Keyser who was in the top five in scoring in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference.
Jones figures by combining them with the inside presence of Kalu Ezeikpe, who's a pre-season conference pick and Austin Trice, there will be a true sense of balanced scoring in the lineup. "I don't know if they'll average in double figures, but can have double figure games. High scoring games. I think that's a good thing as long as we can establish in tight games in big moments who it is that's going to be called upon to take the big shot."
The Monarchs open up the season Wednesday November 10th at 7pm when they host Virginia Wesleyan at Chartway Arena.