Minium: MIke Jones Says ODU Basketball Team Will Be More Talented, More Experienced and Shoot Better

By Harry Minium

NORFOLK, Va. – Stayce Jones has been telling her husband that she hasn’t seen him as happy or as optimistic as he is now for a long time. 

“She says I’m smiling a lot more,” Mike Jones said.

And for good reason. The Old Dominion men’s basketball head coach had a bountiful recruiting offseason in the transfer portal that should make the Monarchs one of the teams to beat in the Sun Belt Conference in 2025-26.

An ODU alumnus and former long-time head coach at DeMatha High School in Hyattsville, Maryland, Jones and the Monarchs suffered through a 15-20 season in his first year at ODU.

His Monarchs were young and undersized, but won’t be this season.

“We’re going to be much more talented,” Jones said. “We’re going to shoot better. And we’re going to be older and more experienced.

“We’ve got a lot of guys with a lot of college basketball games under their belts. That’s going to be evident next season. Last season, our youth and inexperience showed at times.

“I’m very, very excited about this group.”

The Monarchs brought in five transfers, and all five will play. ODU’s transfer portal class was ranked among the nation’s Top 25 by some services early on during the recruiting process.

And while the Monarchs have fallen out of the Top 25, they led the Sun Belt in retaining talent. No one retained as much playing time and scoring as did the Monarchs, who held on to three starters.

Re-recruiting guys on your roster is as important as bringing in new players, and the Monarchs were able to hang on to Robert Davis Jr., the team’s second-leading scorer, and 7-foot center Caelum Swanton-Rodger, who late last season developed into one of ODU’s key players.

ODU also returns Stephaun Walker, a 6-7 forward who started, averaging 6.3 points and 7.1 rebounds before missing the last third of the season with an injury.

Scottie Hubbard, a 6-6 guard, and Donovan Raymond, a 6-10 forward, also return.

The Evinmaya website rates ODU’s five-person transfer portal class No. 133 in the country, but rates ODU 64th overall nationally in portal recruiting given how successful the Monarchs were in retaining good players.

Holding onto three starters in this day and age is a remarkable accomplishment. Just ask Auburn, which lost everyone on its roster to graduation or the transfer portal after advancing to the Final Four.

The Monarchs were the surprise of the 2025 Sun Belt Tournament and the good vibes from their strong run in Pensacola, Florida, helped ODU’s recruiting efforts.

After finishing 12-19 in the regular season, they won three games in three nights to advance to the conference quarterfinals. Davis, 6-6 junior, scored 82 points and played all 120 minutes in ODU’s three victories.

Swanton-Rodger, playing with a broken nose, had the best game of his career in ODU’s opener, a 67-49, victory over Louisiana, with 18 points, 10 rebounds and three blocked shots.

Several recruits noted that the Monarchs played with heart and poise in Pensacola.

Both Davis and Swanton-Rodger had numerous opportunities to go elsewhere.

“Entering the transfer portal was something I never seriously considered,” Davis said. “I love ODU.”

“It speaks so well for those kids and for our program that they decided to stay,” Jones said.

It also speaks well for ODU that the Monarchs were able to get five very good transfers from the portal.

The five transfers, in alphabetical order:

Jordan Battle is a 6-2 senior wing guard who will be returning home next season. The sharpshooting Chesapeake native was a star at Norfolk Collegiate. He comes to ODU from Coastal Carolina, where he led the Sun Belt Conference in three-point shooting, making 70 of 164 shots (.427 percent). He shot slightly better from behind the arc than in front of it. He and Davis will give ODU the long-distance shooting the Monarchs have lacked for years. He averaged 12.8 points and made 80.2 percent of his foul shots. He was red-hot in conference games, making 53 percent of his three-pointers (51 of 97). “He’s been a ridiculously good shooter since he left high school,” Jones said. “He played with so much energy. He’s a talker, always directing traffic, pointing out things. He’s so competitive. Even when it’s just two on two in the gym, he always competes hard. He can play on the ball and off the ball. He’s such a great addition that we desperately needed.”

Drew McKenna is a 6-8, 220-pound forward from Laurel, Maryland who transferred from Georgetown. He was ranked the No. 3 player in Maryland as a high school senior. He redshirted as a freshman and played sparingly most of last season before winning a starting position when the Hoyas played in the College Basketball Crown Tournament, where he averaged 7.5 points and 5.5 rebounds. “He was sometimes stuck playing at the five position (center) at Georgetown and he’s not going to have to do that for us. He can put the ball on the floor for a guy his size. He can play the wing and power forward and can guard a little bit of everything. He can shoot the ball. And the good news is, he’s got three years of eligibility, meaning he can be a cornerstone of what we do in the future.”

Jared Turner is a 6-9, 210-pound wing forward who last played for Northeastern in 2023-24 when he averaged eight points and 2.6 rebounds per game. He did not play last season. He starred at Gonzaga High School in Washington, D.C., DeMatha’s archrival, where his father was the head coach. “Jared is an elite shooter,” Jones said. “He can get his shot off on anybody because he’s so tall. Being the son of a coach, his basketball IQ level is extremely high. He’s a great competitor. A great person. I think ODU fans will fall in love with the way he shoots the ball and with the passion he plays with.”

Ketron "KC" Shaw, is a 6'5, 190-pound guard who ODU fans might remember. He dropped 30 points on the Monarchs when ODU edged Maryland-Eastern Shore last November. The Monarchs won, 73-71, to give Jones his first college coaching victory. The suburban Charlotte, North Carolina native averaged 17.8 points, six rebounds and 3.2 assists. He led UMES in all three categories and was a first-team All-MEAC choice. He played two seasons at Winston-Salem State before transferring to UMES. “He’s an elite scorer and super athletic,” Jones said. “He plays above the rim. We worked hard to get him early-on because of the offensive firepower that he brings to our squad.” Jones added that “he will have a huge role on our team. He’s so tough and so competitive.”

L.J. Thomas is a 6-2, 192-pound point guard from Plant City, Florida where he was rated a four-star recruit by ESPN and the nation's No. 138 overall prospect by 247Sports. He prepped at Bull City Prep in Durham, North Carolina and played sparingly for two seasons at North Carolina State before transferring to Austin Peay, where he averaged 14.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.9 assists. It’s a long way until practice begins, but as things stand, he is ODU’s likely starting point guard and a potential star. “He is a pure point guard, a facilitator. He’s a center table guy,” Jones said. “He’s got a really long wingspan.” And like many of ODU’s recruits, he was won over in large part because of the University’s outstanding facilities – Chartway Arena is the finest in the Sun Belt – and fan base. “He chose us because of our fan base and because of the opportunity to play with other really good players. He wants to show that he can run a team but can also play off the ball.”

ODU also signed a high school player, Zacch Wiggins, a 6-5, 170-pound forward who was a consensus three-star recruit at Wesleyan Christian Academy in Greensboro, North Carolina. He had offers from East Carolina, Charlotte, George Mason and James Madison.

He’s a slashing attacker who can shoot three-pointers and an excellent rebounder.

“He had a stellar senior year of what was a great high school and AAU career,” Jones said. “His best basketball is ahead of him and I think he will help us from day one.”

ODU has a scholarship left to give and Jones hasn’t decided whether it will go to a high school player or someone in the portal.

“We’re going to be very careful with this last scholarship,” he said.

ODU has not released its schedule, although a home game with Norfolk State and a road game at Richmond were recently announced. UR returns to Norfolk in 2026-27while the Monarchs also play at Norfolk State that season. 

Although he would not discuss numbers, Jones said that ODU has enough Name, Image and Likeness money to be competitive in the Sun Belt. He said Dr. Wood Selig, ODU’s director of athletics, and President Brian O. Hemphill, Ph.D., have provided the resources he needs to be competitive.

He also credited ODU’s fan base.

“Every one of the young men who played for us last season truly loves this place and some of them wanted to be here next season,” he said. “And with the way things worked out, it wasn’t able to happen.”

He said ODU’s run in the Sun Belt Tournament was a huge factor in ODU’s recruiting success.

“The biggest thing for us is that we showed what we’re capable of,” he said. “All year, we were trying to get everyone on the same page and in the tournament, it clicked.

“Our fans, our arena, our facilities, our campus, those were all huge selling points. Our fans were so good. The environment we have at Chartway Arena, that’s something every college basketball player dreams of."

Minium is ODU’s senior executive writer. Contact him at hminium@odu.edu or follow him on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram