NORFOLK, Va. – Old Dominion and James Madison once carried on a torrid men's basketball rivalry.
During a six-year period, between 1992 and 1997, the teams met in four CAA championship games and the rivalry included a good dose of mutual dislike between the two respective fan bases.
All four games drew large and rabid crowds to the old Richmond Coliseum, located about midway between Norfolk and Harrisonburg.
ODU won three of those four games -- 1992 (Ricardo Leonard was the MVP), 1995 (the MVP was Petey Sessoms) and 1997 (Odell Hodge).
JMU won in 1994 on a miraculous last-second three-point jump shot from Kent Culuko that sent the Dukes and their coach, Norfolk native Lefty Driesell, to the NCAA Tournament.
After ODU left the CAA for Conference USA a decade ago, the rivalry understandably cooled down.
But now that both are in their first season in the Sun Belt Conference, officials from both schools expect the rivalry to heat back up.
ODU hosts JMU at Chartway Arena Thursday at 7 p.m. The game isn't expected to sell out, but will draw one of ODU's largest crowds of the season.
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ODU, Marshall and Southern Miss left Conference USA and JMU left the CAA to join the Sun Belt on July 1.
ODU head coach Jeff Jones said playing JMU as a Sun Belt rival is a much bigger deal than when the schools played non-conference games.
"There's so much more at stake when you play in the same conference," he said. "When you play an in-state opponent in a non-conference game, yes, it's big.
"But there's just so much more at stake now that we're in the same league."
"You always want to win conference games," added guard Bryce Baker. "This being a conference game makes it bigger."
It's certainly a big deal to the respective universities, who have dubbed every game in every sport between JMU and ODU The Townebank Royal Rivalry Challenge. Whether it be football, soccer or baseball, the winner of each game wins a point for their university.
At the end of the season, either ODU or JMU will be awarded the Townebank Rivalry Challenge trophy for a year.
Both teams are hitting the stretch run of the conference season – eight games remain for all 14 Sun Belt teams. Both the Monarchs (13-9 overall, 5-5 Sun Belt) and JMU (15-8, 6-4) still have a shot at finishing among the coveted top four.
And finishing in the top four, or at least the top 10, in the final standings will make it easier to win the Sun Belt Conference Tournament, which runs from Feb. 28 through March 6 in Pensacola, Florida.
A top four finish means you must win three games in the Sun Belt Tournament to claim the league championship and NCAA Tournament bid.
Finish from fifth through 10th and you must win four games. Finish among the bottom four and you must win five games in seven days – a daunting task to say the least.
Southern Miss (19-4, 8-2) and Louisiana (18-4, 8-2) are tied for first, Marshall (18-5, 7-4) third, JMU, App State (13-10, 6-4) and Louisiana-Monroe (10-13, 6-4) are tied for seventh.
ODU, which is tied for seventh with Troy (13-10, 5-5) and Georgia Southern (12-11, 5-5) would be in deep trouble had the Monarchs not claimed a pair of road wins last week.
ODU won at South Alabama, 66-64, in a game that wasn't settled until a 35-footer from the Jags fell short. The Monarchs then defeated Coastal Carolina, 60-59, on two Baker free throws with 1.3 seconds left.
Rarely does a Sun Belt team win two on the road.
"They were two great wins," Jones said. "But you know the danger is that every game is important, and we can't relax.
"You know, a big part of becoming a good team is being able to bounce back from adversity. But the other part of becoming a good team is being able to handle a little bit of success.
"The good teams string multiple wins together. That's something we haven't done a great job of. We've been up and down. We've has some great performances and we've had a handful of games where we didn't play up to where I think our standard should be."
Regardless of how this season plays out, Sun Belt expansion has done more than just strengthen league in football. The four new additions have done much to enhance Sun Basketball basketball.
Southern Miss (67), Marshall (71) and JMU (89) are the top three Sun Belt teams in the NET rankings. ODU (162) is sixth, behind Louisiana (94) and Troy (139).
And the four newcomers dominate in another area – fan support. ODU led Conference USA throughout most of 10 years in that league and leads the Sun Belt at 5,341 per game.
Marshall (4,515), JMU (4,008) and Southern Miss (3,247) round out the top four.
Jones said two things have become clear in his first season in the Sun Belt.
The games are physical, sometimes brutally so, and the refs allow for a lot of contact.
Also, nearly every game comes down to the wire. There's not a team in the Sun Belt ODU couldn't beat (witness an early-season upset of Louisiana), nor any team the Monarchs could not lose to (they lost to last-place Arkansas State in their first Sun Belt game).
Jones calls beating JMU "a monumental task," and added "that we're going to have to play better than we did last week to have a chance to win."
The game will match contrasting styles. JMU likes to press and score, and the Dukes do both well. They are first in the Sun Belt in scoring average at 82.9 points per game. ODU is 11th with 67.5 points per game.
The Dukes score a bunch of points off their press. They are fifth in the nation in both steals (10.5) and forced turnovers (18.7) per game.
Coach Mark Byington, who came to JMU from Georgia Southern three years ago, goes 10 deep on his bench as the Dukes wear down opponents.
Jones said the Monarchs felt like they were "backed in a corner" last week, when they went on the road with a 3-5 league record and returned with two victories.
"We've got to have that same mentality against JMU," he said. "It's going to be a very intense, physical game.
"The games last week were ugly but we scrapped like crazy and competed and found a way to win. We've got to have that same approach to beat JMU."
Contact Minium at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram
Minium: ODU-JMU Basketball Rivalry Is About To Get a Whole Lot More Intense
