By Chris Lang

Published: March 23, 2008

NORFOLK — Megan Frazee was sure she was fouled. She stood at the top of the key, fired a 3-pointer and fell backwards after getting hit by Old Dominion’s Megan Pym. No whistle. Play on.
Frazee got up and angrily glared at the officials, but it didn’t help. The moment was a microcosm of a frustrating game for the Big South’s player of the year. She finished with 19 points and eight rebounds in Liberty’s 82-62 loss to Old Dominion in the first round of the NCAA tournament Sunday night, but it didn’t come easy.
Not since battling North Carolina in December has Frazee faced a defender as tough as the 6-foot-4 Pym, who blocked seven shots. By the middle of the second half, Frazee was clearly frustrated. She missed 12 of her 18 field-goal attempts and scored nearly a third of her points at the free-throw line.
“I was just doing what I could out there,” Pym said. “Me and her are very similar as far as our games go. I don’t know their conference much, but we have good size on our team, and that probably frustrated her. That’s what we wanted to do. We wanted to get her out of her flow.
“She’s a great player, though. She still had 19 points and eight rebounds and we were trying to focus on her.”
In Big South play, Frazee rarely played against anyone as physical and athletic as Pym. Conference opponents rarely put their centers on Frazee, who spends much of her time playing on the wing, because they struggle to defend Frazee away from the basket.
ODU ran several defenders at Frazee, often double-teaming and trapping her.
“ODU has a pretty good stifling defense,” Frazee said. “I also felt that there was another person on me at times, whenever I would get by her.”
When the Monarchs made a 15-0 run midway through the first half to take command of the game, their defense on Frazee was nearly as important as their hot 3-point shooting. Frazee attempted just one shot during the run, and Pym swatted it right into the hands of teammate T.J. Jordan.
By the middle of the second half, the defensive pressure took its toll on Frazee.
“There was a time that I looked at Megan Frazee and I said to myself, she is absolutely gassed,” ODU coach Wendy Larry said. “She’s really gassed right now, and we need to push again.”
Frazee wasn’t the only one gassed by ODU’s depth. The Flames played without two starting forwards (Moriah Frazee and Rebecca Lightfoot) and guard Courtney Watkins missed much of the second half while battling what appeared to be a neck injury. No one on Liberty’s roster averaged more than 28.7 minutes per game, but four players — Megan and Molly Frazee, Allyson Fasnacht and Rachel McLeod — played at least 29 Sunday.
“I thought our depth eventually started to wear on them a little bit,” Larry said. “We were able to push another tempo. With Jasmine Parker and Shadasia Green and Jessica Canady coming off the bench and just running lanes, giving us that second wave, that second punch, that starts to wear people down.”