By Harry Minium
NORFOLK, Va. – Wendy Larry tried to hide her emotions, but when 16,714 fans and national television cameras are focused on you, that's not possible. So, she gently wiped the tears away as she settled into her seat on the bench.
The date was March 28, 1997, and Larry, then the Old Dominion women's basketball coach, was walking onto the court at Riverfront Coliseum in downtown Cincinnati for the semifinals of the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four.
She was greeted by a thunderous ovation, one she hadn't expected. She slowed her walk a bit to take it all in. Many thousands of fans were chanting, "ODU, ODU" over and over. She was floored.
"There were so many people there from Old Dominion," Larry said. "There were four large sections of Old Dominion fans. And it was overwhelming.
"Here we are, this little school in Virginia that everyone thought was a small Catholic girl's school, and we're at the Final Four.
"Yeah, I got choked up."
Nearly 25 years later, during an hour-long interview in which she recalled the highs and lows from that memorable season, she choked up again when recalling her entrance on the court.
Who could blame her? She was an ODU alumnus, and the team she coached was at the center of the women's college basketball world.
Old Dominion, Louisiana Tech, Western Kentucky and a number of other mid-major schools had been women's basketball powers in the 1970s and 1980s. But by 1997, Power 5 schools were beginning to take the women's game seriously.
They had figured out the women's game could fill arenas and draw TV audiences and enhance your university's reputation. The Tennessee women's program outdrew the Vols' men.
They began pouring their considerable resources into the women's game, and thus began to dominate.
That's something then-Athletic Director Jim Jarrett knew more than 20 years earlier, when ODU became the first school in Virginia to offer women athletic scholarships.
The Lady Monarchs had won national titles in 1979 and 1980, before the NCAA became involved in women's basketball, and ODU hosted the first two NCAA Final Fours at Scope.
Coach Marianne Stanley led ODU to an NCAA national title, her third national crown, in 1985. Larry was an assistant coach on that team.
From 1982 through 2008, ODU went to 25 NCAA tournaments in 27 seasons.
But by 1997, the Final Four was largely reserved for the Power 5. In the last 25 years, only three mid-majors have been to a Final Four, and the last team to do it was Missouri State in 2001.
Yet, on that cool March weekend, ODU was among four storied programs at Riverfront Coliseum – Stanford, Notre Dame, Tennessee and Old Dominion. The championship game would draw the largest TV audience at the time for an ESPN college basketball tournament game, either for the men or women.
That weekend would prove to be one of gigantic highs and heartbreaking lows. ODU came oh-so close to winning it all. I was there and thought they had the best team in Cincinnati.
But in the end, they lost to Tennessee, 68-59, in a championship game far closer than the final score.
"It broke my heart to lose that game," said Ticha Penicheiro, the star of the team. "It crushed all of us."
Most members of that team have gone on to distinguished careers from coaching to teaching to winning Pulitzer and Fulbright prizes.
On Saturday afternoon, Ticha and most of her former teammates are, weather permitting, scheduled to gather at Chartway Arena for a 25th reunion when the Monarchs host their annual alumni game.
Tip-off for the game with North Texas is set for 3 p.m. There is snow in the forecast, but if weather allows the game to be played, alumni, including members of that team, will be introduced at halftime.
Together they will gather and relive memories, both the good and bad. And there were so many good stories to tell.
The team had two All-Americans and a third player who was the heart of soul of the team. And English was a second language to all three.
Ticha was, of course, from Portugal, and forward Clarisse Machanguana was from Mozambique, where Portuguese is also the primary language. Both were first-team All-Americans and Naismith finalists.
Mery Andrade was from Portugal and although not an All-American, she was the spark plug that fired one of the nation's best defenses. Emotional does not adequately describe how hard she played and how much she demanded of her teammates.
All three were recruited by Allison Greene, who was a restricted earnings assistant coach who nonetheless used her fluency in Portuguese and French to become one of the nation's best recruiters.
NCAA rules forbade her from traveling to recruit, but she was on the phone every night with recruits all over the world. Other programs needed interpreters. Little wonder so many foreign players felt so comfortable at ODU.
Greene recalls one fan holding up a banner at the Final Four that read: "Everyone Speaks Portuguese in Norfolk." ODU's large international student body adopted all three, especially Ticha. Portuguese flags often flew at ODU games.
And the talent did not stop there. Nyree Roberts was a 6-foot-3 center from Jersey City, New Jersey who would average 17 points and eight rebounds and was an honorable mention Associated Press All-American.
Consider that five people off that team are in the ODU Sports Hall of Fame: Larry, Penicheiro, Machanguana, Roberts and Andrade.
Stacy Himes was a 5-10 senior who was a coach on the floor, and she indeed became an ODU assistant after graduating.
The first two players off the bench were Aubrey Eblin, a 5-8 guard who had a knack for nailing three-point shots while inviting contact with defenders that made it appear they fouled her.
And then there was LaToya Small, a junior college transfer and a part-time starter who averaged nearly five points and six rebounds.
This team was loaded with talent though not necessarily with depth. So, no one was surprised when the Lady Monarchs kicked off the season with a 70-44 drubbing of George Washington in the Preseason WNIT.
ODU then hosted North Carolina State, coached by the late Kay Yow, in the second round of the WNIT, and a stunning thing happened – the Lady Monarchs lost.
ODU was ranked ninth nationally and the Wolfpack 16th but State won, 65-62, which deprived ODU of hosting more NIT games.
It was a major wake-up call, Larry said.
"That shook us up," she said. "I think it helped focus us for the rest of the season."
Vicki L. Friedman and Mike Holtzclaw covered the team for the two local newspapers. Vicki was the beat writer for The Virginian-Pilot in Norfolk and Mike for the Daily Press in Newport News.
They were also a married couple.
In more than four decades as a sports writer, I can't recall a similar situation, where two writers on the same beat co-habitated. If I may editorialize, Mike may have had a touch more flair writing game stories while Vicki, who also had a skilled way with words, was a newshound who broke nearly every big news story.
It was before Twitter, Facebook or even newspaper Internet websites, and newspapers competed fiercely for news. Tell people something they don't know, and they'll keep reading your byline.
There weren't a ton of news stories, but Vicki broke nearly all of them.
"I would ask Mike if he was done with work at the end of the night," Vicki said. If he was, she would tell him about the scoop that would appear in the Pilot the next morning.
"He would get ticked off," she said. But he understood the rules of the profession. The object was to scoop your opponent, even if he was your husband.
That season was one they will never forget. Vicki was pregnant with her first child, which, of course, was a thing of joy. But Vicki's father, Harry Friedman, had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and died four months after the season, and 11 days before his grandson was born.
Mike and Vicki named the boy Harry in honor of her father. Harry Holtzclaw is now an athletic fundraiser at Missouri, the alma mater of both his parents.
Vicki agreed with Larry that the loss to N.C. State was a blessing in disguise. "ODU never lost at home," she said. "Never. It was shocking."
ODU would not lose again until its final game. Embittered by that loss, the Lady Monarchs reeled off 33 victories in a row, and in the process claimed some of the biggest regular-season victories in school history.
They responded to the loss to N.C. State by crushing Indiana State, 116-26, in the Dial Classic at the ODU Field House. They beat No. 15 Duke, 89-77, and No. 13 Vanderbilt, 70-59, in the Central Fidelity Classic in Richmond.
Then came the first of two truly incredible victories in ODU women's basketball history.
Unless you're middle aged, you likely have never heard of the ODU Field House, but take it from someone who grew up watching games there, it was a basketball Mecca. The 1975 NCAA Division II men's basketball championship team played there, as did Nancy Lieberman, Inge Nissen and Anne Donovan and three national championship women's teams.
There were no luxury suites, it had bench seating and sparse concessions and restroom facilities. The lights let off an annoying buzzing sound.
It was a high school gym on steroids, not an arena
But it was one of the best home courts in the country.
Sound reverberated in the facility like an echo chamber. And when the Monarchs hosted No. 1 Stanford on Dec. 17, 1996, the place was rocking and rolling.
"It was small, but such a great place to play basketball," Ticha said. "The fans made so much noise.
"I really loved playing there."
The Cardinal were coming off a victory at Tennessee and clearly were the nation's best team, or so everyone thought.
But the game wasn't close. Roberts scored 19 points and Machanguana 16 as ODU rolled past Stanford, 83-66. Many in a crowd of 4,855 rushed the court following the game.
"I never heard the Field House so loud before or after that game," Friedman said. "The fans were on their feet and the place stayed at a fever pitch the whole night.
"ODU dominated that game. Stanford might have been No. 1 in the nation, but ODU was the No. 1 on that court that night."
Less than a month later, Tennessee came to the Field House, and this time an overflow crowd of 5,155 filled the facility beyond the capacity. One wonders where the fire marshals were that night.
Tennessee led, 34-32 at the half, but the Lady Monarchs got 25 points from Penicheiro and 22 from Machanguana and pulled away to win, 83-72.
The rest of the regular-season was anticlimactic. The Lady Monarchs rolled to a 16-0 Colonial Athletic Association record and not even James Madison was competitive. ODU dispatched William & Mary, 101-35; JMU, 86-48; and East Carolina, 86-48, to win the CAA Tournament.
"I know this sounds strange, but I wondered why they celebrated winning the CAA title," Friedman said. "You knew they were going to win every game."
ODU entered the NCAA Tournament ranked second nationally and seeded fourth, but not as seasoned as some of the teams who competed in better conferences. Tennessee had 10 losses but had played a brutal schedule in the SEC.
That may have hurt the Monarchs in the Final Four.
You not only need to be good, the ball has to bounce your way to win a national title. And until the final game, everything broke for ODU.
The Monarchs opened the NCAA Tournament at the Field House with a 102-52 victory over Liberty. Machanguana roamed at will inside the lane and scored 35 points.
Two nights later, ODU faced Purdue. The Boilermakers were to host the Midwestern Regional in West Lafayette, Indiana and dearly wanted to play in the regional on their home court. They nearly derailed ODU's season.
ODU trailed by six with 6:28 remaining but rallied to send the game into overtime. Andrade attempted a layup that would have won it in the final seconds, but it rimmed out.
The Monarchs led by one when Purdue's Stephanie White, a future All-American, missed a layup in the final seconds. It was a shot that White made nine times out of 10.
Penicheiro made a 3-pointer at the buzzer and ODU won, 69-65.
The following week, as ODU was preparing for the Midwestern Regional, Andrade stormed off the court during the middle of practice. Larry blew her whistle and asked the team's emotional leader what the heck she was doing.
"She told me, 'I'm done with this team. They aren't ready to play in a regional tournament. They're not ready to win.'"
Larry quickly sized up the situation and told the team captains that the coaches were leaving. "Mery's upset because she thinks you're not prepared for the regional," Larry said. "You're not going to leave until you get it right."
With that, she and her coaches walked out of the Field House. They were nearly in the parking lot when Ticha came huffing and puffing out of the front door.
She said, "Coach Larry, we got it right. We're going to be ready to play."
Larry said she looked at her staff and said, "nothing we could have done would have done more to get us prepared for the regional than what Mery just did."
The Monarchs were indeed ready to play in the Sweet 16, as they rolled past No. 9 LSU, 62-49.
But the regional championship game brought them up against Florida and a senior standout named DeLisha Milton.
She's now known as DeLisha Milton-Jones and is ODU's head coach.
Milton-Jones had 18 points and 19 rebounds, and had she not missed much of the second half in foul trouble the Gators might have won going away.
As it was, the Monarchs led by 14 with 6:35 left, and they did not score again.
Jones had a chance to send the game into overtime when she missed a layup with 30 seconds left. The Gators missed two more shots, and ODU survived, 55-53, to head for the Final Four.
"Those were shots we usually made," Milton-Jones said. "But we just didn't get it done."
It was her final college basketball game. "ODU broke my heart," she said.
Friedman and Vic Dorr, who covered the team for the Richmond News Leader, had made their way to the court to watch the post-game ceremonies up close.
As the Monarchs were celebrating, a freshman by the name of Natalie Diaz grabbed a fully pregnant Friedman, lifted her up and swung her around. It's the same Diaz who eventually would win a Pulitzer Prize for her poetry.
Friedman was still having morning sickness. "I almost heaved on the court," she said.
"But Natalie was so happy. I didn't mind at all."
Many years later Diaz sent a Twitter message to Harry Holtzclaw: "I'm glad you turned out OK after what I did to your mom."
ODU had a rematch with Stanford in the Final Four, and this game was no blowout.
At first, it looked like Stanford would win easily, as the Cardinal took a 31-16 lead 12 minutes into the first half. But ODU narrowed the lead to seven at the half and begin the second with an 8-0 run.
ODU vs. Stanford, 1997 Final Four semifinals
The game was close the rest of the way, and Ticha had a chance to win in regulation, but her running bank shot missed just before the buzzer sounded.
ODU led, 83-82, in the final seconds of overtime, and the Cardinal missed three shots to win the game as Vanessa Nygaard missed a short jump shot and Jamila Wideman two long jumpers before time expired.
TV announcers wondered if Wideman had been fouled by Machanguana on her final shot. It was close, but as Friedman said, "the refs let them play all night. It was a good no-call."
Seconds after the game ended, Wendy Larry looked into the stands to find her mother, Mary Virginia Larry, and the two locked eyes.
She smiled and pointed at her mom, who waved back. A photo of Wendy pointing toward her mom is in her Virginia Beach living room.
Although ODU was euphoric, the Lady Monarchs had expended a ton of energy, especially mental energy. Tennessee, meanwhile, rolled past Notre Dame, 80-66, and the Lady Vols' starters were relatively well rested.
Tennessee coach Pat Summitt recalled her players crying to the point of not being able to breath after the January loss at ODU. To motivate her team, she showed them video highlights of that loss on Saturday before the Sunday championship game.
It had the desired effect.
ODU again fell behind by 15, but then rallied in the second half, a rally made easier by a 40-foot, 3-pointer banked in by Eblin just before the halftime buzzer.
Eblin made a 3-point shot and was fouled and then made the foul shot to give ODU its first lead, 44-43, with 9:05 left. But a couple of poor second-half calls by game officials cost ODU dearly.
First, the refs did not see the 30-second clock go off before Tennessee made a 3-point shot. TV announcers also missed the non-call.
"We all saw it," Greene said. "I almost grabbed one of the refs when she ran past me to let her know.
"But it was so noisy they just missed it."
"That hurt," Larry added. "We prided ourselves on our defense and forcing shot clock violations."
Then, with eight minutes to go, Tennessee's Pashen Thompson drove Andrade back several feet with her elbow. She continued to force her back with her elbow on Andrade's Adam's Apple.
Andrade was passive for several seconds before finally pushing her arm away.
ODU vs. Tennessee, 1997 Championship game
Incredibly, Andrade was called for the foul, her fifth of the game. It was as bad a call as I've ever seen in any NCAA Tournament game, and it left ODU without its emotional leader down the stretch.
Amber Eller made a 3-point shot to give ODU its last lead, 49-47, but the Lady Vols' used a 12-2 run to put the game away in the final minutes. Tennessee's defense disrupted Ticha's generally stellar ballhandling skills – she had 11 turnovers – and at game's end, the Lady Monarchs were out of gas.
"We were worn down," Larry said.
Ticha noted that the nutritional supplements available now to help you recover from an exhausting game didn't exist. "We just had no gas left in the tank," she said.
Friedman said she will never forget the final seconds, as she watched the Lady Monarchs begin to realize they were going to lose.
"It was so painful to watch them," she said. "They were in the foul lane as Tennessee shot, just sobbing."
Ticha went to the bench with seconds left to a standing ovation from ODU fans. She buried her head in her towel and her head heaved up and down as she cried. She had to be led off the court by Andrade, who covered her head with a towel.
Larry was devastated but could not afford to show that in the locker room. She told the players to remember all the good things they had done, all they had accomplished.
Ticha said it did nothing to salve her pain.
"It's a game that still haunts me," she said. "She said all the right things. But at the end of the day, we were that close to a national championship and we didn't win.
"Nobody likes to finish second. We might have had a better team. But in 40 minutes, we weren't able to prove that."
Curiously, after that loss, Larry and Summitt became close friends. They would meet a couple of times a year and would always have dinner together before or after every ODU-Tennessee game.
Larry went to see Summitt in Knoxville a few years before she died of Alzheimer's in 2016. She was just 64 when she passed away.
The woman who won 1,098 games and eight national titles had not yet been robbed of a lifetime of memories. She was still able to drive, and Larry accepted Summitt's invitation to drive her to a Tennessee practice.
You're driving kind of fast she told Summitt nervously.
"Wendy, my dear, no one in Knoxville will ever pull me over."
Greene said the team was disheartened when it returned to Norfolk, but that the reception it got did much to help begin the healing process.
The Lady Monarchs were greeted by 4,000 fans at the Field House, who cheered the team wildly. Fans urged Jarrett to sign Larry to another contract -- hers expired the day after the championship game. "Give her the money," they said.
Then came a trolley ride to Norfolk City Hall, where the team was feted by Mayor Paul D. Fraim and other city officials.
Councilman Paul R. Riddick, a devout Norfolk State fan, struck an emotional chord when he told the team that while he rooted for Norfolk State every time they played, he'd never rooted for a team like he had the Lady Monarchs.
"It took us a real long time to transition from the bitterness of that loss to being proud of what we'd done," Greene said. "Coming back to the campus kind of shook us out of our gloom. People were celebrating us.
"The reaction of the fans made us realize that we did have a great year. You celebrate winning a silver medal, don't you? Second place in the entire country is pretty darn special."
Still, the loss stings. Greene has not watched a video of the game and says she never will. "It would hurt too much," she said.
Larry went on to sign a contract extension with ODU and would win every subsequent CAA title through 2007-2008. That team defeated Liberty and Virginia to earn a place in the 2008 Sweet 16 before losing to UConn.
She resigned following a 20-11 finish in 2010-2011. ODU has not gone back to the NCAA Tournament since 2008.
Ticha took advantage of a change in NCAA rules and came back for another season in hopes of winning that elusive national title. ODU had another stellar season, finishing 29-3 and ranked third nationally.
But the Lady Monarchs lost to N.C. State by a point in the Sweet 16.
The ODU Student Recreation Center is now located on the site of the Field House, which was torn down after the Monarchs made the move to Chartway Arena. The rec center pool is all that remains of the original Field House.
Greene left coaching in 2001 after 10 years to finish work on her doctoral dissertation in international studies at ODU. She took a job with the Department of Defense hoping to do her part to create world peace.
She is now an acting deputy director who combats sexual assault and other acts of interpersonal violence in the military.
"As much as I loved basketball, I wanted to do more to bridge divides," she said.
Greene has had job offers from half a dozen Power 5 schools. "I would never consider coaching anyplace else," she said, "because I bleed Old Dominion blue. I'm so proud of my alma mater."
Greene changed her name to Greene-Sands after marrying Rob Sands in 2012. He's a cultural anthropologist who also changed his name to Greene-Sands, and is a huge women's basketball fan.
"On our first date we played a game of HORSE and then went for a run," she said.
She is far from alone in having moved on to a distinguished career.
Ticha is an agent based in Sacramento who had a long WNBA career and was a teammate of Milton-Jones with the Los Angeles Sparks. Andrade is coaching men's basketball players in the G League.
Machanguana is a Fulbright scholar working on a master's degree at Arizona. Eblin married former ODU assistant coach Cindy Fisher, who coaches the University of San Diego. The couple has two children.
Kelly Bradley teaches in Virginia Beach, and Roberts is in Atlanta, where she works for Nike. Himes is an officer for the Norfolk Fire Department.
Nicole Bellinghausen is in Las Vegas, where she is an actress, model and social media influencer.
Diaz, a Native American, is an associate professor at Arizona State who won a Pulitzer Prize in poetry last year and a MacArthur Genius Grant in 2018.
LaToya (Small) Weakly is an operations manager for Amazon and Angie (Liston) Norman works for a hospital critical care unit in Ontario, Canada.
Assistant coach Alisa Scott became a successful coach in the WNBA.
Larry may have taken on the most noble cause of all. After working for the Atlantic 10 for several years, she quit to take care of her mother full time. She spent five years with Mary Virginia Larry.
She had job offers but called taking her of her mom "the most important job in the world to me."
"We had five fabulous years together," she said. "Everything happens for a reason.
"My ability to be with her 24/7 for five years, to take her to so many great places together, I'm so grateful for that time we had. Up until the last couple of weeks of her life, she was on point. She wasn't able to walk but her brain was so alive.
"I feel so fortunate I was able to bring her here. She swam in my pool and rode in my boat."
Mary Virginia passed in August of 2019.
Larry doesn't rule out a return to coaching. "But it would have to be the right opportunity with the right people," she said.
"Without the loyal fans we had, the work that our student athletes put in every day wouldn't have been appreciated," she said. "There are so many great people in the community who made them feel worthwhile.
"I know those student-athletes played harder because of our fans, and for that, I will always feel grateful.
"The support we had at home was incredible. But the thousands of people who went to Cincinnati, who loved us so much to go to all of that trouble to support us, I'll never forget that."
ODU likely would have broken its NCAA drought in 2020 had the pandemic not forced the cancelation of postseason play. That team was 24-6 and had a good chance of winning the Conference USA championship or getting an at-large bid.
Milton-Jones' second team is 12-3 and has won nine of its last 10 games. Her goal is to get to the tournament "and make some noise when we get there."
"We're trying to replicate everything that team did 25 years ago," she said. "I don't know how far we'll go but I know we'll work as hard as we can to get there."
Ticha played a big role in helping ODU organize the reunion.
"I'll forever be grateful for Old Dominion for giving me a scholarship," she said. "It's a place very dear to my heart. Old Dominion gave me my start in America.
"I'm looking forward to seeing all of my teammates, but also to sharing with the current players a little bit of our history.
"I want them to understand a little more of what it means to be a Monarch and how to wear it with pride."
Minium worked 39 years at The Virginian-Pilot before coming to ODU in 2018. He covers all ODU athletic teams for odusports.com Follow him on Twitter @Harry_MiniumODU, Instagram @hbminium1 or email hminium@odu.edu
Minium: Almost 25 years ago, the ODU Women's Basketball Team Almost Won a National Title
