Was at the game. Will say that very early on, there seemed to be a lot of "jawing"/conversation between one ref, had a bald spot in back of his head, and MU bench/coaches, particularly DD. Jeff Jones of ODU is a VETERAN coach at pretty high D1 level schools with nearly 500 wins. Team is well coached, especially defensively, and plays a tight man to man.
Offensively, they set a lot of picks and had very athletic "bigs", around 6'7" or so, who move well. However, looked like they use the forearm a lot to ward off a defender or to initiate contact on a drive. Often, such contact resulted on a call against MU, and Danny D. was on the floor a lot and the Herd got the game's only Technical.
Could be that refs, particularly the one I noted, sensed MU was having trouble out of the gate offensively with ODU's physical D, and with Danny's "frustration" and the jawing from the bench, that the game could become too physical, and tried to "take control" with their whistles. I note that MU got hit with some calls on screens, picks, etc., and that one of the bigs for ODU seemed to not always be set when setting a pick on the offensive end. Don't believe we'll see too many Ds as tough in other conference games, or until we return game in Norfolk later this season.
Final note, ODU's talent that did MOST of their scoring last night consisted of sophomores, BJ Stith, Caver, Talley and Porter, who is 6'10", and the older Stith who is a tough rebounder, and sprained his ankle near end of first half, is a junior. ODU will be a tough foe for the next couple of years, folks, so it was great to get a tough win!!!