Monarch Nation, we’re back with another episode of The Monarchists Basketball Show featuring Old Dominion Head Coach Mike Jones!

In this candid and wide-ranging conversation, Coach Jones opens up about the team’s growth since the early-season road trip — and the fellas don’t hold back. We ask Coach some tough, honest questions about the struggles, lapses, and inconsistencies the Monarchs have shown so far this season, including what’s behind the offensive stagnation, defensive breakdowns, and difficulty maintaining momentum on the road.

Coach breaks down the lessons learned from four challenging road losses (Miami (OH), George Washington, Xavier, Drexel) and the positives gained from strong home performances against Randolph, Norfolk State, and Morgan State. He also explains how he’s balancing a roster full of former “go-to guys,” the importance of trust, and why becoming a more connected team is the key to unlocking their true potential.

You’ll also get a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at ODU’s analytics system — from deflections to punctures to multi-side possessions — and how the coaching staff uses real-time data to guide decision-making.

The episode wraps with a preview of massive upcoming road matchups vs Villanova, William & Mary, Richmond, and George Mason… plus a powerful message to Monarch Nation about staying locked in as this team gears up for Sun Belt play.

Whether you’re looking for Xs and Os, honest discussions about growing pains, or pure ODU hoops passion… this episode delivers . . . despite problematic hotel internet towards the end.

Go Monarchs!

⏱️ Chapters

00:00 – Welcome to the Monarchists Basketball Show

00:32 – Coach Jones on Team Growth Since Miami (OH)

02:00 – Why Offense Sometimes Stalls & Breaking Old Habits

03:15 – Defensive Struggles: Technique, Trust & Fixing Blow-By Drives

05:20 – Inconsistency & Learning to Play Connected

07:10 – The Miami (OH) First Half & What “Good ODU Basketball” Looks Like

08:00 – Electric Atmosphere vs Norfolk State & Newcomer Reactions

09:00 – Home vs. Road: Fixing Runs & Stopping Momentum Swings

10:40 – Identifying a Leader When Things Go Wrong

11:00 – Zacch Wiggins’ Maturity & Freshman Impact

12:00 – Defensive Technique Deep Dive: Turning Hips vs Stepping Out

14:00 – What High School/AAU Doesn’t Always Teach Defensively

15:50 – Xavier Breakdown: Length, Matchups & Missed Responses

17:00 – Timeout Philosophy & Preparing for Sun Belt Crunch Time

19:00 – ODU’s Analytics System (Deflections, Punctures, Shot Clock Zones)

24:00 – Internet Chaos & Pepper the Dog’s Cameo

26:00 – Closing Thoughts from Mike & Aaron

28:20 – Final Message from Coach Jones

30:00 – Why Monarch Nation’s Support Matters

The following presentation is brought to you by the pride of ODU, the official

NIL collective of Old Dominion Athletics.

Be a Monarchist.

Join The Pride.

Monarch Nation, welcome back to the Monarchists Basketball Show.

As always, my partner in crime, Mike and Coach Mike Jones.

Welcome to show Mike and Mike.

Hah, great to have you, Aaron.

Appreciate you having me.

Absolutely.

Hey, it's, it's been a while.

I think the last time we talked it was before the road game at Miami of Ohio.

A lot of stuff has happened since then.

How would you describe the team's growth from the start

of the season until right now?

Definitely work in progress.

We, um, have had some flashes of what we could be.

Um, we've had some bad times where we know we've gotta get better.

But definitely, uh, moving forward and we, today after seven

games are better than we were.

When we got to Miami of Ohio and again, just everything we're doing,

the schedule we have, the progress we're making is all like we we're,

we're getting ready and gearing up for one hell of a Sun Belt season.

We're, I wouldn't say on schedule or anything like that, but we are

definitely moving in the right direction.

Alright, so coach, uh, obviously you talked about

this being a work in progress.

Let's talk about, um, couple areas of concern that from some fans.

Yep.

Uh, get this out of the way early.

So when we see this team working offensively, they're moving the

ball well, making the extra pass.

We have at times seen this team press and it seems to, when things

get tough, they kind of revert back to a lot one-on-one basketball.

How is that I guess what would be the cause of that you think, and

what's the fix moving forward?

Yeah, I, again, we I think you have to remember that bringing a new group

of young men together, especially ones with the resume and the, the

careers that these guys have had, KC Shaw was the go-to guy and the fixer.

At Maryland, Eastern Shore and at Winston-Salem.

His last two stops, LJ Thomas was the fixer in the leading score at Austin Peay.

uh, Jordan Battle was one of the fixers in the leading score at Coastal.

Rob was one of our fixers last year and one of our leading scores.

And when you put a group like that together, when things go wrong, they're

used to being the ones to fix it.

So when we do get in a rut or we do get in a hole, all four of these guys are used

to being the guy that their numbers called to, to, to get their team out of it.

So, you know, you would hope as we progress through this, that we learn and

we are, we're able to trust one another.

Talking to them they.

Feel it too.

Like they understand kind of what I'm explaining right now.

And I it is just something that we have to continue to work on and continue to

get comfortable with one another and continue to, to truly trust one another.

And I think that's the biggest thing right now.

For me to trust them, them to trust me, but most importantly

for them to trust one another.

Alright.

And then the second, uh, biggest concern I would say is defensively.

Yeah.

We see it a lot in man, where someone just gets blown by

like easy path to the bucket.

Uh, what do you think is the biggest cause of this and how

do we fix it moving forward?

Well, I think we've gotten better,

The Miami of Ohio, you know, even the Norfolk State game where

our defense was pretty good.

Like, you know, what we've been able to do is in terms of preparing and

this is what the other team runs and this is what they're looking to do.

And literally it's just coming down to, one-on-one.

And, for us to truly embrace.

I have to stop my man.

It's, some of it is a technique thing, you know, if somebody's driving at me and

I just open my hips and try to like, push 'em on one side versus really just saying,

no, I'm not gonna let you get by me.

Um, and it is, you know, drills we've been doing every day and

there has been improvement.

Obviously, you know, our game against, excuse me, our game

against GW and our game at Xavier.

Uh, both of those were, it's just glaring.

How much we need to improve at those.

And then since then, you know, there's been incremental improvements, but

still nowhere near where we need to be.

And it, and, it's something we need to continue to work on.

You know, we played, uh, uh, at Drexel yesterday and.

It was much better.

It was much better.

You know, we, we probably got beat, you know, burned late in the game by

them making a couple of timely threes.

Um, but it wasn't them getting in, uh, getting to the rim, which,

again shows the improvement 'cause they're a team that does a really

good job at attacking the basket.

Yeah, you hit , that nail right on the head.

I think five of us got to watch that game 'cause it was on Flo Sports.

But, uh, yeah, a hundred percent coach.

Going back to what, you know, Mike was talking about when the ball is moving

and it's this really beautiful, but then sometimes it really bogs down.

Something that, uh, you know, a lot of fans have discussed is, you know,

we can go on these runs where we're super competitive and things just look

beautiful, but then it may come out in the second half and it's like a, a

switch kind of turned off, just kind of a inconsistent from large chunks of time.

Now that being said, I mean, you play it against a five and oh,

Miami of Ohio team a six and one George Washington team who's.

Much better than I think most people realize.

So you played some really good teams, but how do we move from being

such an inconsistent team on kind of both ends of the spectrum to, to

something that's, more even keeled?

Yeah.

100% everything you just said is extremely accurate.

I think the biggest thing for us is the time that it takes to just get

on the same page and truly flow.

For 40 minutes.

We've all seen it like, the first half at Miami, the, I won't even say the

first 15 minutes at Miami, it was just like, this is what we've been doing.

This ball has been moving, the popping, he's open, he's gonna shoot, I'm

gonna drive and then kick it out.

I'm gonna drive it and dump it off.

And, Cael's gonna set this screen and we're gonna really read, you know, are

they tagging, are they not tagging?

There's just so many aspects that.

At times we're really good at.

And then there's the times when, you know what, I haven't shot the

ball in four minutes, so like next time I get it, I gotta get one off.

And and again, I'm not, no one on our team is selfish, but there

are guys on our team that are used to doing things a certain way.

And we had Costa Rica, three games, you know, we've had the preseason,

we've had the fall, we've had, you know, the first seven games.

There's still no it takes time and I get incredibly frustrated too because I

know what it's supposed to look like and I've seen it so it, it is frustrating

and I get that, but it, it takes time.

And again, we are, we're working towards it.

It, it's just gonna take, it's gonna take some time.

All right, so let's talk about something positive.

None of that was negative.

A progress is positive.

Well, well, I, I, I just wanna talk about this, uh, the Norfolk State game.

That was the best environment we've had in a while at Chartway.

Fantastic game by both teams, but environment, getting the team

getting to play in front of that.

Um, what were the reaction from the new guys like?

I imagine some of them have never played in a game like that with that Yeah.

With a fan base like that.

Yeah.

They were all like, again, that's what, you know, we hope to one

day soon be able to do that.

And obviously they know that our performance on the

court impacts that a lot.

But that, that is something that can be very addictive in terms of

like, you know, I want to play.

In that environment and to a player, like just the excitement of that and

in the locker room and even the next day as we were preparing to flip

the page and get ready for GW, like it was just a, it was intoxicating.

That is, that was a great environment and we want that.

We want, to have home games on our schedule.

Each and every year that will bring that type of environment, you know, next year.

Richmond coming down, I hope produces something very similar to that as

we try to, get more and more of our schedule done for the coming years.

Like, we, we want more nights.

Like, like that was, that was amazing.

All right.

So 3-0 at home, 0-4 on the road.

Across those four road losses is there something that shows up on film or

something that you've seen during the games that kind of, you're emphasizing

it's an area of focus for the team that you've been able to pick through?

Yeah, for sure.

Like when things go bad, like we gotta stop the bleeding better.

And again, that comes to.

Who steps up when things start to go a little left, who's going to stop the run?

And for us to understand it's not just offensively stopping the run, it's,

you can stop a run defensively as well.

If you can get a couple stops in a row and, you know, maybe the offense isn't

going or maybe just a shot didn't fall, or maybe I got fouled and, you know,

maybe we didn't make our free throws, but we can still go down and get a stop.

And I think just us continuing to emphasize.

Every single possession matters.

The momentum in co in college basketball is an amazing thing.

You score a couple baskets in a row and get a couple stops.

You're on top of the world.

You don't score a couple baskets in a row or on a couple of possessions

in a row, and the other team does.

It's not the end of the world like, but the, the, as soon as you

can, you, you, you stop that run.

You, you, you get something going in your favor.

And for us to just embrace that together and collectively, um, the

word we've been using lately and for the last couple weeks has been just,

we need to be much more connected.

We need to be able to trust what one another's doing, when they're

gonna do it, how they're gonna do it, and then how I'm to play off of it.

And again, it's just things that we're working on trying to get better at.

Alright, so we have a lot of new guys on this team, but there's a couple guys

that have surprised me with how they've been able to impact the game early on.

One of them is a true freshman Zacch Wiggins.

Um, if you told me he was a fifth year senior, I'd believe you.

Because he makes some veteran plays out there and the team usually looks great.

What?

I don't know.

He is just, he is been awesome.

Talk to us about Zacch a little bit.

Yeah, he's, I mean, he's, he's everything we thought it would be.

I mean, you can even count him in those, I mean, he's shoot AAU and high school.

He's used to being the man and when things go wrong, he's the one that fixes it.

So you can add him to that list we were talking about earlier, but what the.

I won't say I'm surprised by anything he's doing.

This is who we recruited him to be.

You know, he is someone who is a very cerebral player.

He's still adjusting as a freshman to the physicality of college basketball.

But if you just talk about talent and just the mind to be able to play, he has it.

Um, and as he gets stronger, and again, just embraces the physicality,

like, I mean, he's as good as it gets.

And then we're lucky to have him.

He represents what we wanna recruit.

I can endorse that for sure.

All right.

On the defensive side, where have you seen the most progress and

what still needs to be sharpened?

Uh, again, it's, it's, it's that one-on-one technique of if Aaron,

if you have the ball and I'm in front of you and you try to

drive my left shoulder for me to.

Step out to stop you instead of turning my hips to stop you.

And that's a huge thing.

I think some of our guys, again, just that just, I don't seem to make, its, I

don't want to make it seem like it's this simple, but sometimes it is this simple.

Again, you're used to being the man you're used to, like your

team needs you on the floor.

You don't wanna foul because I come out of the game.

So when you drive at me, I gotta, like, I'm not trying to foul.

I'm gonna do my job, but I'm trying not to foul.

And in college basketball guys are just too fast, too strong and too

explosive and athletic to do that.

And again, I, we have to get, our guys just, I can trust this, first of all.

They're doing the same thing to us on the other end.

So the referees are gonna allow me to step to the side and chest this a little

bit more than just opening up my hips.

One.

And then two, let's say I do get in foul trouble.

Hey, there's somebody over there that can give us good minutes while I have to sit.

And that, that's a selfish thing, but not in the true sense of the word selfish.

I don't want to come out of the game.

I don't want to foul.

I don't want to be in foul trouble.

I want to play.

But so that we can win.

And just getting guys to truly understand, again, the physicality that, you know,

our league allows us to play with one, but with the schedule we're playing

the Big 10, the big east, the A 10 like those teams are the same way,

right?

So educate myself and the, and the fans a little more.

You're talking technique there of stepping out as opposed to just turn your body.

Is that something that's.

Maybe not taught as much at the high school and the AAU level and, and

you're having to try to develop that.

So I won't say that.

But I will say there's so many different techniques.

You know, you have some team that run a pack line defense.

You have some teams that running on middle defense.

You have some teams that are so used to switching everything

that, that becomes a non-issue.

But when teams just spread you out and be like, Hey, I'm, you got,

you gotta guard me one-on-one.

But you're so used to switching, the technique of it does become enhanced.

Like it becomes that much more important.

So, again, these are things that we're working on every single day.

Um, these are things that we are getting better at.

And again, I, again, for those that watched the game

yesterday, you would've seen.

Much better effort there.

And just a focus on it.

Like it, it can be frustrating that you're trying to do it one way and you

get beat and it's just like, ah, like our guys are truly embracing what it

is we're asking them to do, and we're still gonna have our growing pains,

but there is progress being made.

All right.

I want to go back to the Xavier game on offense, their wing length.

They were doing a great job of making themselves longer and

denying, uh, easy dump passes to the, into the, into the paint, yeah.

It seemed like maybe we, the best way to attack that would've been,

I mean, obviously just going at the bucket as the guards, but their

length was really impressive to me.

Like, I haven't seen a defense look that long in a while.

Uh, talk to us about how you think we should have attacked that or.

Yeah, if we'll see a team that long the rest of the season,

well

they, they, I mean, look at who they start.

They, they don't have a seven footer, but they've got, like, at any point in

time, they could literally have four guys on the court that are 6'7", 6'8", 6'9".

And again, that's not a complaint or anything like that.

It's just Yeah, there are gonna be, sometimes there are gonna be

teams that are gonna match you up.

We didn't answer the bell in terms of keeping them from getting

to the rim, so forget scoring.

For us, if we play better defense and we're more connected on the defensive

end, that's a totally different game.

The problem was when it went bad, we didn't respond and.

Yeah, that's the, the part that, like I, first of all, I take credit for everything

that goes wrong, but I mean, that's one of the things that I definitely like, we

have to be better at that because there are gonna be plenty of times in our season

that things just, they're not going right.

And for us to be able to fix it, um, in the moment is

gonna be incredibly important.

And I, we just did not do a very good job of that.

At Xavier.

So I'll ask a follow up to that.

When things are going bad, um, do you want them to figure it

out easily, like on their own?

Or is that a situation where you maybe call timeout?

Like,

so it's, it's the way I've always coached, I would prefer, and again the mindset

that we have, we got older players and older players that truly can, like,

we have to be able to massage this.

So that when we're at the eight minute mark and a tough Sun Belt game, that

is going to determine our playoff or tournament seating and we're gonna need

those timeouts at the end of the game.

Like for us to be able to do a little bit more things on the fly.

Like that is the mentality that we are coaching with right now,

that I am coaching with right now.

And I think that's incredibly important for people to understand.

Yes, I want to beat Xavier.

Yes, I want to beat gw, but there's a much bigger picture that everything

that we do is intentional and we're trying to prepare for what we're

going to need to be able to do.

Having a new point guard this year, you know, having LJ and LJ

and I communicate a lot and I'm on him and for him to truly embrace.

He and I being on the same accord, he and I being on the same page, is something

that he has truly embraced that is gonna pay dividends for us down the road.

I have no doubt about that.

That is going to pay huge dividends for us down the road.

Coach, I, I know that you and your staff pay a lot of attention to

particular metrics or statistical areas.

Mm-hmm.

Um.

Sometimes you reference you don't really say what they are,

but you reference them, but

mm-hmm.

I noticed the other night in the game kind of at a, the home game

at a critical point, you looked over to the bench, you yelled over

to Aiden at a computer on his lap.

So during the game, are you kind of, uh.

Is he watching Any particular metrics or, or, uh,

so a Aiden is, Aiden is our, first of all, he's our analytics guru.

So not during the games, but they, uh, non-game days one,

and then before and after games.

Like, I communicate with him a lot 'cause he gives me the data that I want to know.

Okay.

Um, but during the game, his laptop, like he's the challenge.

Okay.

You know, was the ball really out on us and things like that.

So, um, and again, just the whole coaches challenge thing.

So I'm, this is gonna be a longer answer.

So the whole coach coaches challenge thing is new and we've

spent all preseason trying to figure out what is our philosophy.

When it comes to that the referees want you to challenge their place, like 'cause

they want to get used to it as well.

But I think what we've kind of settled on that, if it's not crunch time, the

only way we challenge a play is if it's gonna take points off the board

or put points on the board, which is.

So rare.

So literally take points off the board.

So if there's a goal 10 or something like that, or if it's an out of bounds

or actually out of bounds won't, or if it's a charge, no charge, if it's going

to take points off the board, if it's a challenge of was it's foot on the line

on a three or a two before crunch time, I don't think you'll see us challenged

unless we are absolutely 100% sure.

The play will get reversed into our favor.

And then in crunch time it gets a little squirrely because most people don't

know, like there's like, you have to challenge like within a certain window.

So let's just say there was a media timeout and the play right

before the media is in question.

I would need to challenge it before both teams get to their bench and the referee

goes to the table and points and be like, all right, start the clock for the media.

Once that happens, I am no longer able to challenge the play.

And so

that's not much time at all.

Right?

So that could be 10 seconds.

Most refs will understand that this could be a challengable play, so they might

slow walk it a little bit to give you a chance, but they don't have to do that.

So there, there is a, a logic behind that.

So that's the first half.

The second half.

So Aiden though Aiden is not the one with the analytics and

the data and things like that.

We do have two, our two GA's and one of our managers that keeps

deflections, that keeps and apologize if this is all over the place.

So

this is perfect.

We, we measure no one side possessions.

Two side possessions, multiple side possessions.

And then within that we measure first 10 seconds of the shot clock,

middle 10 seconds of the shot clock, last 10 seconds of the shot clock.

So if you're ever at a home game, you'll see Zach Hendrick, one of our

GA's holding up a board that's like, looks like a big tic-tac toe thing.

And it's got first 10, middle 10, last 10, and then.

One side, two side, multi-side, and then numbers across, and then at the

bottom, deflections on one side, and then on the other side is punctures.

So how many times did we get the ball into the paint?

So all of these things as I'm sitting there.

So I'm sitting in my chair, facing our team in front of me, and then

standing right behind them, Zach is holding up that board so that hey.

We need to, like, we're, we're really good tonight.

We, we've had, 11 possessions where we've changed size of the floor

and we've scored on eight of them.

So like tonight is one of those nights other than transition,

where we really need to get the ball from one side to the other.

Hey, we're not doing a very good job when this team gets us into the

last 10 seconds of the shot clock.

We need to push the ball as quickly as we can and get in our stuff that's not

in transition to try to score quicker.

Because once they kind of get settled into their defense, they're really hard

to score against, like things like that.

And then deflections to me represent your effort and your focus and your energy.

And then punctures, we shoot a much better percentage from three when the

ball touches the paint first than we do when it doesn't touch the paint.

Um.

Unless again, it's in transition.

And you'll see us on the sideline a lot of times talking about that.

Um, yeah, that, that's some of it, you know, we, our goal every game,

like 10 and a half turnovers, like it's not it's not rocket science.

Like if we have 10

or 11.

Hey, Mike, you there?

He freeze up for you.

Aaron,

Yeah, he froze up probably about 25, 30.

Yeah, pepper.

Wanted to be on the show tonight.

so this is Pepper.

What's Pepper?

She can't hear you.

But that's Pepper.

Why can't me?

Oh, your headphones.

That's

right.

That's right.

But she's fitting right in with the other girl, so

She's a cutie.

Looks like a stuffed animal.

Be a weird way to end the show.

It would be it'd.

Hey guys.

Hey, we lost coach.

Yeah, some internet issues.

Hey, we might have to route them on this weekend against William Mary.

We hope to see you there.

Get to Richmond if you can.

Get to Mason if you can.

Yep.

Happy, happy Thanksgiving and uh, we'll be back soon.

You want him jump on his phone?

We can at least close it out.

Yeah.

So it'll come back into vertical.

Oh, I

, Did we, I think we lost him.

I think so.

Oh, let's, you gotta try to get 'em back.

We gotta close this thing out.

Yeah, we gotta close it out.

Hopefully we can talk to him and, uh, do that.

There he is.

So, I don't know, does this work?

It's perfect.

Welcome back, coach.

Perfect.

I don't know what the heck that was.

Oh know, that was the internet gods

We can go to the next question.

I think you kind of walked us through a lot of the, uh,

decision making that goes on with.

Challenges and how difficult it can be with the short time

to, to make those decisions.

But, uh, the next few games, you, you got Villanova women,

Mary, you got Richmond coming up.

What, I guess what would be your challenge to these, this team.

So what you wanna see outta their growth over the next few weeks?

He froze.

I think the Internet's not gonna work out tonight, the rest of the night, Mike.

If this is how it is, uh, we just gotta tell you fans, if you

have an opportunity to watch this team play Villanova tomorrow.

Tune in if you have a chance to get on the road and cheer this team on

at William & Mary Richmond, George Mason, please take that opportunity.

We've asked for these instate opponents.

Uh, this team needs you to get behind their back and root them on

because the more monarchs we have in the crowd, the better chance we

have at making them feel at home.

While they're on the road in these, uh, instate tough environments.

Yeah, a hundred percent.

You know, we have high expectations just like the rest of the fan base.

Coach Jones,

we got you back Coach?

I think the hotel internet is not wanting to play nicely tonight.

I.

Oh, he's FaceTiming us.

Can you put that up to the mic?

I don't know that it's gonna work.

All right.

Join.

Hey coach, can you hear us?

Yeah, I can.

Okay.

Can you hear this through the microphone, Mike?

This come through the microphone.

Oh,

okay.

I.

All right, coach.

Tell him, uh, what you wanna see on this team this next few weeks.

Say that again.

Tell fans what you wanna see out this team over the next few weeks.

Yeah.

Offense.

But again, I think the term connected is gonna be the improvement that

needs to be ends of the floor.

We can continue being unified when times get tough and unified.

We get things right.

Uh, you know, we, we're a talented team.

We're a talented bunch.

We're a group that wants win.

I'm discouraged.

You, I, you, I used the word embarrassed because of two of the results, but,

um, I'm not discouraged at all because I do know what this team capable of

and everything that we set out to do.

Uh, the cheer is still in front of us and that's having heck of Sun Belt season.

Well, y'all heard the man.

Despite internet connections, Elon Musk and starlink Hotel,

internet, whatever it is,

we finish this show just like this team is gonna finish this

road trip before they come home.

So tune in on tv, watch this team, and then when they get back to Virginia,

we expect to see you at George Mason at Richmond and at William.

And Mary.

Mike, you got any closing comments?

Which Mike?

either.

Mike,

again, I, I, I as always, like, you know, I, I know I know how passionate

our fan base is, and I know that you guys are, you're rooting for us.

Again, just, you know, as frustrated as you are.

Trust me, I, I don't think it even measures half of what I'm feeling.

And again, because I get to see these guys every day and I know how capable

we're and we're gonna keep plugging away.

And just ask for you guys.

Just continue support, stick with us.

I'm telling you, at the end of the day, this team is gonna be right there in

the mix, uh, in our conference, uh, with the chance to play and post-season play.

Just stick with us.

We've gotta stick together and we're asking you guys to stick with us.

You're the best fans anywhere and, and, and, and we're gonna make you

proud when it's all said and done.

Go Monarchs.

Hey, go Monarchs, coach.

Thanks again for joining us Root on this team.

Get to Mason, get to Richmond if you can.

Go Monarchs.

Go Monarchs.