By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
With 8½ minutes remaining in a most unusual season opener, William & Mary had fallen behind by 15 points. Missing a potential starter and with four freshmen logging significant minutes in their debuts, the Tribe might have been on its way to a blowout loss.
 
Instead, W&M charged back and cut Old Dominion's lead to six points. The Monarchs ended up holding on for an 86-78 win Saturday night at Chartway Arena, but this newly formed team showed its head coach something.
 
"I love the way we competed tonight," Dane Fischer said. "In the huddles, they were rallying together and saying, 'We can do this. We just have to keep fighting.' I thought we had some great leadership from a number of guys, including some of our young guys, which was really encouraging to see.
 
"We just needed to get a basket and string together a couple of stops, and we were able to do that. Unfortunately, it wasn't quite enough down the stretch to get the win, but I was pleased with the resilience we showed."
 
William & Mary did some nice things, especially on the offensive end where it shot 51 percent from the field and 12-of-24 from the 3-point arc. Freshman Connor Kochera finished with a team-best 19 points, the most by a Tribe rookie in his first game since Edwin Ofori Attah scored 22 in 2004.
 
Luke Loewe, the team's only scholarship senior, had 16 points and a career-high 10 assists. Freshman guard Yuri Covington scored 13 points and went 7-of-8 from the free throw line. Junior Mehkel Harvey finished with eight points, his most against a Division I opponent, seven rebound and three blocked shots.
 
What hurt was turnovers. The Tribe had 15, and ODU (1-1) turned them into 29 points. The Monarchs scored 86 points, their most since the 2017-18 season, and shot 51 percent from the field.
 
Senior Malik Curry and fourth-year junior A.J. Oliver combined for 43 points on 16-of-40 shooting for the Monarchs.
 
"We really struggled with transition defense and turnovers," Fischer said. "That was really the story of our game. They had 29 points off our turnovers and 19 fast-break points. It's hard to beat a really good team when you have those kinds of numbers."
 
W&M led 17-10 nine minutes into the game, but two stretches proved costly.
 
The first came in the final three minutes of the first half. It was a 30-30 game at the time, but the Monarchs closed with a 9-2 run with Curry scoring at the buzzer.
 
The Tribe came back, and a Kochera 3-pointer from the wing cut ODU's lead to 45-44 with 16:01 remaining. But over the next 7½ minutes, the Monarchs outscored W&M 24-10. ODU's lead was 69-54 with 8:38 remaining.
 
Yet Fischer saw plenty he liked. The most obvious was Kochera, a 6-foot-5 freshman from suburban Chicago, knocked down 6-of-7 shots from the 3-point arc — 5-of-5 in the second half.
 
"Connor was terrific tonight," Fischer said. "He and Luke have probably been our most consistent players in practice this preseason. Everyone will look at the box score and see the numbers, and they were obviously very impressive, but his leadership on the floor was incredible.
 
"He's wise beyond his years in terms of basketball IQ. It was a heck of a debut for him."
 
Covington was only 3-of-11 from the field and had four turnovers, but he was aggressive in attacking the rim and finished with 13 points in 30 minutes.
 
"Yuri got to the rim a couple of times and missed some I think he's going to make as the season goes on," Fischer said. "He's really hard to keep out of the paint, and we saw that on a number of occasions."
 
As season openers go, this was most unusual. Per Gov. Ralph Northam's restrictions, only 250 people, teams and game staff included, were allowed in Chartway Arena.
 
"Just the fact we've been able to get here with all that's going on is pretty impressive," Fischer said. "It's a credit to all the medical teams that have come together to figure out the best way we can do this.
 
"I know for our guys this has been a really long preseason, but it's great to be out there competing. It's certainly a different environment with very few fans, but once the ball tips, everybody had the same mentality."
 
NOTES: Guard Thornton Scott was unable to play Saturday night because of an injury. Fischer said he is "day to day." … Junior Quinn Blair pulled down a career-high 10 rebounds and just missed a double-double with nine points … Connor Kochera's six 3-pointers tied the W&M school record for treys in a season opener. Scott did it last season at Hight Point and Marcus Thornton '15 did it in 2012 … W&M started three freshmen for just the nine time in the last 914 games (since 1989-90) … After playing its opener a few days later most, W&M will have a quick turnaround going into Monday night's game at N.C. State. The Wolfpack is 2-0 after wins over Charleston Southern and North Florida.