Old Dominion rebounds to take 75-59 victory over Tennessee Tech in Vegas 16 opener

Old Dominion coach Jeff Jones grabbed a stat sheet as he walked into the locker room at halftime with his team leading by two in the first game of the inaugural Vegas 16 Tournament at Mandalay Bay Events Center on Monday.

His eyes were immediately drawn to one column on the page.

“The stat that jumped out at me at halftime was that they had a (rebounding) advantage. That doesn’t happen to us very often,” he said after his team pulled away for a 75-59 victory over Tennessee Tech. “We pointed that out and in the second half I thought we played a lot tougher.”

The Monarchs, who ranked No. 29 in the nation with a plus-6.2 rebounding margin, played more like themselves in the final 20 minutes.

Old Dominion (23-13) out-rebounded the Golden Eagles 22-10 after halftime and went on a 25-5 run to advance to Tuesday’s semifinals.

“The real key was getting to all the 50/50 balls and that enabled us to get off on that spurt,” Jones said.

Trey Freeman had 18 points and backcourt mate Aaron Bacote added 16 for the Monarchs.

Old Dominion’s leading rebounder Brandan Stith, who was limited to 10 minutes in the first half due to foul trouble, finished with eight points and seven rebounds.

“My team did a pretty good job without me. I was just fortunate enough to get to come back in the second half and help them out,” he said after grabbing six rebounds after the break. “It was just team basketball. We had all five guys playing defense and all five guys really working together on offense. When everybody is working towards a common goal like that, the game becomes easy.”

The Monarchs jumped out to a big lead in the first half too, only to surrender most of it before halftime. Old Dominion led 19-7 when Freeman hit a jump shot from just outside the lane with 11:13 to play in the first half.

Tennessee Tech (19-12) rallied to tie the score 30-30 before Bacote hit a pair of free throws with less than a second remaining.

There was no such rally in the second half.

“In the second half, we just ran out of juice. We didn’t get to the ball, we didn’t rebound the ball and they went after it harder,” Golden Eagles coach Steve Payne said. “We’ve struggled to rebound the ball. In the second half, those dudes went after the ball hard and we did not respond the way we had to if we wanted to win the game.”

Torrance Rowe had 22 points to lead Tennessee Tech. Ryan Martin had 11 points and 11 rebounds.

Before Monday’s win, the last time the Monarchs had taken the floor was when they fell one possession short of making the NCAA Tournament in a loss to Middle Tennessee in the Conference USA championship game.

Now, with a win under their belts in Las Vegas, Jones feels his team can put the disappointment in the past and focus on winning a title.

“I think what it does is makes them a little hungrier,” he said. “You can say, ‘OK, we won one. Let’s win another one and see if we can play for a championship.”

Old Dominion will play the winner of Monday’s second quarterfinal between Northern Illinois and UCSB at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

Contact reporter Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5509. Follow him on Twitter: @adamhilllvrj