KC Shaw and Jordan Battle combined for 50 points, but Old Dominion couldn’t climb all the way out of a 15-point hole in a 97-88 loss to Marshall on Tuesday night in Huntington, West Virginia.
Wyatt Fricks scored 28 points as the Thundering Herd (19-11, 11-6 Sun Belt) pulled into a three-way tie for first place in the conference standings heading into the final game of the regular season Friday. Appalachian State and Troy also are 11-6 in Sun Belt play.
Shaw scored 26 points and finished with seven rebounds, and Battle added 24 points, four assists and two steals. But ODU fell to 10-20 overall and 6-11 in the conference with its second consecutive loss.
Marshall shot a season-high 59.7% from the floor, and four Herd players scored at least 18 points.
“We played eight different defenses tonight, and not one of them was able to sustain,” ODU coach Mike Jones said. “We had two minutes here and two minutes there where we at least slowed them down, but it was not good enough.”
The Herd’s Jalen Speer finished with 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting, and Landen Joseph and Noah Otshudi each added 18 points.
ODU’s Caelum Swanton-Rodger had 17 points.
Virginia Wesleyan 71, Averett 65
Omari DeVeaux scored 30 points and grabbed seven rebounds and Amari Moorer added 16 points as the Marlins won an Old Dominion Athletic Conference quarterfinal on their home court against the seventh-seeded Cougars.
Deveaux made 9 of 19 shots, including 3 of 6 3-pointers, while VWU’s Paul Anderson finished with 11 points.
The No. 2 seed Marlins (19-7) play third-seeded Roanoke College at 7:30 p.m. Friday in a semifinal at Salem Civic Center.
No. 1 seed Randolph-Macon meets No. 4 Hampden-Sydney at 5 p.m. in the other semifinal.
https://www.pilotonline.com/2026/02/24/odu-falls-on-the-road-to-marshall-vwu-men-win-odac-opener/
