THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, March 21, 1996 TAG: 9603210515
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: C1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY VICKI L. FRIEDMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 157 lines
Going from a good team to a great team used to be easier in women's basketball. With just a handful of schools competing for the top prospects, Anne Donovan, Nancy Lieberman and Inge Nissen easily could wind up at a school like Old Dominion, known for being a pioneer in a growing sport two decades ago.
But now the sport has matured, and the field is crowded with programs that have come to play. Along with powers like Tennessee and Louisiana Tech, others such as Duke, Connecticut and North Carolina began taking the women's game more seriously. And that left early powerhouses such as Texas, Stephen F. Austin and ODU in catch-up mode.
The Lady Monarchs' current resume is strong: No. 6 in the nation and a 29-2 record - their best since winning the national championship a decade ago. Has ODU - which plays Virginia Saturday in the NCAA tournament's round of 16 - caught up?
It's too early to tell.
``You can't just have two or three great seasons,'' said Stanford coach Marianne Stanley, who took ODU to three national championships. ``ODU is no stranger to excellence in basketball. A lot of people have seen their resurgence and perceived it as, `Hey, they're back. That's great.' They have to continue as they have and they have to market and promote the program in order to continue to thrive.''
After its disastrous 5-21 season in 1990-91, ODU went 20-11, 22-8, 25-6 and 27-6 the next four years. Good numbers, but the Lady Monarchs failed to get past the second round of the NCAA tournament in any of those seasons. Since its last national title, in 1985, ODU has made it past the second round just once.
``Recruiting is not an exact science,'' said ODU athletic director Jim Jarrett. ``We were going head-to-head for all the best recruits in the country with all the top programs.''
The boom in college women's basketball has stretched the talent pool thinner, Jarrett said. ODU has tradition on its side, but schools like Tennessee have the largest on-campus arena in the country and the drawing power to go with it. In addition, the Vols have television exposure - this year alone they've been on national TV a dozen times.
``There's just something to be said for that kind of overwhelming, state-of-the-art facility and the locker rooms - the list goes on,'' said ODU coach Wendy Larry. ``Plus they're a quality football program. As much as we don't want to admit it, a lack of football could be a drawback. I feel pretty strongly that we lost a student-athlete this year based on the fact that her father loved college football. So she went to a college football school and was going to get the best of both worlds.''
ODU has been successful with foreign recruits. To the international athlete, ODU is a good fit. Its East Coast location with NATO headquarters nearby coupled with the university's international studies center are selling points.
``It's a refreshing perspective that they're just happy to be here,'' said ODU assistant coach Allison Greene, who is in charge of recruiting. ``They're not afraid of being someone who takes the program to another level.''
And indeed two foreign players - Portugal's Ticha Penicheiro and Mozambique's Clarisse Machanguana - have put ODU basketball back on the map in much the same way Jennifer Azzi and Katy Steding put Stanford on the map 10 years ago.
No. 3-ranked Stanford had won a total of 14 games in the two years before Tara VanDerveer arrived in 1985 from a strong program at Ohio State. Her first two recruits that summer were Azzi, a point guard from Tennessee, and Steding, a forward from Oregon. Vols coach Pat Summitt overlooked Azzi, and Steding was considered a great talent but undisciplined, so others let her go.
Similarly, ODU's resurgence was largely brought about by two ``sleepers'' at point guard and forward.
Greene played club-level ball in Portugal when she first spotted flashy point guard Penicheiro, only 14 years old at the time. Years later, ODU was able to recruit her. Machanguana followed, largely because of the influence of Penicheiro.
Stanford won the national title when Azzi and Steding were seniors and kept on winning because VanDerveer continued to reel in prize recruits. Greene said Penicheiro and Machanguana have had a similar impact on ODU, although the Lady Monarchs had tradition, unlike Stanford. Now ODU's challenge becomes bringing in the national recruits.
``It all comes back to recruiting,'' said Summitt, whose Vols have been a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament in each of the past nine years. ``You can be great coaches, but you win with players.''
This year's CAA Newcomer of the Year, Mery Andrade, a teammate of Penicheiro's on the Portuguese national team, is a beginning. With the loss of Esther Benjamin, Shonda Deberry and Sarah Willyerd next year, Larry said ODU will be seeking a power forward and a couple of role players. ODU did not sign anyone early, although Greene says that could be beneficial in the long run.
``Before we cracked the top 25, we had to rely on our tradition and our staff to sell the program,'' Greene said. ``Now it's nice to be able to sell ODU because of its current success.''
Greene says for the first time in a while, recruits are initiating contact with ODU. They recognize the name and they've seen the polls - which run daily in USA Today: No. 6 ODU, Norfolk, VA.
``Every day the sports fans in the country are seeing ODU in the national newspaper,'' Jarrett says. ``You can't buy that. It's just fabulous publicity.''
Freshman Aubrey Eblin admits to being spoiled and a bit surprised by being on a team that has had so much success in her first year. She also says it changes her own expectations about the next three years.
``I was talking to (assistant) coach (Cindy) Fisher the other day, and she said, `You know we're not expected to drop,' '' Eblin said. ``We're expected to keep doing this year after year after year.''
Nancy Lieberman-Cline, now the sport's most visible commentator and an unabashed ODU fan who picked the Lady Monarchs to advance to the Final Four on ESPN's bracket show, says ODU is commanding renewed respect. Before this year, she says, the perception was of a young, inexperienced team that ``didn't win the tough game out of conference. When you win, it doesn't become a gray area anymore.''
This year, ODU's regular season included victories over Georgia, Colorado and Texas - schools that went on to earn high seeds in the NCAA tournament. The Lady Monarchs' only losses were at Tennessee and at Stanford, both No. 1 seeds in their regions.
Larry is hopeful but realistic about success begetting success. It is somewhat frustrating to her that a player like Holy Cross' Lauren Maney admitted she had never seen ODU before the two teams played last week at the field house.
``Anything helps,'' said Larry, who says the staff sends out weekly mailings to prospective recruits. ``Any time you get national TV exposure, too. That's why we're very disappointed we weren't selected as one of the (NCAA) sites for television exposure.''
Plans for a 10,000-seat on-campus convocation center are all but finalized. And with the CAA still trying to catch up to ODU, the Lady Monarchs must continue to keep the Tennessees and Stanfords on their non-conference schedule.
Next season, ODU will play in the Central Fidelity Tournament in Richmond, a field that includes Vanderbilt and Duke. Stanford and Cal-Berkley are coming to Norfolk.
``We've developed some great relationships with the Pat Summitts of the world; we're able to play the California schools,'' Jarrett said. ``We can play a non-conference schedule, unlike the men, that is a top-20 schedule. It's difficult for our men to do that because they haven't been able to establish the relationships the way we have in women's basketball.''
Television coverage continues to expand, too.
``Our challenge is to be a part of that,'' Jarrett said. ``I think as long as we are nationally competitive as we are now, we're going to be able to do that.''
It's a changing world, and tradition alone just doesn't do it anymore.
``You have the online services now, the World Wide Web,'' Larry said. ``And you have kids that can call up a home page and see the UConns of the world are putting 8,000 to 9,000 in the stands.''
The answer for now, Lieberman-Cline stresses, is to keep winning.
``Winning cures a multitude of sins,'' she said. ``Kids want to be where winners are.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by HUY NGUYEN, The Virginian-Pilot
Portugal's Ticha Penicheiro, right along with Mozambique's Clarisse
Machanguana have helped to put ODU women's basketball back on the
map.
Photo by HUY NGUYEN, The Virginian-Pilot
On the theory that success begets success, a player the caliber of
Clarisse Machanguana, for example, will attract others to the Lady
Monarchs' program. by CNB