Scouting ODU
Posted by TTHS on January 22nd, 2007
The Tribe will be making the short trip to Norfolk Wednesday, to face one of the conferences top teams in the Old Dominion University Monarchs. ODU is 12-7, with big wins over Drexel and Georgetown, but at the moment is extremely cold. After a 7-point upset loss to then bottom-feeder JMU, the Monarch’s followed it up with another road loss against rival VCU. They are 5-3 in the CAA right now, but are definitely falling.
The Pomeroy report: KP’s RPI has them at 91, which is 4th in the CAA. They are 71 in the Pomeroy rating, 3rd in conference, and he gives them a far-too-high 93% chance of winning. Mike Greenfield is setting the spread at -10 from the Monarchs, and gives them an 85% chance of winning.
The first individual I’ll preview is Valdas Vasylius, a senior from Lithuania. Vasylius is the top scorer on the team, and one of the best in the league at 16.2 points per game. He is also the best on the team at rebounding, at 5.8 per, and is known as a very tough player. He is a very versatile player, and will be difficult to stop.
Drew Williamson is a senior point guard from Burlington, NC, and is the heart and soul of the team. Williamson, who has seemingly been there forever, is averaging 10.8 points per game. He is leading the team in steals, with an impressive 51, and also has a very nice 83-31 assist-turnover ratio. VCU did a solid job shutting him down, going 3-14 from the field.
Finally, Brandon Johnson is a junior guard from Orlando. Johnson is averaging 8.3 points per game, and does a very nice job complementing Williamson. Johnson really lit up VCU Saturday, scoring a team-high 20 points from the field, and another team-high with 4 steals. He missed a large chunck of last season due to being the victim of a shooting, but has recovered very well.
This is a very tough game to predict. The biggest question is whether ODU will come out firing and mad, and really take it to the Tribe, or if they’ll play like they did against JMU. The outcome of this game will be easy to determine about 5 minutes into the game, and here are my 2 predictions-
Mad ODU-80
W&M-68
Down ODU-68
W&M-72
GO TRIBE!