By Harry Minium
When a Division I basketball team hosts a team from Division III, the result is often a foregone conclusion.
Division I players are, after all, usually bigger, stronger and more talented than their Division III counterparts. Most are on full scholarships while Division III schools are not allowed to offer athletic scholarships.
But the outcome won't be a foregone conclusion when Virginia Wesleyan visits Old Dominion University Tuesday night at 7 p.m. at Chartway Arena.
That's because the Marlins don't have your average D-III program.
Wesleyan has won three Division III national titles, including one (2006) with current coach Dave Macedo, who has a sterling, 431-151 record in his 20 seasons at Wesleyan.
Tuesday's game is the season opener for the Marlins, meaning they could be a little rusty. But four of five starters, and four of the top reserves, return from the team that was 23-5 and lost in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference championship game last season.
Yes, they were beating teams like Hampden-Sydney, Lynchburg and Shenandoah, but when you win 74 percent of your games, as Wesleyan has done under Macedo, that's impressive at any level.
Macedo has taken Wesleyan to three Final Fours, gone to the Elite Eight four times and the Sweet 16 seven times. He has coached 51 All-ODAC players in 20 seasons, an average of more than two per year.
"When you look at Dave Macedo's record and his run of success at Virginia Wesleyan, this is not a run of the mill Division III program," ODU coach Jeff Jones said.
"This is a quality program. They probably play differently and have more athletes than typical Division III programs."
ODU has played Wesleyan in exhibition games before but this will be their first regular-season game.
Why did Jones schedule a Division III school rather than a guarantee game from Division I school looking for a "buy" game? Largely because Division III schools don't count toward your NET rankings, which help decide at-large bids to the NCAA tournament and National Invitation Tournament.
Scheduling Division I schools from lower leagues can actually hurt ODU's NET rankings, Jones said.
But another factor was also important. "They are right here in the city," he said. "They are our neighbors."
Jones indicated he likely will schedule games in future against the Marlins, as ODU has done with cross-town rival Norfolk State.
Wesleyan is located astride the Norfolk-Virginia Beach border, with a small portion of the campus in Norfolk. In most seasons, the Marlins would likely bring a good number of fans to Chartway Arena, but with attendance for basketball games limited to 250 by state officials, that won't be the case Tuesday.
The Monarchs (3-2) are coming off a 66-62 victory over Northeastern Sunday afternoon that marked a huge improvement over ODU's lackluster performance in a 77-54 loss at VCU last weekend.
Jones said that VCU exposed flaws that need to be fixed, and that even though the Monarchs played better against Northeastern, they need to continue to improve if they expect to be competitive in Conference USA play, which begins on New Year's Day with a two-game stand at Florida International.
Jones said ODU worked primarily on defense in practice last week, and that in fact didn't do any shooting drills in four practices.
"What we need to improve on isn't rocket science," Jones said.
"After the VCU game, I talked about me doing a better job. I think I need to do a better job of making sure our guys know what their roles are, what they need to do to help our basketball team.
"Basketball isn't always fun and games. Somebody has to do the dirty jobs, the little things that help you win. We need our guys to step up.
"Last week we got back to the basics, a lot of stuff you often do early in the season. For whatever reason, those are skills we haven't mastered, and we need to do that.
"We've got a lot of work to do. We want to win against Virginia Wesleyan, but we also want to make progress. We need to get better."
Contact Minium: hminium@odu.edu
Minium: ODU’s Jeff Jones on Virginia Wesleyan: “It’s not your run of the mill Division III program.”
