1/8/02 - Tiger Test

As the rest of his teammates dissected their 81-74 loss to N.C. State on Saturday, Virginia junior center Travis Watson took a different position.
“I’ve already forgot about this game. Now I’m looking forward to playing Clemson and trying to beat them,” said Watson bluntly.
Watson’s comment falls in that turn-the-page department. UVa coach Pete Gillen likely would support that statement, but Gillen probably wants his team to also realize the mistakes it did make Saturday.
Of those items, defense likely is at the top of the list, but there is another, more overriding, big-picture-like one according to Gillen, who has now lost four straight ACC openers as UVa as a program has lost its last seven.
Just like it had against both Virginia Tech and Rutgers earlier this season, the Cavaliers found themselves trailing at halftime, this time by 11 after the Wolfpack shot a sizzling 60.7 percent in the first 20 minutes.
After the game, many of the UVa players stated that they never believed that they could not come back again Saturday but such thinking creates something of a false confidence, Gillen says.
“We’ve had big deficits against Virginia Tech and Rutgers and you can’t keep doing that. I don’t know if our guys just think they can turn it on and turn it off,” Gillen said.
Added guard Roger Mason Jr.: “It’s not a good habit to get into, to be down at the half and thinking we’re so good where we can just charge back. It didn’t happen [Saturday] and you can’t depend on that always happening.”
The fact remains, however, that while they did not come all the way back, the Cavaliers still managed to cut the State lead to 65-64 with 9:56 remaining. Then the Cavaliers turned the ball over on three straight possessions, which led to Wolfpack baskets and essentially ended any hopes for another comeback win.
Add that sloppy sequence as another item that Gillen plans on making his team remember before facing Clemson on Tuesday.
“We just weren’t in sync the whole game. They did some good defensive things and we just couldn’t finish plays. We did some things that just weren’t smart,” Gillen said. “The game was there and we could have won but we just didn’t do our job.”
Despite any discussion of defense and comebacks or crucial turnovers, there was one stat that was perhaps most glaring of all. The N.C. State bench, led by freshman Illian Evtimov’s career-high 15 points, outscored the Virginia reserves 22-5. Those Virginia reserves, who are essentially all freshmen, were playing in their first ACC game and their debut was not their best according to Gillen.
“Our young guys are good players but it was difficult for our young players today which is going to happen some times,” Gillen said.

Hardened foe from hardy ACC makes Cavs gulp a dose of reality
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 6, 2002

Something is wrong with this picture. Virginia's basketball team is fourth in the national polls, but finds itself this morning near the basement of the Atlantic Coast Conference.

It's not so much that the Cavaliers were exposed Saturday by North Carolina State. Nothing as dramatic as that. The 81-74 loss to the Wolfpack is just a reminder that, as Roger Mason Jr., said, ``The ACC schedule can be brutal.''

``More intense,'' U.Va. teammate Chris Williams said of conference competition. ``You've got to be ready to play.''

From coach Pete Gillen on down, the Cavaliers are certain they were not ready for N.C. State, a ponderous bunch in recent years that ran the floor at University Hall like a relay team.

By Monday, the Cavaliers won't have to worry about that No. 4 ranking mocking their stumbling start to league play. Their drop in the polls will be a mild disappointment that may serve as a useful reality check for U.Va.

``I don't know if our guys just think they can turn it on and turn it off,'' Gillen said.

The Cavaliers could do just that against Wagner, Howard, and even Virginia Tech and Rutgers. But against N.C. State, we were reminded again that U.Va.'s heavy-breathing, high-flying style does not necessarily intimidate hardened conference opponents.

``We went back to some bad habits,'' said Mason, the Cavs junior leader, ``and we didn't defend.''

U.Va.'s dubious defensive skills were placed under a microscope following the game, but since when do Gillen's teams ever remind anyone of the Baltimore Ravens? Often, you get the sense that Gillen's full-court press is only meant to guarantee a 94-foot game. For those of us who squirmed for years through U.Va.'s slow-motion monotony, this is not necessarily something to criticize.

OK, so U.Va.'s pressure tactics often only fluster the Little Sisters of the Poor. This is not exactly a bulletin. Saturday, the press played to N.C. State's strength, and the visitors feasted on fast-break opportunities all afternoon.

``When a team shoots 60 percent in the first half, you are in trouble,'' Gillen said. ``Our pressure wasn't aggressive.''

But U.Va.'s offense wasn't in high gear, either. N.C. State didn't shoot lights out all game. The Wolfpack's bite turned considerably less ferocious as the game wound down; State went the final seven minutes with only a single field goal. And still, U.Va. could not catch up.

By crunch time, Mason, who played all 40 minutes at point guard, was not in sync. Perhaps his 1-for-10 second-half shooting was partially a product of fatigue.

``I probably should have taken him out,'' Gillen said, ``but when you get down, you have to go with your best horse.''

The game offered Gillen sufficient opportunities to rest Mason. The first of 16 conference tests is no place to overreact and overwork your top thoroughbred. Or to panic when an undefeated record dissolves in a flurry of errant shots and matador defending.

``We've got to move our feet, watch film and be a little more committed'' to defense, said Gillen.

The Cavaliers seek top form on the road this week, with winnable games at Clemson and North Carolina. Still, the ACC schedule can turn brutal for a team that fails to defend home turf.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Jan. 7 – Virginia has been here before, answering questions about its defense after a season-opening winning streak ended in its first ACC game.

Last season, that opening loss was a sign of defensive struggles to come. In conference games, the Cavaliers yielded the highest field-goal percentage in the ACC. Two days after North Carolina State shot 61 percent in the first half of an 81-74 win, the Cavaliers are trying to solve their defensive problems before today's game at Clemson.

The Wolfpack "made some good plays and hit some tough shots, but our defense has got to get better," said Virginia Coach Pete Gillen, whose team slid three spots to No. 7 in the Associated Press poll after the loss. "When a team shoots 61 percent in the first half, you're in trouble. Our defense let us down and we have to address that."

The Cavaliers (9-1, 0-1) held their first nine opponents to 37 percent shooting by using their athletic ability to hinder slower, less-talented teams. That formula did not faze young, quick North Carolina State.

"Thus far we've been successful because we've been playing pretty good defense," junior guard Roger Mason said. "Even nights when we don't play particularly well offensively, we always have our defense to fall back on. [Saturday] we went back to some bad habits and we didn't defend."

Virginia's prime defensive weaknesses came on the perimeter, where Wolfpack senior Anthony Grundy and freshmen Julius Hodge and Ilian Evtimov combined for 55 points. With a back court of Mason and senior Adam Hall, both 6 feet 5, the Cavaliers could not keep the Wolfpack from creating open shots, especially on dribble penetration. Virginia only got back into the game after Gillen switched to a three-guard lineup, bringing in 6-3 point guard Keith Jenifer for the 6-8 J.C. Mathis.

Virginia rallied to beat Auburn, Rutgers and Virginia Tech in December, which Gillen said may have led his players to "just think they can turn it on and turn it off." They learned Saturday it rarely works that way in the ACC.

"I was pretty confident that we would have our burst and charge back into the game," said Mason, who helped the Cavaliers cut the Wolfpack's 12-point lead to one with 10 minutes left. "[But] it's not a good habit to get into, being down at the half and thinking that we're so good that we can charge back. We can't depend on that happening."

Yet Mason, pointing to Virginia's solid defense early this season, rejected the notion that Saturday's defensive lapses represent the beginning of a familiar trend.

"I'm really going to put this on one particular game," he said. "I don't think this is going to be our team this year. I'm pretty confident that's not the case. Hopefully we can go to Clemson and play better defense."

Offense let Virginia down in loss to unranked N.C. State
By Steve Argeris
The News & Advance
CHARLOTTESVILLE - Contrary to the most widely expressed opinions surrounding Virginia's loss to N.C. State Saturday, the cause of the first blemish on the Cavaliers' record was not their defense.

Though Virginia's old Achilles heel flared up again, when the normally punchless Wolfpack scored 48 points and shot 60.7 percent in the first half, the Cavaliers were undermined by their offense most of all as they dropped to 9-1.

After that incredible first half, the Wolfpack struggled mightily in the second half to score. When N.C. State's gutsy guard, Anthony Grundy, made a put-back layup with 7:20 remaining in the game, the Wolfpack were ahead 71-64.

A seven-point lead is hardly insurmountable with that much time left, but N.C. State made it even easier on the Cavaliers, missing their next seven shots and putting in just a pair of Clifford Crawford free throws over the next six minutes.

Virginia, however, did not seize the opportunity. The Cavaliers' next 10 possessions produced five points, when Jason Clark and Roger Mason Jr. each made one of two free throws and Mason made a 3-pointer. Mason also missed four shots and traveled once.

However poor the defense was up to that point, Virginia essentially neutralized the Wolfpack over a long enough stretch to not only come back, but to potentially take a commanding lead, all in the set-piece, half-court game that the Cavaliers supposedly cannot play.

It was the Cavaliers' half-court offense that did them in. More specifically, their chances were limited by their inexperienced reserves and their over-reliance on two players - center Travis Watson and Mason.

Virginia's offense, when slowed down, usually boils down to a two-man game. The first attempt is to get Watson the ball in the low post, and, if he is not free to move inside, the Cavs kick it back out to the perimeter, where the ball ends up in the hands of Mason. At that point, they either go into a motion set that has the perimeter players curling in and out trying to find the first open look, or, too often, has Mason bounce around the perimeter and try to make something happen.

Watson scored 20 points, tying his career high, Mason had 18, equaling his season average. But Watson had to miss key stretches (six minutes in all) in the second half because leg cramps he had suffered through all game worsened, and Mason missed 9 of 10 shots in the second half and forced bad shots as the game slipped away.

"I probably pressed some, trying to get us back into the game," Mason said. "I don't know if I tried to do too much."

"Roger and Travis are guys we really need," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "Our younger players did not have their best games. They are good players, but it is going to take time."

But it was the Cavaliers' older players, its two seniors, who did not emerge when Watson was hurt and Mason faltered. Chris Williams and Adam Hall were largely irrelevant for most of the game. Williams dominated whenever he had the ball in the post, and finished with 18. But he played passively in the second half.

Williams did not take a shot between a turnaround jumper with 9:56 left and a 3-pointer with 46 seconds remaining. By that point, the game was all but decided, and he added another meaningless jumper for cosmetic effect.

Hall scored nine points in 36 minutes, and had no offensive rebounds, his usual calling card. J.C. Mathis, the starting power forward, had four points in 14 minutes as the Cavaliers went to a smaller lineup for most of the game. The four freshmen off the bench combined for five points - Elton Brown had four, Jason Clark had one, and Jermaine Harper and Keith Jenifer had none.

Mason was asked afterwards if he tried to do too much. A better question might have been if he was asked to do too much.

There are several different ways that the Virginia men's basketball team could have gotten to 9-1. Losing its ACC home opener to North Carolina State was not the best one.

Two years ago, the Cavaliers finished 9-7 in the ACC and did not receive an invitation to the NCAA Tournament. Two ACC teams (Georgia Tech and Wake Forest) made the NCAA field last year at 8-8, but you wouldn't want to risk a .500 conference record this year.

The ACC's power ratings may never recover from nonconference losses to Yale, American University and Indiana University-Purdue University-Indianapolis (IUPUI).

Virginia had some decent nonconference victories - most notably over Georgetown, Rutgers and Auburn - but the season didn't really start till Saturday, when unranked North Carolina State won at University Hall for the first time since 1988.

That was nothing out of the ordinary, considering that UVa has lost seven straight ACC openers. There was reason to believe that might change, however, given the Cavaliers' 21-1 record at home since the start of the 2000-2001 season.

Moreover, at No.4, this was the highest-ranked Virginia team since Ralph Sampson's senior year in 1982-83, but that's where the argument breaks down. Nobody who watched the Cavaliers in the first nine games of the season could have thought they were one of the top five teams in the country.

In a word, this team is "flawed." Coach Pete Gillen spent his first three years at Virginia without a true center and now he doesn't have a point guard.

Look down the UVa bench and you can see a center, Nick Vander Laan, and two point guards, Majestic Mapp and Todd Billet. Unfortunately for the Cavaliers, Mapp is recovering from reconstructive knee surgery and the other two are transfers who do not become eligible until 2002-2003.

In all fairness, Roger Mason Jr. has done a creditable job at point guard, with nearly a 2-1 assist-turnover ratio (59-31) for the season. Fellow junior Travis Watson, though undersized, has been an ACC-caliber center since his arrival at UVa.

In a perfect world, UVa would have one of the best shooting guards (Mason) and power forwards (Watson) in the country. Not only are they playing out of position, but the players in their spots haven't responded.

Shooting guard Adam Hall is a tremendous defensive player and a spectacular dunker, but he doesn't scare anybody from outside. Hall was 5-for-6 on 3-pointers against East Tennessee State and Howard, but he is 1-for-18 against the rest of the schedule.

Sophomore forward J.C. Mathis is plodding on offense and defense and is 12-for-28 from the free-throw line. If Gillen had given ex-post man Colin Ducharme that long a rope, the Cavaliers might have made the 2000 NCAA Tournament.

Mapp's need for a second knee operation was a major setback, once that could have been mitigated by some precocious play from freshman point guard Keith Jenifer. At a time when the Cavaliers were eager to increase Jenifer's playing time, his play has dictated otherwise.

Many UVa fans couldn't wait until former point guard Donald Hand exhausted his eligibility. Wonder what they're thinking about Hand now?

At a crucial stage of the 2000-2001 season, a Hand-led team went to Clemson and silenced the Tigers 104-76. Another trip to Clemson awaits today, followed by a visit to North Carolina, where UVa has won once since 1981.

Before the Cavaliers start thinking about their lack of postseason success, they need to keep one thing in mind: Get there first.

N.C. State played four freshmen Saturday, and they combined for 44 points and 10 rebounds in an 81-74 upset of then-No. 4 Virginia at University Hall.

That was the second ACC game for the Wolfpack's newcomers. It was the first for U.Va.'s four scholarship freshmen - post players Elton Brown and Jason Clark, point guard Keith Jenifer and shooting guard Jermaine Harper - and they totaled five points and three rebounds.

Take away the 6-9, 265-pound Brown's solid effort - four points on 2-for-2 shooting in 10 minutes - and the Cavaliers' first-year players were 0 for 3 from the floor and 1 for 2 from the line.

Welcome to the big leagues.

"Our younger guys didn't have their best games," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said.

Harper air-balled his first field-goal attempt. Clark played a season-low eight minutes and failed to record a rebound or a blocked shot, his specialties. Jenifer, in perhaps the game's pivotal play, had the ball stripped at midcourt, a turnover that State guard Anthony Grundy turned into a momentum-shifting layup.

"Our young freshmen are good players, but it's still going to take time, I think," Gillen said.

Seventh-ranked U.Va. can't afford to wait long for its youngsters to grow up, particularly guards Jenifer and Harper. Point guard Roger Mason Jr. needs to rest occasionally, and shooting guard Adam Hall continues to shoot erratically.

Mason, U.Va.'s leading scorer, played all 40 minutes Saturday and, perhaps not coincidentally, missed 9 of his 10 field goal attempts in the second half. The 6-5 junior is playing out of position, but unless Jenifer proves capable of running Virginia's attack against ACC foes, Gillen will have no choice but to stick with Mason.

Hall, who started at small forward last season, was 5 for 6 from beyond the 3-point arc in November wins over East Tennessee State and Howard. In the other seven games, however, the 6-5 senior has gone 1 for 18 from 3-point range. Hall hasn't made a trey in his past five games and went 0 for 4 from long range against N.C. State.

"Adam can hit them on occasion," Gillen said. "He didn't have a good game today."

In Travis Watson's first ACC game, against Duke on Jan. 5, 2000, he had 17 points, 16 rebounds, two assists and two blocks. Those numbers notwithstanding, Watson said Saturday that he had jitters before his ACC debut.

"The first game, I think everybody's a little nervous," said Watson, now a 6-8, 255-pound junior.

For Virginia to achieve its goals this season, its freshmen must contribute more than they did against N.C. State. That said, U.Va.'s veterans refused to blame the loss on the new guys.

"They're freshmen, and this was their first ACC game," said senior forward Chris Williams.

"They're going to come along, and we have to - the more experienced guys - lead them in the right direction and show them the right way to go. I think now that they got this one under their belt, they're going to do a lot better the next game."

That comes tonight, when Virginia (0-1, 9-1) meets Clemson (1-1, 10-5) at Littlejohn Coliseum.

"I hope they got the jitters out," Watson said

THE ROLLING THUNDER that punctuated the weekend storms throughout the college basketball world arrived precisely on schedule.

From Starkville to Stillwater and Tallahassee to Charlottesville, heavyweights tumbled - a sure harbinger of the season.

The first robin that signals spring and the weather-predicting groundhog pale by comparison in the oracle department. The thunderclaps of upsets provide infallible proof that conference competition has started.

The days of feasting on pretenders to build glossy records give way to the beginning of the real season. All that has gone before means nothing in the neighborhood squabbles that thrive on familiarity.

Duke, Oklahoma State, Virginia and Kentucky fell on the sacrificial altar, results that scrambled the national rankings and whetted the appetite for more. Be sure that these will not be the last shockers in the two-month march toward Madness.

Players and coaches change, but the scenes are forever, the moments forever young. History tells us so.

'Ones you never forget.' The crowd that swarmed onto the court and swallowed the victors in a sea of ecstasy Sunday in Tallahassee looked eerily familiar. Turn back the clock more than 36 years and, yes, that's it.

Now, Florida State fans celebrated the unranked Seminoles' 77-76 triumph over top-ranked Duke. Then, on Dec. 6, 1965, South Carolina fans celebrated the unranked Gamecocks' 73-71 victory over third-ranked Duke.

"Those are the ones you never forget," says Jack Thompson, one of the principals in USC's 1965 win that really launched the Frank McGuire era. "I don't care what anyone says; I'm a firm believer that conference games are different. They almost always are a little something extra."

Reasons range "from familiarity to tendencies to tradition to coaching schemes to the game scene - fans, lighting, noise, all those things," Thompson said. "Players know what's at stake and what it takes to win. It's great to be part of the excitement, especially if you accomplish something" - like whipping a nationally ranked opponent.

One fact makes the Gamecocks' win more amazing than most. Four of the chief characters - Thompson, Skip Harlicka, Frank Standard and Skip Kickey - had never played an ACC game.

Always special. Thompson, now a Columbia stockbroker, had assured friends that he could find better guards than Duke stars Steve Vacendak and Bob Verga "on every other street corner in Brooklyn" in pregame, pool-room braggadocio. Then, with reality at hand, he spent game day "in bed with the covers over my head."

All's well that ends well, however, and Carolina guards Thompson and Harlicka sizzled in only the third game of their varsity careers. A magician with the basketball, Thompson slipped a pass to Al Salvadori for the go-ahead three-point play and another to Standard for the winning points in the final minute.

He remembers them like yesterday.

On the first, he blew past Vacendak "down the middle and got caught in the air." He remembers thinking, "Oh my God, Frank (McGuire) hates hook shots," then found Salvadori breaking to the basket for his three-point play.

After Duke countered to tie - "my man, Vacendak, scored," he said - Thompson again broke free and Jack Marin "left Standard and picked me up. I got the ball to Standard, Duke missed and the celebrations started" at the old Carolina Field House on Sumter Street.

What does it all mean?

Duke dominated the ACC's regular season, won the league tournament and finished with a 26-4 record, losing to Kentucky in the national semifinals. The Gamecocks nosed into the national rankings for a week, went 11-13 and started to make big noise in the ACC a year later.

Thompson's class won at Durham and Chapel Hill in back-to-back games, beat Marquette in Milwaukee and blazed the trail for the Roche Era teams.

For excitement, though, he would not trade the memories from that first conference game, the night he discovered the league battles always would be different - and special.