THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, July 24, 1994 TAG: 9407240178
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C11 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
The recruiting period for college basketball coaches concludes at the end of this month, but Old Dominion already has a new player for the 1995-96 season.
Forward Joe Bunn, who played for Jeff Capel at North Carolina A&T, has decided to follow his former coach to Old Dominion. Bunn received a release from his scholarship at A&T Thursday and told ODU's Capel on Friday that he would become a Monarch.
Bunn will still come to campus for an official visit, but has already agreed to accept one of ODU's four available scholarships.
NCAA rules prohibit Capel from commenting about Bunn until he has signed a letter of intent.
As a transfer, NCAA rules require Bunn to sit out next season. He will have three years of eligibility remaining.
Bunn has spent much of the summer at a relative's house in New York, delaying a decision about his future. Bunn met with new North Carolina A&T coach Roy Thomas for the first time Thursday, several weeks after Bunn originally said they were going to meet.
``He made his pitch,'' Bunn said. ``I considered it, but being that they have a new coach, they're going a different direction than I wanted to. He's bringing in his own players and he might not play the same style of ball I want to.''
Bunn, reportedly bound for ODU from the day Capel accepted the job in April, was the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Rookie of the Year last season. The 6-foot-6 freshman power forward averaged 13.4 points and 8.4 rebounds.
Bunn helps fill a primary need for the Monarchs. All of ODU's scholarship frontcourt players will be juniors or seniors next season.
MAGAZINE RACK: College football season openers for most schools are less than six weeks away, which means preseason magazines are coming into the newsstands.
Virginia Tech is popping up prominently in most of the preseason top 25 rankings, and Virginia has received nominal mention. Here's where the state's two Division I-A schools rank in a sampling of preseason publications:
Street and Smith's - Virginia Tech 20th, Virginia 23rd; The Sporting News - Virginia Tech 25th; Football News - Virginia Tech 12th; Athlon - Virginia Tech 22nd; Inside Sports - Virginia Tech 21st.
There is no consensus No. 1, but Florida, Florida State, Miami, Michigan, Notre Dame and Nebraska - scrambled up in various orders - are listed atop the rankings.
Hokies quarterback Maurice DeShazo receives some mention as a Heisman Trophy candidate.
The Hokies are picked to finish second in the Big East behind Miami by most of the publications, while Virginia is picked either third or fourth with Florida State, North Carolina and Clemson also rated in the league's top tier.
COACHING CAROUSEL: It's been busy offseason for Gary Johnson, the guy at the NCAA who counts among his chores keeping track of coaching changes in college basketball. As of Friday, when Wisconsin's Stu Jackson resigned to accept a front office job with Vancouver's NBA expansion team, 51 of the 301 teams in Division I (16.9 percent) will have a new head coach next year.
And it could be more than that. Five schools still are searching for head coaches, and if they pick a current Division I coach the ripple effect will continue. If the total reaches 55 - which is possible - it will mark the most head coaching changes in Division I since 1987. That year set the record for the most changes with 66 (22.8 percent of the then-290 Division I programs).
``It's a little above average in terms of the number of transactions,'' Johnson said. ``It's kind of a cycle. If you put it on a graph, it peaks about every four years.''
SHORT SUBJECTS: Virginia Tech fullback Mike Hodges, who missed all of last season because of leg surgery and probably would have been a backup this season, is an academic casualty and will not play for the Hokies this fall. . and sites at its summer meetings this past week. Old Dominion will host the women's basketball tournament March 9-11 and the men's tennis tournament April 21-23. The men's basketball tournament will be at the Richmond Coliseum March 4-6. . . . Virginia's 1994-95 basketball schedule includes 16 home games. Non-conference opponents are: Old Dominion, home, Nov. 16 (Preseason NIT); North Carolina A&T, home, Nov. 30; Towson State, home, Dec. 3; at Vanderbilt Dec. 6; Bethune-Cookman, home, Dec. 8; at Rice Dec. 10; Virginia Military Institute, home, Dec. 19; Stanford, home, Dec. 22; George Mason, home, Jan. 28; Nevada-Las Vegas, home, Feb. 12; Virginia Tech at Richmond Feb. 28. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
Joe Bunn will sit out a year.
by CNB