There was a time, back in the early days of women’s college basketball, when the UVA-ODU rivalry was a marquee matchup.
The ODU teams featured Nancy Lieberman and Anne Donovan winning back-to-back national championships in 1979 and 1980.
Remember Nancy Lieberman – “Lady Magic”?
Lieberman actually got an NBA tryout, and played a Summer League game with the Los Angeles Lakers.
Virginia eventually catching up in the mid-1980s, and going on a run of back-to-back-to-back Final Fours in the Dawn Staley era in the early 1990s.
Dawn Staley was the early ‘90s version of Nancy Lieberman – went on to a little bit of success in the WNBA, won a few Olympic gold medals, and is now the best women’s coach in the game.
The series, dormant since 2019, is renewing, with a game on the schedule on Nov. 15 in Norfolk, and ODU making a return trip to Charlottesville in 2027.
“I think it’s a great thing to renew the in-state rivalry with ODU,” first-year UVA coach Aaron Roussell said, per a quote in a release from UVA Athletics that went out on Wednesday.
“Both women’s basketball programs have a rich history, and it makes all the sense in the world for us to be competing on a stage like this in front of the rest of the state,” Roussell said.
ODU leads the all-time series by a 19-16 margin, though Virginia has a 2-1 edge in NCAA Tournament matchups.
The Monarchs owned this one early – winning 12 of 13 between 1977 and 1985; sample scores: 85-53, 71-38, 74-26, 71-49, 99-48, 79-50.
ODU was the measuring stick for Debbie Ryan as she worked to build her UVA program into a national power.
As a nod to that, Ryan scheduled ODU for the opening game in JPJ in 2006, which Virginia won, 92-72.
The last game in the series, to this point, was early in the 2019-2020 season, a 56-53 OT win for the ‘Hoos.
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Chris Graham
