Good morning. And Happy Monday. We’ve got new faces joining men’s basketball, new accolades for tennis, and a big year ahead for the Monarchs—just keep scrolling and you can check out all the action and much more below!

🏀 New face joins the Monarchs
🎾 Regional rankings for the Blue & White
🦁 On this date in ODU history
👑 And much, much more!

📈 STOCK UP

🔼 New Addition. Make it six new faces for the Monarchs next year as transfer R.J. Blakney signed on as part of the 2023 recruiting class.

A 6-6 guard from Baltimore, Maryland—the newest Monarch comes to Norfolk after three seasons with the Dayton Flyers. He played in 85 games, finishing third on the team in blocked shots and fourth in steals. Last year, he was one of two Flyers to start all 35 games.

R.J. Blakney joins an already stacked list of additions including Tyrone Williams, Yamari Allette, Vasean Allette, Devin Ceaser and Daniel Pounds as new members of the incoming class.

🔼 Ranked In The Region. The ODU tennis teams earned high praise in the region from the ITA over the weekend with both the teams earning top-three spots in the final regional rankings.

The Lady Monarchs finished No. 2 in the final ITA regional top-10 after going 19-5, winning the Sun Belt Conference title and advancing to the second round of the NCAA Tournament.

The men’s squad earned a No. 3 ranking in the final regional top-10, finishing 18-10 overall and capturing the 2023 Sun Belt Conference title.

Individually, on the men’s side, Francois Le Tallec was ranked 11th in singles, while the doubles tandem of Younes Lalami and Brandon Perez were sixth.

For the women’s side, Tatsiana Sasnouskaya finished as the top-ranked player in the region, followed by Sofia Johnson (ninth) and Shahar Biran (12th), rounding out three Monarchs in the regional top-15.
 
Doubles saw the tandems of Sasnouskaya-Johnson (second) and Alexandra Viktorovitch with Allison Isaacs (sixth) also ranked. Sasnouskaya and Johnson were 20-7 on the year and made the second round of the NCAA Tournament, while Viktorovitch and Isaacs were 13-11.

🔼 Helping Hands. We’ve highlighted this a couple times, but it’s too awesome not to share one more time.

This past year, ODU athletes completed over 5,300 hours of community service time feeding the homeless, mentoring or reading to school children, gathering Christmas presents for kids, and dozens of other volunteer opportunities—an increase of more than 1,800 hours from last year’s total!

✍️ Read more about just how much the Monarchs are giving back to the local community in the latest Max With Minium

🏠 HOME HAPPENS HERE

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🦁 ON THIS DAY: YES-YES FOR A NO-NO

On this date in ODU history: June 12, 2007

In just his third MLB season, former ODU standout Justin Verlander took the mound at Comerica Park in Detroit and wrote his name in the record books—tossing the first no-hitter in Comerica Park history. It was the first of three no-hitters for the Cy Young Award winner.

🤔 MONARCH TRIVIA

Getting the call. The NBA Draft is just over a week away, and the Monarchs have had several former standouts earn shots at the highest level.

Can you name the last ODU men’s basketball standout to be selected in the NBA Draft?

Think you’ve got it? Scroll down to the bottom of this email and see if you had the right answer!

🏈 COUNTDOWN TO KICKOFF: 82 DAYS

Cooler than cool. Let’s rewind the clock to 2021—No. 82 AC White picked up a blocked punt a ran in it for his first collegiate touchdown during a road matchup against UTEP.

After an All-Region career at Harrisonburg High School, he appeared in 20 games during his three seasons with the Monarchs.

📬 STICK WITH US

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🎉 TRIVIA ANSWER

Answer: Cal Bowdler

The former ODU big man was selected 17th overall by the Atlanta Hawks in the 1999 NBA Draft.

Two others have earned NBA contracts (Kent Bazemore and Ahmad Caver), but both were signed to undrafted free agent contracts.

Let’s have a great start to the week, Monarch Nation!