THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, September 3, 1994 TAG: 9409030634
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE CARLSON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 46 lines
Old Dominion's basketball team loves to fly and it shows.
The Monarchs will open the 1995-96 basketball season in the talent-laden Great Alaska Shootout in Anchorage the week of Thanksgiving, continuing a trend of far-flung, tough scheduling under new coach Jeff Capel.
ODU recently returned from a summer tour in France, will open the 1994-95 season in the Preseason NIT and also will have games in Hawaii, Illinois, New Orleans, Seattle and Arizona this season.
The field for the 1995 Great Alaska Shootout on Nov. 22-25 will not be announced until the week of this year's tournament, but Indiana is another team that has agreed to play. The eight-team tournament generally attracts several nationally ranked teams, and this year five tournament games will be broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2.
``We want to play against the best competition we can, and year in and year out, that tournament has some of the best teams in the country,'' said Capel, who also expects to finalize a series with Duke - whose point guard is his son, Jeff - that would probably begin in 1995-96. ``We're happy to have been invited.''
Every team in the Great Alaska Shootout is guaranteed three games that do not count against the NCAA maximum 26 regular-season games. The tournament begins with two games on Wednesday, two on Thanksgiving and four on both Friday and Saturday.
``It's going to be a great way to start the year,'' ODU athletic director Jim Jarrett said. ``You're going to come out of it probably not winning, but everyone involved is going to be ready for the season when they come out of a tournament with that level of competition.''
ODU has never played in the Great Alaska Shootout. Harry Larrabee, assistant athletic director at the University of Alaska, said a school can only play in the tournament once every 12 years, and the tournament must have a representative from every Division I conference at least once within a 12-year span.
``It's always a good field, and teams get a lot of exposure because a lot of teams aren't playing yet,'' Larrabee said. by CNB