Men’s basketball (8-2) defeated the Old Dominion University Monarchs (4-6) 78-70 Saturday night.
Despite trailing 35-34 after the first half, the Revolutionaries used a dominant second half to score 44 points to return home with a win. This game marks the Revs’ first win on the road this season and GW’s first nonconference road win in exactly eight years.
Redshirt freshman guard Christian Jones led the Revs with 17 points off the bench, setting a new career high. Graduate student guard Gerald Drumgoole Jr. recorded 16 points and redshirt sophomore forward Darren Buchanan Jr. and graduate student forward Sean Hansen added 13 and 10, respectively.
As a team, the Revs recorded 34 points off the bench, with a majority coming from Jones and Hansen. Hansen led the team in rebounds with seven, but overall, the Revs were outrebounded 40-36 by the Monarchs.
The Revs trailed from the get-go, finding themselves down by as many as seven points at the 12:45 mark. But a Drumgoole layup would tie the game at 29-29 with 2:15 left in the first half, leading to GW taking a 1-point lead into the final seconds of the half before junior guard Devin Ceaser would drill both free throws with a second remaining to give the Monarchs the lead going into the break.
Drumgoole would immediately give the Revs the lead back at the 19:24 mark of the second half with a 3-pointer, but the Monarchs would recapture the lead at the 19:00 mark — with 18:07 marking the final time the Revs trailed in the game.
Tied 42-42, Jones would score the Revs’ next six straight points, culminating with a layup in the paint at the 13:52 mark. Hansen and Buchanan would continue to record points, increasing the lead to as many as 13 points when Buchanan slammed down a dunk.
Even as the Monarchs clawed back and were only trailing by 5 with 29 seconds remaining, Drumgoole drilled five free throws with less than a minute remaining to secure the victory. The Revs had a sizable free throw advantage, shooting 37 and connecting on 23 compared to the Monarchs’ 17 attempts and 12 makes. The Revs average 28 free throw attempts per game, good for the fifth-most in college basketball.
The team connected on seven of its 17 3-point attempts, good for a 41.2 shooting percentage and over 10 points better than their season average of 31 percent. This effort was led primarily by Drumgoole, who went 3-4 on the night. In the team’s previous game, a loss at American, they didn’t connect on a 3-pointer until the overtime period.
With the triumph, the Revs moved to 8-2 on the season. They will face off against Army West Point on Friday at 7 p.m. in the Smith Center.
