NORFOLK, Va. — If championships were won through podcast interviews and post-game platitudes, Mike Jones would have a statue in front of Chartway Arena by now. Unfortunately for the ODU faithful, games are won on the hardwood, where the Monarchs currently look like a team stuck in neutral—if not reverse.
Following the latest home drubbing at the hands of App State, Coach Jones took to the Monarchist Basketball Show to offer what can only be described as a 44-minute seminar on why nothing is actually his fault.
For a guy whose team consistently shows up to games like they forgot there was a tip-off scheduled, Jones sure has a lot of "reasons."
The "Injury" Crutch
Let's start with the favorite go-to: the roster health. Jones lamented that the non-conference schedule was built for a "healthy roster" and that injuries to KC Shaw, LJ Thomas, and Robert Davis Jr. have "handcapped" the team.
Newsflash, Coach: This is Division I basketball. Every team has nicks, bruises, and missing pieces in December. Good coaches adjust. Great coaches thrive. Mike Jones? He schedules tough opponents and then acts surprised when his thin, unorganized roster gets bullied. If your entire system collapses because one or two players are at 80%, you don’t have a system—you have a hope and a prayer.
The "Epidemic" of Slow Starts
Perhaps the most infuriating part of the interview was Jones’s dismissal of the slow-start problem. He actually had the audacity to say that while last year was an "epidemic," this year isn't quite there yet.
Really? You just got punched in the mouth 17-0 by Maryland and followed it up by trailing 34-13 at home against App State. If that isn't an epidemic, I’d hate to see what a "mild cold" looks like in your book. Jones claims it’s a "focus" issue and that the team guards well on the first possession before the "real game starts."
Translation: "I can script one defensive stop, but after that, my guys have no idea what they're doing." That’s an indictment of coaching, plain and simple.
Blaming the Calendar
And then there was the segment on scheduling. Jones spent a significant amount of time complaining about playing JMU when students weren't on campus and having Senior Day on Valentine's Day.
Is the Sun Belt schedule weird? Sure. But do you know what fixes a bad schedule? Winning. When you’re 4-11 and sitting at the bottom of the conference, nobody wants to hear about the inequities of playing in Harrisonburg on a weekend vs. a weekday. We want to see a team that can complete a chest pass. We want to see a defense that doesn't surrender 46 points in the paint.
The "Have Faith" Plea
Jones closed by asking fans to "have some faith" and "stick with us." He promised that by the time they get to Pensacola, they’ll be fighting for a top seed.
We’ve heard this song before. It’s the same tune that was played last year as the program slid into irrelevance. At what point does "faith" become "delusion"?
The Monarchs are unprepared, uninspired, and—according to their own head coach—unlucky. But in the real world of Sun Belt basketball, luck is the residue of design. Right now, the only thing Mike Jones has designed is a roadmap to the bottom of the standings.
Everything we want is "still ahead of us," according to Coach. If "everything we want" includes another year of sub-.500 basketball and a coaching search in March, then he’s right on track.