Old Dominion basketball has been part of the fabric of Hampton Roads for nearly a century. From the Division II national championship in 1975 to the Top 25 appearance of the modern era, from the noise inside the old Norfolk Scope to the electric nights at Chartway Arena, this program has produced players whose names still get brought up in conversations at the barbershop, at tailgates, and in living rooms across Virginia. Some of them went on to win NBA championships. Some made All-Star games. Some simply became legends in their own city in ways that matter more than any statistic.
We decided it was time to lock in our lineup. We went through the full history of this program, weighed the careers, argued about the details, and built the greatest lineup in ODU basketball history. Six spots total: five starters and a sixth man. The criteria was production at ODU first, legacy second, and impact on the program throughout.
Now, let’s make the case.
Point Guard: Dave Twardzik
There is no debate here and there never was. Dave Twardzik is considered the best player in ODU history. The only real question is how far ahead of everyone else he stands, and the answer is considerable.
Twardzik arrived in Norfolk in 1968 after Sonny Allen watched him play in an all-star game in Allentown and told him he was the perfect point guard to run ODU's structured fast-break offense. He fulfilled that prophecy by averaging 20 points and 5.5 assists and led the Monarchs to the NCAA Division II finals in 1971. The former Monarch captain, whose number 14 was retired in 1972, passed out 880 career assists for a program record and scored 1,660 points while triggering the Monarchs' fast break attack. He was a two-time All-American and the engine of one of the most exciting teams this program has ever put on the floor.
What happened next elevated him beyond the program's record books entirely. Both Portland and the Virginia Squires drafted him in 1972. Twardzik chose the Squires in part to stay close to Norfolk, where he had built his life, and spent four years in the ABA playing alongside Julius Erving and George Gervin before the league folded. He signed with the Trail Blazers as a free agent in 1976, and in Portland he became part of the team's memorable group of guard-forwards that backed up a frontline of Bill Walton and Maurice Lucas on the 1977 NBA championship team. His number 13 was retired by the Trail Blazers. His number 14 was already retired here. He is the only ODU basketball player to have his jersey retired by an NBA franchise.
This team starts with Twardzik and builds around him.
Wing: Kent Bazemore
If you want to understand what Kent Bazemore meant to ODU basketball, you have to understand what he did that no one else in this program's history has ever done quite as well: he made defense an identity.
Bazemore arrived in Norfolk from Kelford, North Carolina, redshirted his first year, and spent the next four seasons turning himself into the most decorated defensive player in CAA history. A two-time CAA Defensive Player of the Year, he won the Lefty Driesell Award as the top defensive player in the nation and finished second in conference history with 250 career steals. He played in a program record 140 games. He averaged 15.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 3.1 assists as a senior. His senior class won 101 games at ODU, another program record.
His NBA story is one of the most compelling in ODU history. He went undrafted in 2012 and signed with Golden State as a free agent. At halftime of a game against state rival VCU on December 10, 2016, Old Dominion retired Bazemore's #24 Monarchs jersey and inducted him into the school's athletic Ring of Honor. He went on to sign a four-year, $70 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks. He played ten years in the NBA. He helped convince Steph Curry to sign with Under Armour, which led to Under Armour subsequently signing a deal with ODU worth seven times what the school had previously received from Nike. His career at ODU generated an institutional return that most players never come close to.
Wing: B.J. Stith
B.J. Stith is the most recent, and likely controversial, addition to this starting five. Here’s why he belongs.
The son of Bryant Stith, UVA's all-time leading scorer who played ten seasons in the NBA, B.J. came to ODU and built a legacy entirely on his own terms. In his senior season in 2018-19, he was named Conference USA Player of the Year, averaging 17.3 points and 7.4 rebounds per game while leading the Monarchs to their most recent NCAA Tournament appearance and the program's first Conference USA regular season title. He was named AP Honorable Mention All-American, the first ODU player to earn that honor since Frank Hassell in 2011.
What made Stith special was not just that he could score. It was that he could score in every way you needed, at every moment you needed it, in a system that asked a lot of its star player. He averaged 7.5 rebounds per game from the wing. He shot 84.7 percent from the free throw line. He was a calming presence late in games and a disruptive one defensively. Jeff Jones built the program's most recent tournament run around him, and Stith delivered at every step.
The argument for Petey Sessoms in this spot is also strong. Sessoms was the 1995 CAA Player of the Year and delivered the most iconic individual performance in recent program history: leading ODU to a triple-overtime upset of third-seeded Villanova in the NCAA Tournament, a game that people in Hampton Roads still talk about nearly thirty years later. His moment was bigger. His body of work over four years was not quite as deep as Stith's. On an all-time team built on sustained excellence, Stith wins the spot. But Sessoms is on the short list of players who came very close and at the top of any list that is driven by heart rather than data.
Forward: Odell Hodge
His number 33 hangs from the rafters at Chartway Arena. His face lights up when he talks about this place. He grew up in Martinsville, Virginia, came to Norfolk as the all-time leading scorer in Virginia High School League history, and spent five seasons at ODU building a legacy that has not been touched in the thirty years since he left.
Hodge compiled 2,117 career points and 1,086 rebounds, making him one of only four Division I men's basketball players in Virginia history to reach the 2,000/1,000 club, alongside Ralph Sampson, Kenny Sanders, and Jeff Cohen. He ranks second only to David Robinson in career blocked shots in CAA history with 286, and third in CAA history in rebounds. He was the CAA Rookie of the Year in 1993. He was the CAA Player of the Year and Tournament MVP in 1994. He missed the entire 1995 season with a knee injury, watched from the bench as his teammates upset Villanova in triple overtime, and came back the following season without missing a beat. He was the CAA Player of the Year and Tournament MVP again in 1997.
Forward: Chris Gatling
Chris Gatling transferred to ODU from Pittsburgh and spent three seasons becoming the most offensively dominant big man this program has ever produced. The numbers make the case immediately and do not require embellishment.
Gatling is ODU's all-time field goal percentage leader at .606. He scored 1,811 career points and hauled down 859 career rebounds. He is second all-time at ODU with 12 thirty-point games. He was the Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year in 1990 and again in 1991. He was the Sun Belt Tournament MVP in 1991. When the 1991 NBA Draft came around, he was ODU's first player ever selected in the NBA first round, going 16th overall to the Golden State Warriors.
His NBA career ran eleven seasons across seven franchises. With the New Jersey Nets in 1997, he started 44 of 47 games and posted averages of 19.0 points and 7.9 rebounds per game, which earned him his lone NBA All-Star selection. He is the only ODU basketball player to have ever been named an NBA All-Star.
The argument in favor of Mark West for this spot is not a weak one. West played four years at ODU to Gatling's three, led the nation in blocked shots in both 1980 and 1981, hauled down 1,113 career rebounds, and went on to a 17-season NBA career in which he ranks third all-time in career field goal percentage behind only Artis Gilmore and Shaquille O'Neal. He was a key member of the Phoenix Suns team that reached the 1993 NBA Finals. He was a three-time All-American. His #45 hangs in the rafters at Chartway Arena. In the 75th anniversary fan vote, he was the top vote-getter on the all-time squad.
Here is why Gatling wins the starting spot: on pure ODU production, the gap is real. Gatling was a two-time conference Player of the Year who shot over 60 percent from the floor, scored 1,811 points in three seasons, was an NBA All-Star, and was the program's first ever first-round draft pick. West's college numbers were excellent but not at that level of individual dominance. His legacy leans more on what he accomplished in the NBA and on how much the fans of his era loved him, both of which are legitimate reasons to celebrate him. They are not quite enough to displace Gatling from the starting lineup.
Sixth Man: Kenny Gattison
Kenny Gattison is the easiest choice on this roster.
The 6-8 power forward from ODU was the 1986 Sun Belt Conference Player of the Year and earned Honorable Mention All-American honors in both 1985 and 1986. He still holds the Sun Belt Conference record with 963 career rebounds and compiled 1,623 career points. He was a nine-year NBA veteran. He did all of that behind two of the most physically dominant big men in program history in Hodge and Gatling, which is part of why his career at ODU has sometimes been underrated relative to those two. Context matters. Gattison's contemporaries were not easy competition.
He is the ideal sixth man because of exactly what he brings off the bench: physical aggression, rebounding, and the ability to change the interior dynamic of a game the moment he checks in. The best sixth men in any sport are the players who are too good to not play but whose specific skill set is maximized in a complementary role. Gattison's skill set has always been about presence, about winning the physical battles inside, about making the team harder to score against near the rim. That plays off the bench as well as it plays from the starting lineup, maybe better.
The Players Who Came Close
No all-time team discussion is complete without a look at who was left out and why.
Mark West was addressed above, but it bears repeating that leaving him off the starting lineup is not a slight. Seventeen seasons in the NBA. A retirement ceremony at Chartway Arena. The top vote-getter in the 75th anniversary fan vote. He is one of the five or six greatest players in program history by any measure. The starting front court is simply that stacked.
Petey Sessoms deserves more than a footnote. The Portsmouth native delivered one of the most memorable performances in program history and was the CAA Player of the Year. A generation of ODU fans who watched that Villanova game in 1995 will argue his case until they are out of breath. That argument has real merit.
Ronnie Valentine was a scoring machine in the early Division I era and a beloved figure in the program's history. Wilson Washington was a first-team All-American who earned that distinction in both Division II and Division I, the only player in program history to accomplish that, and hauled down over 1,000 career rebounds while helping lead ODU to the 1975 national championship and the program's first Division I success. Both are Hall of Famers. Both built the foundation that made everything on this list possible.
Alex Loughton, the 2005 CAA Player of the Year with 1,610 career points and 919 rebounds, led one of the program's most beloved modern runs and is an Academic All-American. If the starting five extended to seven or eight players, he would be on it without much debate.
The Roster
- PG: Dave Twardzik — Two-time All-American, 1977 NBA Champion, #14 retired at ODU
- Wing: Kent Bazemore — Two-time CAA Defensive Player of the Year, Lefty Driesell Award, #24 retired at ODU
- Wing: B.J. Stith — C-USA Player of the Year 2019, AP Honorable Mention All-American, led ODU's last NCAA Tournament run
- Forward: Odell Hodge — 2,117 points, 1,086 rebounds, two-time CAA Player of the Year, #33 retired at ODU
- Forward: Chris Gatling — Two-time Sun Belt Player of the Year, ODU's first NBA first-round pick, 1997 NBA All-Star
- 6th Man: Kenny Gattison — Sun Belt Player of the Year, Sun Belt Conference career rebounds record, nine-year NBA veteran
Disagree with us? Good. Tell us why in the comments. These conversations are exactly what this program's history deserves.
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