Monarchs and new coach get together
Mike Jones stays to meet players when bus returns from Georgia just after 6 a.m.
NORFOLK — When Old Dominion’s bleary-eyed basketball players returned to town at the end of an eight-hour bus ride from Statesboro, Georgia, shortly before sunrise on Saturday, they had one more thing to do.
It was time to meet the new coach.
Mike Jones, a Maryland assistant who was named the Monarchs’ head man at a Friday press conference, stuck around an extra night to say hello to his charges, even if he had to do it at an ungodly hour.
Jones met the players and coaching staff in the locker room at Chartway Arena shortly after 6 a.m. In about a five-minute get-together. He introduced himself, urged the players to listen to their coaches and finish the season strong, and told them he planned to turn things around.
At his introductory press conference, Jones said meeting the players and coaches was “at the top of the priority list.” It turns out he wasn’t kidding.
Jones was spotted at the ODU women’s game Friday night. The Terrapins lost at home to Indiana on Sunday afternoon.
Saturday’s meeting extended an already long weekend at the end of what, for the program, was an eventful week.
“It meant a lot that he wanted to stay,” junior guard R.J. Blakney said, “especially the long drive that we had — eight hours from Georgia — and meet us in the morning to at least say something to us and encourage us to continue to play hard and finish out the job.”
The job, as it stands now, is to keep what’s been an unusually difficult season alive. The 14th-seeded Monarchs (7-24) will face 11th-seeded Texas State (14-17) in Tuesday’s opening round of the Sun Belt Conference Tournament in Pensacola, Florida. Their next loss will be their last game.
It’s why they don’t yet have answers to big-picture personnel questions regarding their future. Will any of the staff be retained? How many players will return, and how many are likely to hit the transfer portal?
They have other things on their minds.
“There’ll be time for all those discussions after the season,” said acting head coach Kieran Donohue. “That’s really not at the forefront of my mind at all, like I’ve said before. My focus is right here to try to help this team be as good as we can be for as long as we can be.”
Jones, 50, spent two seasons as a Virginia Tech assistant after a highly successful 19-year run as the head coach at Maryland’s storied DeMatha Catholic High.
After many other coaches tried,
Tech coach Mike Young lured Jones from the high school ranks by promising him a job coaching, and not just recruiting. From there, Jones’ goal became returning to ODU, where he was a star guard in the early 1990s.
His arrival was part of a hectic few days. On Monday, two days after an emotional appearance at Chartway, 11th-year head coach Jeff Jones announced his retirement, putting the search for his replacement into warp speed.
University president Brian O. Hemphill and athletic director Wood Selig researched, vetted or interviewed more than two dozen candidates, but they quickly zeroed in on Mike Jones for his coaching track record, his recruiting skills, his style of play and his inclusive personality.
Meanwhile, the Monarchs had tough road games at Appalachian State and Georgia Southern, both lopsided losses. When they got back, they had a new coach.
As Donohue said: “There was a lot last week.”
“It’s pretty tough,” said junior guard Chaunce Jenkins, who starred for Menchville High in Newport News. “All this stuff going on in the midst of us playing games, it could be a distraction. But at the end of the day, we’ve just got to come in here and stay focused on the task at hand. We’ve got opportunities to still be basketball players coming up, so just focus on that.”
The hire came near the end of a season filled with challenges. Jeff Jones had a heart attack on Dec. 20 and never returned, forcing Donohue into an unfamiliar role. Two of the team’s top players were dismissed during the season for disciplinary reasons, forcing the Monarchs to adjust their style of play twice.
Losses have come in practically every way imaginable, many of them heartbreakingly close enough to keep the players convinced they’ve been onto something all along.
The past week was just one more strange one in a season full of them.
“I think it’s just a lot for our players to process, quite honestly,” Donohue said. “There’s been a lot for our players to process all season long. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: They’ve responded very well. They’ve handled it, I think, as well as they can.”