DATE: Saturday, November 22, 1997           TAG: 9711220649

SECTION: SPORTS                  PAGE: C2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY RICH RADFORD, STAFF WRITER

DATELINE: NORFOLK                           LENGTH:   49 lines

ODU HOPES TO REBOUND AGAINST HAMPTON TONIGHT

On the streets near Scope tonight, the city will hold its annual Grand Illumination & Parade.

Inside Scope, Old Dominion University men's coach Jeff Capel will be hoping the lights come on for his basketball team when they take on Hampton University.

The bulbs were a little dull in Old Dominion's season-opening 64-52 loss at Wright State.

So do the Monarchs change bulbs after one game?

Not a chance.

``It was as if we fired a blank rather than a live round,'' Capel said.

``It doesn't mean we're going to change the caliber of the gun.''

Besides, the Monarchs are a bit hog-tied with 6-9 junior Reggie Bassette out until at least January with a broken bone in his wrist and only nine available scholarship players.

Bassette was expected to pick up some of the scoring slack left by departed big man Odell Hodge. With Bassette out, the Monarchs are now turning to Skipper Youngblood and Cal Bowdler for inside scoring.

``And they've been in support roles in the past,'' Capel said. ``Now they're being asked to play significant minutes.

``These are basically guys who weren't in that role before. I think a lot of it was first-game growing pains.''

Making matters more difficult is that the Monarchs are in the dark about what the Pirates have this season.

The Pirates, under new head coach Steve Merfeld, had an agreement with Arkansas-Little Rock not to provide game film from their season opener to other teams.

``We just don't know a lot about their personnel,'' Capel said.

What's known is that the Monarchs must shoot better than they did on opening night when they were 19 of 51 from the field (37.3 percent) and an even-worse 7 of 21 (33.3 percent) from the foul line.

``Although we didn't shoot too well, it wasn't the offense that was the problem,'' said guard Mike Byers.

``And it wasn't our defense. It was getting beat to all the loose balls and getting outrebounded.

``There are going to be nights when the shooting's not too great. (Mark) Poag (4 of 14 from the field) didn't have a good night shooting and I didn't either (6 of 14).

``There are going to be nights when you don't play well. We just weren't expecting it to be the first night of the season. I'd rather have it then, though, than late in the season when it could really mean something.''

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