NORFOLK — Like Grandma’s floor-model TV, an old car on a frigid morning or an arthritic marathoner, Old Dominion is becoming a safe bet to start slowly.
Increasingly for the Monarchs, it’s proving to be a problematic habit.
Alden Applewhite scored 17 points and Georgia Southern held off a late surge Saturday in a 93-86 Sun Belt Conference victory over schizophrenic ODU at Chartway Arena.
The Monarchs (4-12, 1-3 Sun Belt) lost their fourth straight. Georgia Southern (12-5, 4-0) got double figures from four players in its ninth consecutive win, taking advantage of yet another disastrous ODU start.
Before seven minutes had ticked off the clock, the Monarchs trailed 20-2 and had missed all eight of their field-goal attempts.
The Eagles led by as many as 23 early in the second half as ODU clawed back into it.
The Monarchs scored six straight points to close to within 85-80 with 1:04 to play, but Georgia Southern made quick work of ODU’s press for three easy buckets at the other end.
It was the third straight game in which the Monarchs fell behind early, fought back and came up short.
“Same old story,” second-year coach Mike Jones said. “You dig yourselves a hole and you fight your rear ends off to get back in the game and try to squeeze one and eke one out. But again, we just can’t continue to put ourselves in the hole we put ourselves in, and then rely on heroics to get back in it. So back to work we go.”
KC Shaw scored 23 points for ODU, which shot 39% from the field to the Eagles’ 47%. The Monarchs made 8 of 27 from 3-point range, including 2 of 12 in the flat first half.
Asked for a solution to the slow starts, ODU guard Robert Davis Jr. was blunt.
“Sacrifice. Sacrifice,” said Davis, who scored 15 points. “That’s it. It’s merely: What are you willing to give up for this team? That’s literally it.”
The Eagles took a 47-30 lead into halftime after closing the half with a 15-6 run.
ODU didn’t score a basket until Drew McKenna converted a three-point play with 13:02 left in the first half.
Shaw said the team’s top issue is discipline.
“Once we get that together,,” he said, “I feel like we’re going to be all right.”
The Monarchs open a four-game road swing beginning Thursday at Coastal Carolina. They’re not home again until Troy visits on Jan. 21.
Until then, Jones and his staff will keep trying to get 40 hard minutes out of a team that’s been good lately for about 33 of them.
“Something’s going to have to change, and I literally just told them in the locker room,” Jones said. “So back to the drawing board. What that is, we’ll figure that out by the time we tip it off in Conway, South Carolina, in a few days. But we cannot continue to just show up and just be like, ‘Hey, fellas, we need a better start,’ and hope that happens.”
David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com.
