Cavs hope to keep on track against Deacons
By ANDREW JOYNER
Daily Progress staff writer
Somewhere amid all the coach vs. mentor storyline involving tonight’s Wake
Forest-UVa contest at University Hall, there will be a basketball game played.
And in the words of Wake Forest coach and former Pete Gillen assistant, Skip
Prosser, it will not involve Prosser vs. Gillen.
Instead, it will involve a streaking No. 14 Demon Deacons team against a No. 10
Virginia team still trying to right itself after a shaky 0-2 start to its ACC
schedule.
The Cavaliers (10-2, 1-2 ACC) avoided a disastrous 0-3 ACC start with a 71-67
win at North Carolina and will look to even their ACC mark against the Deacons
(13-3, 3-0), winners of five straight contests and the only ACC team other than
No. 3 Maryland to have a perfect ACC mark.
The Cavaliers will enter the game minus one of their major contributors, Adam
Hall. The 6-foot-5 senior swingman injured his right heel in the North Carolina
contest and is awaiting the results of an MRI taken on that right foot Monday
evening. Depending on the results, Hall, still sporting crutches Monday, likely
will miss two weeks or perhaps longer.
“Adam had a heck of a game I thought against North Carolina as he had eight
points and had some real big plays for us, so we’re certainly going to miss
him,” Gillen said.
Regardless of those tests, Hall will not play this evening meaning that freshman
point guard Keith Jenifer likely will make his second straight start.
The insertion of Jenifer to the starting lineup and Hall’s removal from it,
predates Hall’s injury Saturday. Gillen made the change late last week to
revive an offense that had struggled against the continual zone defenses it
faced in its first two ACC contests.
Jenifer, a 6-3 Baltimore native, had nine points and four assists against North
Carolina and managed to give UVa more quickness and penetrating ability at the
point. The move also shifts the team’s leading scorer, Roger Mason Jr., back
to his more natural shooting guard spot.
While Gillen called Jenifer’s performance against North Carolina
“tremendous,” the guard also earned praise from Prosser.
“I love Keith Jenifer. He’s a tough hard-nosed Baltimore kid,” said
Prosser, who said he recruited Jenifer during his time at Xavier prior to coming
to Wake.
If Gillen’s analysis of Jenifer’s play has been mostly positive, the one
issue Gillen questions slightly is his young point guard’s hairstyles. Jenifer
sported a corn-row look during the team’s first 10 games but has opted for an
Afro the last two games.
“I don’t worry about the hair. I just worry about how he plays. I hope that
he tries to keep it neat,” Gillen quipped. “That’s his thing. … I just
don’t want any bald spots or streaks or advertisements in his hair.”
Tonight’s game likely will feature more similarities in terms of style, not
hairstyle.
While not a carbon copy of Virginia, the uptempo, run and pressing style favored
by Gillen is also implemented by Prosser. As Prosser says, eight years as
Gillen’s assistant at Xavier (1986-94) had to rub off on him in some ways, and
he was not referring to one-liners and the fact that both coaches are redheads
[excuse the one additional reference to hairstyle].
“He has probably had the most profound influence on my basketball career in
terms on Xs and Os,” said Prosser, who refers to Gillen with the respectful
“Coach” or “Coach Gillen” and hardly ever as “Pete” in public
situations. “As far as the basic basketball philosophy of being aggressive and
running and pressing, that is a belief I held prior but being around Coach
Gillen only reinforced that.”
The numbers certainly bear that similarity in philosophy. Virginia is No. 3 in
the ACC in scoring (80.9 ppg) while Wake Forest is fourth (80.4). Virginia is
third in turnovers forced per game (17.4) and Wake is fifth (16.1).
So, correcting the earlier statement, the event that takes place tonight at
U-Hall might not be about Gillen vs. Prosser or a basketball game, but rather a
track meet.
Whatever the game resembles, the Cavaliers hope it means a win for them.
“Wake’s a great team and they’re ranked and we just have to come to
play,” Mason said.
Added senior Chris Williams: “Wake is and has been one of the top teams in the
ACC, so if you can’t get up for this game you can forget it.”
Note. The UVa athletic ticket office announced Monday that tickets are not available for Virginia’s men’s basketball game with Virginia Military Institute at University Hall on Jan. 24 or any other UVa home games during the 2001-02 regular season. Tickets put on sale to the public for the VMI game are sold out.
Weighing On The Mind
He can sell nearly a century of winning.
Only Kentucky has won more games than North Carolina in the history of college basketball. UNC has three NCAA championships to its credit, and the winningest coach in the history of the game, Dean Smith, worked at Carolina before retiring in 1997.
Tradition has another side, however. It can weigh like cement shoes in the middle of the Atlantic when losses start to mount.
This Carolina team has certainly felt the pressure of reaching its usual standards.
Carolina freshman Jackie Manuel concedes that he thinks about being a part of what may be the worst team in school history, at least the worst in people’s minds.
“You can’t help but think it,” Manuel said. “Everybody is talking about it. It’s on TV. You can’t help but think about it.”
Manuel laughs, maybe to keep from crying, and says that he never in his wildest dreams imagined living through such a season when he signed to become a Tar Heel.
“Not at all,” he says. “Not at all.”
Maybe not, but it’s happening, nonetheless. In their latest game, the Tar Heels at least had a shot to win -- unlike the last two outings when Wake Forest whipped Carolina 84-62 and Maryland cruised to a 112-79 victory.
Virginia defeated UNC 71-67 at the Smith Center Saturday, but the Tar Heels trailed by two (67-65) with 1 minute and 46 seconds left. That’s an eternity for a college basketball team with most of its timeouts remaining.
Those final moments turned out to be enough for Carolina’s bad habits to bubble to the surface once more and sink the Tar Heels to a 5-8 overall record, 1-3 in the ACC.
“It’s hard,” Doherty said. “It’s hard. I thought our kids really dug deep and gave a great effort. We were in position to beat a good basketball team.
“We just missed some shots during a key stretch in the second half. We had some critical turnovers during a key stretch in the second half. And we made some mental mistakes at the end, fouling (Roger) Mason, throwing the ball away.”
Unfortunately for Manuel, he contributed to several of those key errors. The Tar Heels got the ball on the break with the chance to tie the game, but Manuel threw a halfcourt pass to Jawad Williams that a Virginia defender easily stole.
As soon as it left his hand, Manuel said that he knew that he had screwed up.
“We had some turnovers that hurt, especially that turnover that I made,” Manuel said. “It was going through my head: ‘Should I throw it over the top or should I bounce pass it?’ When I went for the bounce pass, it slipped out of my hands.
“‘I was like, ‘Oh boy.’”
Manuel also fouled Mason twice near the end, right after Doherty had told the team not to foul Virginia’s 85.5 percent free-throw shooter.
“We didn’t want to foul Mason,” Doherty said. “I hate to talk about inexperience, but there were some plays of inexperience down the stretch.
“Those were two critical plays where we fouled Mason twice. I’m trying to be delicate, but we’re not supposed to foul Mason. Part of the problem the last few weeks is that we have to be held accountable for our mistakes. That was certainly a mental error.”
Manuel was by no means the lone offender. Others committed turnovers, were beaten on defense and missed shots. The Tar Heels have given a team effort all season in their ability to err.
“Jackie did make some mistakes,” Doherty said, “but Jackie made some great plays as well, rebounding, defensive plays, some nice layups.
“Everyone,” Doherty said, “and I’m talking about coaching staff, too, made some mistakes to contribute to the loss. But everyone made some really good plays and brought a good level of energy and toughness to this game to put us in position to beat a good team.
“It’s tough because we came up short.”
Sooner or later, Manuel said, the Tar Heels will return to form. The only question, he insists, is when it will happen.
“Everybody has their days,” Manuel said. “It might not be our year this year, but it will come.”
Hoop dreamers of a lesser rank find
unlikely peer in Chapel Hill For the same reason that people gawk at car wrecks on the side of the road,
basketball fans are fascinated by what's going on at North Carolina. ``It's hard, man. It's hard,'' Matt Doherty said after his team's most recent
disappointment, a 71-67 loss to Virginia.
It must be very hard for the Tar Heels to appreciate how their unexpected
failure lifts spirits among fans of other schools, inside and out of the ACC.
Imagine the surprise and delight of America's generic also-rans to find
themselves in the same predicament as one of sport's oldest brand names.
By dropping game after game, the current Tar Heels team is raising hope
across the land. As Carolina squirms, struggling mid-majors and big conference
foot-wipes that aren't on TV every other day are thrilled to be in the company
of an aristocratic program that's also outside the top 25, looking in.
There is a greater bonding this season between North Carolina and the teams
not found in Dick Vitale's Rolodex. For the multi-directional schools and the
commuter colleges, it's like being stranded by the side of the road in a '93
Escort when a Lexus is pulled past by a tow truck. The feeling is: Hey, the rich
and the poor, we're all in this together.
The temporary suffering of self-satisfied Tar Heels fans is a fair trade-off
for this sort of nationwide solidarity.
Other coaches enjoy a little more self-confidence just knowing that Tar Heels
players are as tangle-footed as theirs. That dressing an athlete in Carolina
blue does not automatically make him faster, smarter or a better shot. That at
least their team has never given up 112 points in a game, as the Heels did
against Maryland.
It's only January, and already, North Carolina has made Hampton, Davidson and
even Binghamton feel a lot prouder. It has suffered its worst loss at the Dean
Dome, and its ugliest defeat to a Maryland team that hammered the Tar Heels
worse than it beat Norfolk State.
Meanwhile, North Carolina tries to maintain its self-esteem with platitudes
perfected by programs that the Tar Heels have feasted on through the years.
Against U.Va., his team ``dug deep,'' said Doherty. ``We gave good effort.''
Senior Kris Lang hinted at the team's lowered expectations when he said,
``Today we played hard. We'll just have to hang our hats on that.''
At a school where the promise of championships comes with each scholarship,
players and coaches now seek solace in hollow cliches.
``The emotional investment we made, we didn't get rewarded for that,''
Doherty said following the loss to Virginia. ``Now, let's see if we can bring
the same effort against Florida State. That's the challenge.''
The challenge for the rest of the ACC is to resist getting giddy over North
Carolina's crisis, even while it takes advantage of the Tar Heels' problems.
``It's going to click,'' Lang insisted, after his team fell to 5-8. ``It's
going to happen.''
Everybody knows that, in time, it will click again for North Carolina, thanks
to the natural recruiting advantage Doherty inherited. Until it does, the Tar
Heels make the nonranked and bootstrap programs feel better about themselves.
In the process, the Tar Heels remain as hard to ignore -- maybe more so --
than when they were routinely fulfilling their destiny.
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 14, 2002
Cavs coach gave Deacons
coach his 1st college job
Prosser
credits Gillen for making it to Wake
Skip Prosser brings a hot Wake Forest team to Charlottesville against a slumping UVa team.
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES
As the Virginia-Wake Forest men's basketball rivalry enters a new era, UVa coach Pete Gillen might one day regret the sales pitch he gave first-year Deacs' coach Skip Prosser.
Prosser, an assistant to Gillen for eight years at Xavier, called his old boss last spring after being contacted by the Deacons.
"Every time I've considered a move within the profession, Coach [Gillen] has been a very wise counsel to me," Prosser said. "He knows the profession very well. I absolutely, positively talked to him before taking the Wake job."
A fine mess Gillen's gotten himself into.
A veteran Wake team has responded to Prosser's direction and comes into University Hall riding a five-game winning streak that has moved the Deacons (13-3, 3-0 ACC) into a tie for the conference lead and a No.14 ranking.
Tenth-ranked Virginia (10-2, 1-2) is ahead of the Deacons in the polls but the Cavaliers are down to nine able-bodied scholarship fresh men - four of them freshmen - after a foot injury to Adam Hall.
Hall was injured Saturday in a 71-67 victory over North Carolina and it was feared he might be sidelined 2-3 weeks, pending an MRI on Monday night.
Gillen and Prosser have not met in Prosser's eight years as a head coach - one at Loyola (Md.) and seven at Xavier - and it would be their preference never to meet this way.
"We wouldn't be playing the game [tonight] if it wasn't a situation where we were in the same conference," Prosser said. "I think it's hard to coach against friends, [but] sometimes you have no choice."
Prosser is scheduled to speak at a breakfast function this morning in Charlottesville and thought, before leaving Winston-Salem, N.C., that he and Gillen might get together Monday night.
"He's an outstanding coach, an outstanding recruiter and an even better person," Prosser, 51, said. "He's had a tremendous influence on my life. It's very unlikely I would be in college coaching if not for Coach Gillen."
Prosser had been the head coach for six years at Central Catholic High School in Wheeling, W.Va., when asked to join Gillen's first staff at Xavier. To say it was an 11th-hour hire would be an understatement.
"Eleventh-and-a-half," said Prosser, who had met Gillen when Gillen was an assistant at VMI, for whom he was recruiting a Wheeling Catholic player. "We were already two weeks into the academic year. I guess he was very desperate. I was date-less.
"I know he offered the job to at least three other guys. And, it may have been 33. They all said, 'No,' and then he came around to me. I had never been to Cincinnati. I pronounced the school, 'Ex-zavier.' I had no idea what I was getting into."
Gillen said he could remember offering the job to Bobby Hurley Sr., the head coach at St. Anthony's Prep in Jersey City, N.J., and Patrick Knapp, a Notre Dame women's assistant who has been the head women's coach at Georgetown for 18 years.
"You know me," Gillen, 54, said. "I don't trust anybody. I don't trust the cat. I don't trust my wife. My son's a pick-'em and my daughter's been cut out of the will."
Prosser left Xavier in 1993 to become the head coach at Loyola, only to return to Xavier one year later as the successor to Gillen, who had moved to Providence.
"We made some changes when we got back," Prosser said. "I felt that was important. But, as far as basic basketball philosophy - always very, very aggressive; always running and pressing - I had done that earlier, but Coach Gillen reinforced that."
Prosser described himself and Gillen as "gym guys who like being in the gymnasium more than the TV lights," but both held telephone news conferences to discuss their first on-court meeting.
"It's not myself and Pete Gillen playing," Prosser said. "Not too many people would pay money to see a couple of red-headed guys putting up two-handed set shots."
Cavs, Gillen challenged by familiar
foe
CHARLOTTESVILLE - Every time he's considered making a move in the coaching profession, Skip Prosser has sought the counsel of Pete Gillen, for whom he worked eight seasons at Xavier. So when Wake Forest contacted Prosser about its vacancy this year, he asked his mentor about the job.
The skinny on Wake, according to Gillen?
"It's a senior-laden group that is talented," Prosser said.
Virginia's fourth-year coach nailed it. Under Prosser's direction, the ACC's most experienced team is ranked No. 14 nationally and tied for the conference lead with Maryland. The Demon Dea- cons (3-0, 13-3) carry a five-game winning streak into their showdown with the 10th-ranked Cavaliers (1-2, 10-2) tonight at University Hall.
Prosser has installed a system that stresses running and pressing. If it looks familiar to U.Va. fans, there's a reason. Prosser's philosophy mirrors that of Gillen.
"We do so many of the same things," said Wake assistant Dino Gaudio, who also coached under Gillen at Xavier, "from the same offensive and defensive schemes, to literally the same calls, the same terminology and the same plays."
U.Va. won by four points at North Carolina on Saturday. Wake won by 22 there on Jan. 5. Virginia lost by 16 points at Clemson last Tuesday. Wake, at home, crushed Clemson by 41 on Saturday.
Do those Clemson results mean the Deacons are 57 points better than the Cavaliers? Of course not. Still, this is probably Virginia's biggest test to date, particularly because it isn't expected to have Adam Hall tonight.
Hall, a 6-5 senior guard who started the Cavs' first 11 games, injured his right foot in the final minute of the UNC game and left the court on crutches. He was scheduled to undergo an MRI last night, and a U.Va. news release said that "additional information on the injury will be known at a later date."
Wake starts four seniors and a junior. U.Va. is likely to start one senior, two juniors, one sophomore and one freshman, point guard Keith Jenifer.
"We're still a work in progress," Gillen said.
A season ago, Virginia opened 1-3 in ACC play and stormed back to finish 9-7, so a loss tonight would not be cause for Gillen and Co. to panic. Still, this team has yet to prove itself the equal of last season's Cavaliers, who had a gifted, if inconsistent, point guard in Donald Hand and a spectacular 3-point shooter in Keith Friel.
His latest team, Gillen said, has a "lot more rough edges. I think we have potential. I'm not saying we'll be as good as last year's team, I don't know. I think we have a chance to be, but with Adam being hurt now, that's certainly a big roadblock."
U.Va. had lost two straight, both to unranked teams, before winning at UNC's Dean Smith Center for only the second time.
"We were 0-2 in the league, and we wanted to turn things around," junior guard Roger Mason Jr. said after scoring 18 points. "It started today."
Without Hall, Cavs On Their Guards
By Jim Reedy
Special to The Washington Post
Tuesday, January 15, 2002; Page D04
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Jan. 14 -- Keith Jenifer and Jermaine Harper, Virginia's two freshman guards, are settling into college competition just in time. They take on a greater importance Tuesday against Wake Forest as senior swingman Adam Hall sits out with a foot injury.
Hall, who has struggled with injuries to his foot, knee, ankle and back this season, was on crutches Saturday after hurting his right foot on a jump shot in the final minute of a 71-67 victory at North Carolina.
An MRI exam was scheduled for tonight to help determine how much longer Hall will be sidelined. After Tuesday, No. 10 Virginia has five days off before it hosts Florida State.
"We don't think he'll play on Tuesday, so we're concerned about it," Virginia Coach Pete Gillen said. "We think it's something significant. How significant, I don't know. Adam had a heck of a game Saturday with eight points and some real big plays for us. We're certainly going to miss him."
After shooting 34 percent from the field and 1 of 21 on three-pointers in the previous eight games, Hall came off the bench Saturday to hit 3 of 7 shots, including 2 of 4 from behind the arc. For one game at least, he was able to overcome the nagging injuries that sapped his trademark leaping ability. The foot injury, which had been bothering the 6-foot-5 tri-captain before finally sidelining him Saturday, has been especially frustrating.
"It's affecting everything," Hall said. "I can't control it, so all I'm going to do is keep getting treatment."
With Hall unavailable, the Cavaliers (10-2, 1-2 ACC) likely will increase the playing time of Jenifer and Harper, each of whom has begun to earn extended minutes after taking early-season lumps.
Jenifer, a quick point guard, had nine points and four assists on Saturday, when he replaced Hall in the starting lineup so Virginia could better attack North Carolina's 2-3 zone. At Clemson four days earlier, the Cavaliers settled for outside jumpers and hit 2 of 25 three-pointers against a similar defense, but Virginia had more success against the Tar Heels.
"We were a little more patient," Gillen said. "We were real tentative against Clemson's zone, passing it around east and west. We wanted to attack the zone, mix it up with outside shooting and drives and try to get the ball inside more. We did a better job. It's still a work in progress."
Harper gave Virginia a lead on a three-pointer with nine minutes left Saturday and made a fast-break steal that kept North Carolina from tying the game in the final minute. He and Jenifer may ease the load on junior guard Roger Mason, who has been the Cavaliers' primary distributor as well as scorer.
Jenifer "is a pretty good penetrator, if he can take care of the ball and mix in some perimeter shooting with his assists," Gillen said. "I think Jermaine Harper will get a little bit more time too."
Tuesday's game also pits Gillen against Wake Forest Coach Skip Prosser, who was an assistant under Gillen for eight seasons at Xavier. Each coach said he is not looking forward to facing the other.
"It'll be a bit uncomfortable Tuesday night, but it's not myself and Pete Gillen playing," said Prosser, whose No. 14 Demon Deacons (13-3, 3-0) have won five straight. "Not many people would pay money to see a couple red-headed guys throwing two-handed set shots around a gym. It'll be our guys against their guys."
Unpleasant duty
Dino Gaudio knows how his boss is feeling. Gaudio experienced the same emotions the first time his Loyola (Md.) basketball team played Virginia, where Pete Gillen was in charge.
Gaudio had spent six seasons on Gillen's staff at Xavier University in Cincinnati.
"It was a very difficult situation," Gaudio recalled. "Neither of us wanted to play the game."
But neither coach had a choice. The schools had contracted to play twice, and so they met in Baltimore in 1998-99 and in Charlottesville the next season, U.Va. romping each time.
"It was very difficult on Coach," said Gillen's top assistant, Tommy Herrion. "He's never liked to play friends, and it clearly was not easy on him to play one of his [former] assistants."
Tomorrow night at University Hall, Gaudio will sit on the opposite bench from Gillen again. This time, though, Gaudio won't be in the hot seat. He's an assistant to first-year Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser, who also worked for Gillen at Xavier.
"I think 'dreading' is probably too strong a word," Prosser said yesterday when asked about coaching against his mentor for the first time. "It's something that will be uncomfortable. I think it's an honor to coach in the same game as Coach Gillen. I'd assume there will be some discomfort, but that's the schedule, so we'll play it."
Gillen said: "It's something that I don't want to do, I don't look forward to."
After taking over at Xavier in 1985, Gillen tried, unsuccessfully, to hire at least three candidates for an assistant's job - "It might have been 33," said Prosser - before settling at the 11th hour on another redhead of Irish descent, the ultrasuccessful coach from Central Catholic High in Wheeling, W.Va.
"I guess he was desperate, and I was dateless," Prosser said.
For the record, Gillen said, he did not offer the job to 33 others before turning to Prosser, whom he knew from working Five-Star camps in Wheeling. That said, Gillen conceded, "I wasn't smart enough to pick him first."
After eight seasons with Gillen at Xavier - a run that included seven trips to the NCAA tournament - Prosser left to become head coach at Loyola. The Greyhounds went 17-13 and advanced to the NCAAs in their only season under Prosser. Then he returned to Xavier in '94 and replaced Gillen, who'd left for Providence.
"Skip Prosser did a lot more for me than I did for him," Gillen said.
Not so, said Prosser, 51, who called the 54-year-old Gillen "an outstanding coach and an even better person."
"He's had an incredible influence in my life," Prosser said. "It's very likely I would not be in college coaching if it was not for Coach Gillen."
The same goes for Gaudio. He succeeded Prosser at Central Catholic High, then joined him on Gillen's staff at Xavier two years later.
"As I always said, if it wasn't for Pete Gillen, I'd still be riding those yellow school buses on Route 2 in West Virginia," said Gaudio, who returned to Xavier to work for Prosser last season.
Herrion, like Gillen, spoke regularly with Prosser and Gaudio during their days at Xavier. Now that they're all in the ACC, it's "changed things," Herrion said. "It has not changed our friendship, but it's a business approach."
And tomorrow night?
"We'll try to beat the hell out of Skip's team, and I know will Skip try to beat the hell out of us," Herrion said, "and when it's over, we'll shake hands and hug, and hopefully have to only do it once more this year."
UVa's Gillen faces former Xavier assistant, now at Wake
Gillen felt that way when the Cavaliers played Providence in the San Juan Shootout in November 2000, just two years after Gillen left that school for Virginia. It was uncomfortable when Virginia played Loyola, where Dino Gaudio, a Gillen assistant at Xavier, was then the head coach, in each of his first two seasons there.
He will rarely be more uncomfortable with a game than tonight, when former lieutenant Skip Prosser leads No. 14 Wake Forest (13-3, 3-0 ACC) into town to face No. 10 Virginia (10-2, 1-2), and that is not the least because Prosser's Deacons are one of the nation's hotter teams.
"It's very difficult," Gillen said. "I don't want to play those games. I don't look forward to them."
"Dread is probably too strong a word," Prosser said. "It will be uncomfortable. … But it's not me against Pete. It's the players who play. There are not too many guys who would pay to see two redheaded guys throwing set shots around."
Gillen referred to Prosser as a "marvelous" assistant, one who joined Gillen at his first college head-coaching job, at Xavier in 1985, stayed for eight years before taking over the head-coaching job at Loyola in 1993, returning to Xavier a year later when Gillen moved on to Providence.
It all started in Gillen's heyday at the Five-Star Basketball Camps in western Pennsylvania. Gillen met Prosser, head coach of Wheeling (W.Va.) Central Catholic. Gillen, just hired at Xavier, had gotten Jeff Nix to join him in Cincinnati, and needed to fill out his inaugural staff. Nix recommended Prosser, who went after the job.
"I know he offered the job to three other guys," Prosser said. "It could have been 33 for all I know. I know three. They all said no."
Gillen acknowledged that he offered the job to others, including legendary St. Anthony's (Jersey City, N.J.) high school coach Bob Hurley Sr. and Georgetown women's basketball coach Patrick Knapp.
"It was only because I didn't know him," Gillen said. "I like hiring people I know."
Gillen was fortunate, because "Skip Prosser did a lot more for me than I did for him."
Prosser, who "didn't know how to say Xavier," when he got there, led the Muscateers to six 20-win seasons and an identical number of postseason berths in seven years at the school.
When Xavier opened its new 10,000-seat Cintas Center in 2000, there was talk of Gillen bringing Virginia in to play the opening game. It would have been a fitting tribute, as the arena is in part a product of Gillen's success at building the program and Prosser's elevation of it to an Atlantic 10 power.
But Gillen balked when approached by alumni. Gillen, already trying to avoid such games, would have little incentive for giving Virginia a tough early season game, particularly one in which they would be favored, in such an emotional system.
"That would have been a lose-lose for me," Gillen said.
When Wake Forest inquired if Prosser would be interested in the job when Dave Odom left for South Carolina last year, Prosser asked Gillen about the Wake job.
"I would be less than honest if I said I wanted a former assistant on the schedule twice a year," Gillen said.
Gillen still recommended the move, and Prosser made the jump to Winston-Salem. Now, he has the Demon Deacons humming. The Deacons are on a five-game winning streak. They whipped North Carolina in Chapel Hill by 22 points and Clemson by 41.
Deacs-Cavs game to see
reunion
The bylaws of the Atlantic Coast Conference - with which both schools are affiliated - require it.
Otherwise, Coach Skip Prosser of Wake Forest said he would prefer to be playing another opponent - any opponent not coached by Pete Gillen of the Cavaliers. The two men are close friends and have been ever since Gillen gave Prosser his first college job as an assistant at Xavier in the fall of 1985.
"It's very likely I would not be in college coaching if it weren't for Coach Gillen," Prosser said.
So loyal is Prosser, in fact, that he steadfastly declines to reveal any stories on Gillen from a friendship that spans parts of four decades. Prosser was Gillen's assistant for eight years at Xavier, and succeeded Gillen when the latter left to become head coach at Providence in 1995.
The two have kept up in the usual ways, with phone calls and visits whenever their busy schedules have allowed.
"I'm telling no tales - I'm telling no tales," Prosser said with a chuckle. "When I retire and write my book, I'll make sure I'll send you a copy."
The book would presumably entail a red-headed high school coach (Prosser) becoming acquainted with a red-headed assistant college coach (Gillen) at a Five-Star camp for high school basketball players in Wheeling, West Va., in the mid-1970s. They remained in touch, even after Gillen left his job as an assistant at VMI to take assistant positions at Villanova and Notre Dame.
When Gillen first became a head coach, at Xavier in 1985, he hired an assistant named Jeff Nix. Prosser, who also knew Nix, heard there was another position on the staff open, so he applied.
"Pete very diplomatically told me I was a strong candidate," Prosser said. "I know that he offered the job to at least three other guys. It might have been 33 guys, but I know three of them. They all said no, and he came around to me, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity.
"I had never been to Cincinnati and pronounced it X-avier (instead of ZAY-vier). I had no idea what I was getting myself into."
Nor, apparently, did Gillen when he gave a 34-year-old high school coach his first big break. Two of the coaches who declined Gillen's offer were Bob Hurley, Sr., a long-time coach at St. Anthony's High School in Jersey City, N.J., and father of the former Duke All-American, and Patrick Knapp, currently head women's coach at Georgetown.
"I didn't know Skip when I hired him, or didn't know him well," Gillen said. "I don't trust anybody. I don't trust my cat, my wife. My son is kicking my daughter out of the will. So I don't trust anybody. So I didn't know Skip.
"But I remember he said, 'Coach I won't let you down.' I said 'All right.' I knew he was a good coach, but I didn't know exactly what kind of person he was. Could he handle criticism? Could he do the dirty work?
"But it's one of the best moves I've ever made."
Tonight will be the first time the two have coached against each other. They've had chances to meet, perhaps most notably early last year when Xavier opened its Cintas Center, a $46 million on-campus arena that seats around 10,000.
Some influential alumni suggested that Virginia, coached by Gillen, would be the perfect opening night opponent. Gillen, and Prosser, both thought otherwise.
"I was against it in about five-tenths of a second," Gillen said. "Some people like playing against friends or close associates. I don't care for that as much."
The sentiment is shared by Prosser.
"We wouldn't be playing the game (tonight) if it wasn't for the situation that we're both in the same conference," Prosser said. "I think it's hard to coach against friends."
Prosser, when considering Wake Forest's offer last spring, called Gillen for advice. He described the call as standard operating procedure.
"Every time I've considered a move in the profession Coach has been a very wise counsel for me," Prosser said. "He really knows the business very well. Yes, I absolutely, positively spoke with him before taking the Wake job."
Gillen said he didn't recommend that Prosser take the job, nor did he recommend he decline. Their discussion instead dealt with the positives of the job and its challenges, as Gillen saw them from inside the ACC.
One of the positives was a roster well-stocked with veteran players, one that has helped the 14th-ranked Deacons bolt to a 13-3 record and a share of the ACC lead at 3-0. The 10th-ranked Cavaliers, conversely, have stumbled recently at home against N.C. State and at Clemson, but they did pull out a win Saturday at North Carolina to improve to 10-2 and 1-2.
Many observers feel that the Cavs, who rose as high as No. 4 in the polls, remain overrated. Probably a bigger concern for Gillen is the health of Adam Hall, an athletic 6-5 senior averaging 28 minutes, 9.8 points and 5.1 rebounds a game. Hall injured his right foot against North Carolina, and as of yesterday afternoon was considered doubtful for tonight's game.
Last season against Wake Forest, Hall had seven points and two rebounds in 30 minutes in Winston-Salem and five points and a career-high 17 rebounds in 36 minutes in Charlottesville.
Whether Hall plays or not, Prosser said he expects a stiff challenge for both him and his team tonight at University Hall. He was asked recently if the game was one he had been dreading since he became head coach at Wake Forest.
"Dread's probably too strong a word," Prosser said. "It will be something that will be uncomfortable. I think it's an honor to coach in the same game as Coach Gillen.
"I assume there will be some discomfort. But that's the schedule, so we'll play it."
Cavaliers take on Deacons