THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, November 26, 1995 TAG: 9511260203
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: TOM ROBINSON
LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
A college basketball season has begun, and the men's coach at Old Dominion is on record as saying his gaggle of freshmen could be the nucleus of a national title contender.
``This class has an opportunity to make a run at a national championship in the next four years,'' coach Jeff Capel said before the Monarchs left for the Great Alaska Shootout. ``I really feel they're that talented.''
Well, now.
Excuse me while I pinch myself.
My memory might be fuzzy, but I believe it wasn't very long ago that fans, writers and talk-show pundits around here were as down as could be on Old Dominion's prospects.
The logic seemed sound enough, in light of ODU's tepid fortunes as the calendar moved into the '90s.
Remember, the campus was always going to be urban, with nothing particular to recommend it to recruits. The student population would always be overwhelmingly commuter with little be-true-to-your-school enthusiasm.
The region was wedded to the ACC, so ODU would never lure fans to downtown Norfolk for mid-major Division I games. Too many players were transferring. The level of play was too dull.
The program's ceiling was low, a top 25 ranking total fantasy. And anybody who said ``Old Dominion'' and ``national title'' in the same sentence was either talking about the school's women's hoops history or the '74-75 men's Division II championship. Otherwise, they were plain delusional.
So why doesn't it seem so ridiculous anymore? Sure, Capel's quote raises skeptical eyebrows, especially in light of the Monarchs' blowout loss to Duke this week. Yet rather than being dismissed as the rambling of a cracked optimist, it should instead spark cool-headed debate and recognition of the possibilities now apparent at ODU.
Give Capel, in his second season at ODU, his just due for setting the stage for such discussion. From further changing the ODU mind-set from ``No way'' to ``Why not?''
At the same time, someone else would be done an injustice if he is forgotten in the glare of ODU's newfound potential.
Oliver Purnell.
You don't hear much about Purnell these days, now that he's at Dayton trying to resuscitate another dormant program. But since he left his alma mater after three seasons for a deal so financially loaded he had no choice, I don't know that Purnell has received the proper credit for laying the groundwork that Capel has built upon.
Recall Purnell's accomplishments. In '90-91, he took former coach Tom Young's players and directed ODU to its first NCAA tournament appearance since '85-86.
ODU was only 12-14 entering the Colonial Athletic Association tournament that year.
But all that was shunted aside when ODU swept the tournament and played Kentucky on CBS in an NCAA regional. Kentucky won easily, 88-69, in Worcester, Mass., but ODU hung tough for most of the game and in so doing put themselves back on the basketball map.
The next two seasons resulted in tough losses in the CAA tournament and no NCAA bids, which blemished Purnell's tenure. He still coaxed the first back-to-back 20-win seasons out of ODU teams since Paul Webb's '78-80 squads.
Purnell proved winning big at ODU was not impossible. That snagging big-time recruits, Odell Hodge being the most obvious example, could happen. That ODU's image as a middling, stagnant program did not have to be permanent.
Purnell wasn't around long enough to be able to even verbally place the Monarchs in the national championship picture. That would have been too much of a stretch.
But thanks to Purnell, Capel and ODU loyalists can dream such things without blatant ridicule. Keep that in mind as ODU's intriguing future unfolds. by CNB