Too often in ACC, the road to victory dead-ends at home
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 26, 2003

“You have 18,000 people who hate you, who want to see you fail.”
— Duke freshman Shavlik Randolph, on what it was like to play in front of Maryland’s raucous fans last week.

Failure is the common denominator for ACC road teams so far this season. At the completion of Saturday’s schedule, visiting teams had lost 17 of 22 games.

This is surprising only to those unaware of the ACC’s abundance of callow players and unfamiliar with the tradition of mistreatment that awaits college basketball teams venturing into hostile environments.

When U.Va. ended a three-game losing streak — all on the road — with a victory over Wake Forest in Charlottesville Thursday night, coach Pete Gillen professed to having “no explanation” for why his team’s personality is so different away from University Hall than at home, where the Cavaliers are 8-0 this season.

“If I did,” he said, “I’d be able to write a book and retire.”

C’mon, Pete. The book on why teams shrink on the road and thrive at home was written a long time ago.

There is nothing in baseball or football to compare with basketball’s home-court advantage. The home court can be worth 10 points. It can make all the difference. Sometimes, it seems to mean too much.

Does this excuse U.Va.’s 18-point loss last week at Virginia Tech? Not at all.

We’ve seen this before from the Cavaliers. Too many times Gillen’s teams have been unwilling to pull up their socks and dig in on the road.

Virginia’s struggles sometimes defy the customary explanations for why teams founder outside their own cozy confines. But usually, rowdy crowds have something to do with it.

“The upperclassmen were telling us how tough and hostile this was going to be,” Randolph said after Duke was hammered at Maryland last week. “But nothing can prepare you for this.”

Experience prepares players for the braying partisans and unfamiliar surroundings. With time, they learn that the same aggressive defense that works so well on a team’s home court doesn’t play as smoothly on the road, where wailing crowds influence the zebras.

The refs are only human, after all, no matter what coaches and fans tell you.

In any case, consistency is not one of basketball’s strong suits. Except, perhaps, when it comes to the home team getting the benefit of the doubt on the whistles.

By now, discerning fans have caught on. Rankings and reputations aside, there are no sure things for teams venturing on the road. At least not in a conference as balanced as the ACC.

In college hoops, true road warriors are rare. For a long time, Duke fit the description. Mike Krzyzewski’s last four teams lost a total of only 12 games. The Blue Devils intimidated unfriendly crowds, not the other way around.

Nobody in the ACC this season is quite like that, though Maryland, which won at Clemson Saturday, has the luxury of starting five seniors. But league-wide, the quality of play, to be kind, is best described as spotty. Even Duke looked pretty awful in its two recent ACC road losses.

U.Va., 2-3 in the ACC, but 0-3 outside of UHall, has a handful of games remaining in which to turn around its image as easy road kill.

Inexperience is not an excuse for the Cavaliers. And the addition of the long-injured Majestic Mapp is expected to help. At point guard, Mapp brings order to the game. Perhaps his composure will be contagious.

It should be a jumbled ACC race, with every road victory weighing a ton.

But as the season so far shows, whatever ails a team can easily be cured with a little home cooking
 

Body of work
Strength coach at U.Va. brings passion to role
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Jan 27, 2003

CHARLOTTESVILLE Spotting Evan Marcus during New Orleans Saints games wasn't difficult the past three seasons. He was the brawny guy who shadowed Jim Haslett on the sideline, ready to restrain Haslett if the Saints' fiery coach felt compelled to charge onto the field after an official.

Marcus, 35, has a new boss - Al Groh - and a new title: head strength coach at the University of Virginia. He's not sure what his game-day responsibilites will entail, but Marcus is ready for anything.

"I think that was a unique situation with Coach Haslett, but if Coach Groh gets excited, I got his back," Marcus said with a laugh last week in his McCue Center office.

"People down in New Orleans didn't know if I was a coach or [Haslett's] personal bodyguard, but it's good to work for someone who's passionate, and I feel Coach Groh is just as passionate."

Marcus, who has a bachelor's degree from Ithaca College and a master's from Arizona State, started work at U.Va. last week. He replaces Tony Decker, who left abruptly in August to take a teaching position at his alma mater, East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania.

"He's got energy, and he's got ambition," Groh said of Marcus. "He really fits in with the formula by which the rest of the staff was created."

This is the first head job for the New Jersey native. Marcus worked as an assistant strength coach in five Division I-A football programs - Arizona State (1991-92), Rutgers (1993-94), Maryland (1994), Texas (1995-97) and Louisville (1998-99) - before joining the Saints as an assistant to his mentor, Rock Gullickson, in 2000.

At Texas, Marcus worked with Danny Rocco, now Virginia's assistant head coach. After Decker departed last summer, Rocco let Marcus know that the Cavaliers would be looking for a replacement after the 2002 season.

"I wouldn't have left the NFL for just any job," Marcus said. "I had a good job with the Saints . . . It was the lure of coming to a place like this that motivated me."

Before his interview this month, Marcus had never met Groh, who spent 13 years on NFL coaching staffs before coming to U.Va. in December 2000. But the Saints' offensive-line coach, Jack Henry, had worked under Groh at Wake Forest in the 1980s and encouraged Marcus to pursue the position at Virginia. So did others who knew Groh.

"There wasn't anybody who didn't say what a first-class program he ran and what a first-class guy he was," said Marcus, a standout offensive lineman on the Ithaca team that won the NCAA's Division III championship in 1988. "The perception around the NFL is this is just a program on the rise, and I wanted to be a part of that."

Football will consume most of Marcus' time, but he also oversees the assistant strength coaches who work with U.Va.'s other sports.

The Saints' stars include former Cavaliers quarterback Aaron Brooks. "I approached Aaron and said, 'They got an opening, what do you think?' " Marcus recalled. "He said, 'You'll love it there.'"
 

Road Games Will Tell The Tale
By Brett Wood
Date: Jan 26, 2003

It's maddening! For the last four seasons the same pattern has repeated itself; inexcusably poor road performances followed by a big win at home. Pete Gillen's charges looked a bit more like a basketball TEAM Thursday night in their 85 - 75 victory against visiting Wake Forest.

It was a good win as the Deacons are a solid team and probably the second best team Virginia has defeated this season behind Kentucky. The victory keeps the nails out of the NCAA tournament coffin for a while longer and has provided a glimmer of hope to UVa fans.
Unfortunately this is one game I cannot comment on in detail because it is the first game in several years that I didn't watch, listen to, or record on the VCR for reasons that were beyond my control. Maybe if I had seen it I would be more convinced, more optimistic that it was a "turning point" game as some are suggesting. Still, I doubt it. We've all seen solid performances at home from the Hoos during Gillen's tenure, but consistently solid play on the road is what we need and it hasn't happened.

Why has Pete Gillen been unable to win on the road? The loss at Virginia Tech may be the most humiliating defeat suffered by the Hoos in Gillen's five years. Don't confuse the Hokies with a good basketball team or Cassell Coliseum as a challenging venue. The Cavs made little pretense of trying to play defense against a team that isn't known for its offense. Granted, Tech has good athletes on the perimeter of its defense, but they might as well have had five midget sumo wrestlers on the floor since the Cavs' offense consisted of bouncing the ball thirty feet from the basket and then forcing terrible passes to teammates who appeared to be looking at their watches.

Sure, once every five or six years the Hokies catch us at the right time and win one on the hardwood. Then their dozen or so fans that care about their basketball program have a Mardi gras. Three things about this loss really bother me. First, this was a particularly bad Hokie squad. Second, after the Clemson debacle, you would normally expect any self-respecting team to come out smoking the next game, not lay down. Third, again Pete Gillen quietly accepted abuse from the zebras like a small child taking a scolding from an elderly nun in Catholic School. When a Hokie grabs Keith Jenifer by the trunks, throwing him to the floor at mid court in a scramble for the ball, and the zebras choose to ignore it, it's time to get in their faces and earn a "T." That's part of a coach's job, standing up for his players and making sure the officials respect them. Pete has failed miserably in that aspect of his sideline coaching.

No question that the home victory against Wake was a good one, but playing at home has not been an issue in the Gillen era. Everyone is better at home; good teams win on the road. Well-coached teams come to play no matter where the hardwood floor happens to be located.

One thing is for certain, Virginia has sorely missed Majestic Mapp and he is indeed magic. He's still feeling his way back into the game, but the instincts and the talent are showing even through two years of rust. I'm seeing lots of "what ifs" from the fans. What if Majestic had been healthy last season on a squad that desperately needed point guard play and leadership? It's a very legitimate question. The question that I'm most anxious to find an answer to is how did Magic feel on Friday? If the Hoos can squeeze 15 - 20 minutes per game from Mapp the rest of the way it could make a difference between the NCAA tournament and the NIT. He just makes the rest of the team better and most importantly he provides the right kind of leadership on the floor.

Being a Virginia hoops fan these last four years has been very much akin to how I imagine Purgatory. It always seems that we slip on that last rung of the ladder just below Heaven's gate and fall back to the entrance of Hell only to begin the cycle all over again. Perhaps the Wake Forest game really does signal a turn around. The burden of proof is on Gillen. As a fan, I've given him four and a half years of the benefit of the doubt, now I want to see performance, not apologies and not excuses.

Allow me to repeat that I make no pretense about being an expert analyst. I'm just a fan and like many of you I believe the Cavs possess the talent to be better than they are playing. I'm not going to write a column every week slamming the team or coaches, I'd rather write nothing at all.

The next several games are now pivotal. Florida State is up next at University Hall and a win is far from certain. This is a Florida State team that plays to its potential and even though they are limited in talent, they are a better team that Virginia Tech. After that, road games at Georgia Tech and Maryland are on the schedule. I believe UVA must win two of the next three to stay in the hunt for an invitation to the NCAA tournament, which means the Hoos must break through on the road in Atlanta or College Park. I can't say I'd put money on a win at either venue.

By the next time I write, we will have the results of the Florida State and Georgia Tech games. Hopefully I'll have something good to say, or I'll say nothing at all.