One of the Cavaliers' 'craziest' games
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
January 7, 2005

In a game that seesawed back and forth, the Cavaliers were quite fortunate that the last roll - literally - went to them.

After a mad scramble on the floor, T.J. Bannister’s floater with 2.3 seconds left in the second overtime lifted Virginia to an 80-79 victory over Western Kentucky on Wednesday night.

Perhaps never in Gillen’s tenure did a game sway from what would have been a very demoralizing loss to a fortunate, take-it-and-just-walk-away win.

“We were very fortunate. … There haven’t been too many games I’ve been involved in when the game changed back and forth so much. I’ve never been in a game where there is a loose ball on the floor and it’s double overtime and you don’t know who is going to win,” Virginia coach Pete Gillen said.

Senior forward Jason Clark, who had a career-high 16 points including two on a goaltend at the regulation buzzer, said it was “the craziest game” he’s played while at Virginia.

Most in attendance would agree.

While an exasperated Gillen and his exhausted players were unable to dissect Wednesday’s game any more than simply saying a win is a win, further time to ponder allows for more insight.

The game was another uneven performance for the Cavaliers, who because of injuries, extended layoffs and other issues have been unable to piece together a consistent 40-minute performance in over a month.

Among the Cavaliers’ missteps have been rebounding, defensive letdowns and breakdowns, free-throw shooting and troubling basketball IQs in late-game situations. Whether these short-term woes become season-long problems can only be answered in time.

Gillen does not seem blissfully unaware of these issues. Rather, he acknowledges them but takes the attitude that the collective team - like its individual parts - needs to play its way to both health and more consistent basketball.

“We need to get healthy, regroup and get together. … We are very fortunate,” Gillen said.

While everything cannot be placed on the Cavaliers’ injuries, the bulk of the roster does resemble a hospital ward.

Devin Smith, who is clearly more valuable to this squad than merely scoring terms, missed his second straight game with a sprained right ankle. Gillen said it’s “possible” that Smith could return Saturday at Georgia Tech but it appears more likely that the aim is to have Smith and his ankle ready for next Wednesday’s home date with Miami.

Clark is suffering from a stretched Achilles’ tendon and is not practicing while Elton Brown tweaked his ankle in Wednesday’s game. Freshman point guard Sean Singletary continues to play despite a harness on his left shoulder while J.R. Reynolds, the healthiest Virginia starter until Wednesday, scored 20 points despite a stomach virus that had him vomiting before, during and after the game.

All are quite typical maladies that visit a team during the course of a season, but the Cavaliers have received them all during the same stretch.

Clark made an attempt Wednesday night to push the injuries away from the excuse category.

“We are going through some adversity right now and it’s putting pressure on the team but this will tell us what we are all about,” Clark said. “Still, you know that anyone can go down at anytime and you have to be ready for that.”

Reynolds shows his ill will
Despite battling a bad bug, J.R. Reynolds is there for the Cavaliers when they need him.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

CHARLOTTESVILLE - The first time that anybody saw J.R. Reynolds on Wednesday night, he was standing in front of the UVa bench, where a trainer was applying a bandage to his right forearm.

Already, nearly five minutes had elapsed in Virginia's basketball game with Western Kentucky, and there had been no indication that Reynolds was even in the building. Apparently, he had joined teammates for some informal shooting about 75-90 minutes before tipoff but had become ill, which didn't explain the wrap on his forearm.

"I got two IVs before the game," said Reynolds, whose right arm was bloodied by a needle's puncture. "They wanted to stop the bleeding, so they put tape over it."

In a collegiate career that is likely to span more than 100 games, specific contests and details may run together after a while, but Reynolds, a sophomore from Roanoke, probably won't forget the 80-79 double-overtime victory over the Hilltoppers.

"It was probably one of the craziest games since I've been here," said senior Jason Clark, who contributed a career-high 16 points and nine rebounds.

Clark had missed two days of practice as the result of a strained Achilles tendon, and for the second game in a row, Virginia (9-2) was without leading scorer Devin Smith, out since Dec.23 with a severe ankle sprain.

The best guess Wednesday was that Reynolds was suffering from food poisoning.

"Ninety-eight out of 100 guys are not going to play," UVa coach Pete Gillen said. "They're going to say, 'Coach, I'm sorry. I've got an upset stomach.'"

Reynolds played eight minutes in the first half, but he missed his first three shots from the field and had two turnovers. At the start of the second half, he was back on the bench.

"He was throwing up at halftime," Gillen said. "We were talking as coaches and you could hear him. The poor kid was throwing up. That's why we didn't put him in. We didn't think he could play, so I asked him, 'Can you play? Can you play?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Are you sure?'"

Finally, with 10:59 left and the Cavaliers trailing 47-43, Gillen sent Reynolds back into the game. At first, the move had little bearing as the Hilltoppers (10-2) stretched their lead to 57-48.

Reynolds cut the deficit to 57-50 on a jumper from the paint with 6:08, then added a 3-pointer - the Cavaliers' second 3-point field goal of the game - to make it 57-53 with 5:10 left.

"This is the worst I've ever felt and played," said Reynolds, still sweating profusely nearly 30 minutes after the game. "All I want to do is go home."

Reynolds went on to finish with a team-high 20 points, including 16 in a 16-minute, 10-second span that included the two overtimes.

"I have trouble comprehending J.R. Reynolds getting 20 points," Gillen said. "In the beginning, he couldn't even move. He's our leading scorer. That's the story."

That might be the CliffsNotes version, but there was much more to the story. Virginia, down by as many as 10 points in the second half, easily could have lost the game in regulation. Then, the Cavaliers should have dispatched the Hilltoppers in the first overtime, only to blow a five-point lead in the final 30 seconds.

In the second overtime, UVa trailed 79-78 before sophomore point guard T.J. Bannister broke out of a mad scramble and hit a driving one-hander with 2.7 seconds remaining.

Bannister, inserted when freshman Sean Singletary picked up his fifth foul with 4:29 left in the second OT, was an unlikely hero. Before hitting the go-ahead shot, he had committed a turnover and forced a shot in the second overtime, and he finished 2-for-6 from the field and had six turnovers.

"We were very fortunate," Gillen said. "The ball was on the ground, both teams were fighting for it and somehow we tipped it and got it. T.J. had the guts to drive to the basket. A lot of guys freeze in that situation. It wasn't a lucky shot. He makes those plays."

Virginia had no answer for Anthony Winchester, a 6-foot-4, 205-pound junior who finished with 30 points and 11 rebounds, but the Hilltoppers grew weary late in the 2-hour, 32-minute affair and made only one of eight 3-pointers in the two overtime periods. Winchester played 48 minutes and three of his teammates played at least 44 minutes.

The Cavaliers had the deeper bench Wednesday night and Reynolds should be over his illness by Saturday, when Virginia visits ninth-ranked Georgia Tech. However, Gillen didn't sound optimistic that Smith would be available until next week.

"You do get a feeling of, 'What's going to go wrong next?'" Clark said. "But, if you had a choice of going through this now or going through it later, I'd rather be going through it now."

Don't blame Gillen for skimpy turnouts
Doughty and Selig avoid fisticuffs
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Here’s my question:

If you can fill University Hall for a Dec. 23 men’s basketball game with Loyola Marymount, why can’t you fill half of University Hall for a Jan. 5 game with Western Kentucky?

The crowd for Wednesday night’s game between the Cavaliers and Hilltoppers was listed at 6,675, but there might not have been more than 3,000 people in the seats.

“This is what’s going to get Pete [Gillen] fired,” another UVa beat reporter told me as we surveyed the crowd before the game.

Gee, I hope not.

I have gone on record as saying that I have known Gillen for nearly 30 years, like him and wish him no ill will. I understand that the Cavaliers have made the NCAA Tournament only once in his six seasons and that eventually he may lose his job. However, I would hope that his superiors don’t misread the situation so badly that they will blame him for dwindling attendance.

Inconsistent and indifferent crowd support has been a problem at UVa for more than 25 years and, if athletic director Craig Littlepage and top associate Jon Oliver have any question about that, all they had to do was ask Western Kentucky athletic director “Dr.” Wood Selig. If I remember correctly, I once depicted Selig, then a UVa associate with a background in promotions, as a popcorn-eating do-nothing, which may have been a little harsh.

(Repoters on press row Wednesday night may have noticed that Selig and I did not speak, and we have not spoken since a 1995 blowup at the Kemper Arena in Kansas City. That’s where Marc Iavaroni -- of all people -- served as peacemaker before former Roanoke columnist Jack “Pops” Bogaczyk succeeded in having Selig relocated from press row to a spot behind the tuba section in the University of Kansas band).

In any case, you can go back to the Ralph Sampson era, when UVa was ranked No. 1 on and off for a three-year period in the early 1980s, and there were many times when University Hall wasn’t full or the fans arrived late, even for big games. You might have guessed that Western Kentucky wouldn’t fill the place at 9 p.m. when school was out of session, but who would have thought that Loyola Marymount would sell out two days before Christmas? The students weren’t around then, either.

If Virginia thinks it can fill its new 15,000-seat arena in two years simply by hiring a new coach, it is delusional. Terry Holland and Jeff Jones (for much of his tenure) had better teams than Gillen’s, but the knock against them was that they played a defensive-minded boring style. There may be coaches who play an up-tempo game and win 30 games a year, but they aren’t likely to leave Durham or Chapel Hill.

ONE BENEFIT OF the small turnout at University Hall was that you could hear almost everything the crowd was saying, much of it disparaging and most of that directed at UVa senior center Elton Brown. When the Cavaliers fell behind 27-17 in the first half, one fan bellowed, “Take Brown out.”

Moments later, when Gillen subbed Donte Minter for Brown, another fan yelled, “Don’t tell us you actually learned something.”

Minter immediately missed a turnaround (he shoots every time he gets the ball) and Brown was to re-enter the game before halftime. When he missed a layup, a fan was overheard screaming, “Is that why Elton is in the game, to miss layups?”

At halftime, a member of UVa’s loyal Augusta County contingent told me that a woman had gone to an usher to complain that another fan kept yelling, “Elton sucks.” She said she didn’t think “sucks” was acceptable language, so, after being admonished by the usher, the fan started chanting “Elton’s horrible.”

BROWN, WHO IS better than a 50-percent shooter from the field over his career, has gone 5-for-24 from the field over the past two games and, if Gillen’s uncoventional game management doesn’t get him fired, Brown will. (He’s also 4-for-11 from the line over that span).

Moans again accompanied Gillen’s first timeout Wednesday night, called with 17:48 left to play in the first half and Western Kentucky leading 4-3. There was 6:03 remaining in the half when Gillen called the third of his five allotted timeouts.

Surprisingly, Gillen didn’t call any timeouts in the second half, but for the second time this season, UVa gave second life to an opponent when the Cavaliers fouled too early, this time in the first overtime. Virginia was leading 74-71 following two J.R. Reynolds free throws with 20 seconds, only to have T.J. Bannister foul Antonio Hayes, stopping the clock with 16 seconds left.

Haynes made the first shot and missed the second, which was rebounded by Gary Forbes. But, when Forbes missed two free throws (he was 0-for-4 from the line for the night), that enabled the Hilltoppers to send the game into a second overtime on a jumper with 0.8 seconds left.

I don’t fault the decision to foul, but why so early? That strategy nearly cost the Cavaliers in an 89-87 victory over Auburn earlier this season, and few Virginia fans have forgotten an 82-80 loss to Georgia Tech in 2002 that essentially cost the Cavaliers an NCAA bid.

That was the game where Virginia, up 80-77, fouled the Yellow Jackets’ Tony Akins with 19.6 seconds left. Travis Watson subsequently missed two free throws and Marvin Lewis hit a game-winning 3-pointer for the Yellow Jackets at the buzzer. Why foul Akins, who, like Haynes on Wednesday night, was an 80-percent free-throw shooter: Why foul so early; Virginia led that game by six points with 57 seconds left; on Wednesday, it led by five points with 26 seconds left.

Gillen said everything would have been fine Wednesday if Forbes had rebounded Western Kentucky’s missed free throw, but the play to which he was referring had come with 26 seconds left, after Reynolds had fouled Antonio Winchester on a drive. Reynolds’ foul, nearly a clean block, was merely an effort to make a defensive play and did not appear to be intentional.

Again, in the second overtime, Forbes fouled with 33 seconds remaining on the game clock and 30 seconds on the game clock. When Lee hit both free throws, that gave the Hilltoppers a one-point lead, 79-78, that they easily could have preserved if not for Bannister’s game-winning runner off a loose-ball scramble.

ACC proposal would have been rejected
By MIKE KNOBLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/07/05

College football players won't be getting five years of eligibility after all, at least for now.

The ACC decided on Thursday to withdraw that proposal because it would have been rejected at this weekend's NCAA convention, associate commissioner Shane Lyons said.

"There's concerns out there about why it shouldn't apply to other sports," Lyons said.

Lyons and the ACC say football is different because so many football players redshirt. The ACC proposal would have banned redshirting; players would have five years to play five seasons instead of the current five years to play four. The National Association of Basketball Coaches made a similar proposal for basketball but withdrew it last year.

There's still a lot at stake this weekend in Dallas, where the people who run college sports will make decisions that could affect athletes, coaches and fans for seasons to come.

Should college football's regular season grow to 12 games? Will the ACC be able to use instant replay to review on-the-field calls the way the Big Ten did in 2004? Should schools pay for a parent to come on their child's recruiting visit?

Perhaps the most important topic under discussion today technically isn't an NCAA issue at all: the future of the Bowl Championship Series. Division I-A conference commissioners meet to discuss how they'll select teams for next season's five BCS games, including the national championship game at the Rose Bowl.

Expanded league still isn't quite country's finest
BOB LIPPER
POINT OF VIEW
Jan 7, 2005

The basketball league that dreams of making a splash in the college football pool where Southern Californias and Auburns swim should not discard its water wings yet. That would be the ACC, which traded its hoops birthright for a couple of helmets this year but still has a look that's more Krzyzewski than Nagurski.

It was a mixed-bag kind of season. Virginia Tech's surge to the title was a wonderful story. Virginia's Elton Brown and Heath Miller became consensus All-Americans. The Sagarin computers defined the ACC as the country's top league. But other developments and numbers weren't as uplifting.

Virginia Tech said it wanted to be a good ACC partner, for instance, and little did it know how soon it'd fall in line. By losing to Auburn in the Sugar Bowl on Monday, Tech extended to five the ACC's run of BCS setbacks. Not since Florida State's Sugar-coated sprint past the Hokies in 1999 has an ACC champion won a bowl game.

On other fronts, the ACC began the year with two teams in the top six, three others in the top 25 and designs on snaring a couple of BCS berths. It wound up with Tech 10th on the grid, three others in the top 25 and not nearly the buzz it generated when Miami and Florida State faced off in early September.

The ACC went 27-13 against nonconference opponents, but the record was inflated by six wins over I-AA programs and another seven against Temples, Akrons and Utah States. Its best nonleague win was Miami's 41-38 nail-biter over Louisville, followed by the Hurricanes' Peach Bowl romp past Florida. The bronze goes to Wake Forest for handling Boston College.

Otherwise, there were no triumphs to brag on and several downturns to lament.

Miami and FSU lost more than two games each in the same season for the first time in 20 years. FSU returned nine starters on offense and still averaged only 25.2 points its most meager output since 1981. N.C. State lost four home games and dipped to 5-6 in its first year without Philip Rivers. Clemson finished 109th nationally in total offense. U.Va. dropped three of its last four starts and allowed 128 points all told in its four losses. Maryland rang up the grand total of 56 points in its final seven games.



The fallout isn't pretty, either. At State, for instance, there's considerable distress over defensive coordinator Reggie Herring's departure for Arkansas -- his unit yielded an NCAA-low 221.4 yards per game -- and state-of-Florida recruiter Doc Holliday's exit to join Urban Meyer's staff in Gainesville. Offensive coordinator Noel Mazzone moved on as well to Ole Miss.

At Clemson, on the other hand, Tommy Bowden not only fired offensive coordinator Mike O'Cain but also axed John Lovett, whose defense fueled the late-season turnaround that saved the head man's job. Bowden patriarch Bobby is in the midst of shaking up his staff at FSU. And Georgia Tech AD Dave Braine suggested to Chan Gailey it'd be prudent to exceed 6-5 next season.

What's looming on the horizon? Tough to say. You don't need a microscope to detect the steady slippage at FSU, where Bowden once assembly-lined top-five finishes. Maryland, so promising in Ralph Friedgen's first three years, suddenly looks shaky.

U.Va. awaits decisions from several draftable underclassmen. A quarterback-challenged league waves bye-bye to three of its most productive players at the position Bryan Randall, Brock Berlin and Damian Durant.

There's some uncertainty, in other words. Presuming adequate QB replacements in Blacksburg and Coral Gables, defensive bite in Tallahassee and player retention in Charlottesville, the top third of the ACC might be tough to crack. Tech and Miami particularly have designs on blue-chip seasons. Get there, and one league's stock will rise that much higher.

 

ACC in league by itself?
By Jeff Zrebiec
Sun Staff
Originally published January 7, 2005

As the coach of Wake Forest, Skip Prosser admits that he has a pretty myopic viewpoint of college basketball. He knows his team and whoever the fourth-ranked Demon Deacons happen to play next.

Earlier this week, Prosser would have comfortably discussed the challenge of trying to slow Clemson's Sharrod Ford, who the Demon Deacons will have to deal with tomorrow, but any conversation about what his team will need to do to beat Maryland on Tuesday was essentially off limits.

"Haven't seen [the Terps] for a single possession," Prosser acknowledged.

Prosser, however, has seen and read enough over the last month and a half as teams navigated through the heart of non-league schedules, to dismiss any whispers that the Atlantic Coast Conference - a league that has drawn comparisons to the Big East of 1985, which placed three teams in the Final Four - might not be as dominant as originally thought.

"I compare the records of ACC teams and whom they have played and I think there is no doubt about it," said Prosser when asked if the ACC is the most powerful of the power conferences. "I think it would be irresponsible to think that the league would be undefeated at this point. We're not going to win every out-of-conference game, but I venture to say ... that we have a whole lot to be proud of."

Few people - and probably no coaches from the Big Ten, whose teams lost seven of nine games to its ACC counterparts for the second consecutive year in the annual challenge - would argue.

With conference play beginning in earnest this week, ACC teams are 98-24 in non-league games. The Big East sports a 92-24 nonconference record, while Big Ten and Pac-10 teams have compiled 96-39 and 78-24 non-league marks, respectively. The Big 12 is 105-28 in non-league play and the Southeastern Conference is 106-37.

According to one replica of the Rating Percentage Index, the formula that is used in seeding and selecting teams for the NCAA tournament, the ACC ranks second behind the Pac-10 in overall RPI. In another replica, the ACC is ranked No. 1.

"When you look at the ACC as a whole, it's not as far ahead of other leagues - and the RPI would say it's not ahead at all - than some think," said Jerry Palm, a CollegeRPI.com analyst. "But I think when fans talk about the strongest conference, they always look at the better teams and I think the ACC has more depth at the top of the league. ... Every conference has probably two teams that can win the tournament. The ACC probably has more."

Just last week, the ACC had a league-record seven teams in the Associated Press Top 25, before N.C. State and Virginia dropped out. This week's poll includes three top five teams - No. 3 North Carolina, No. 4 Wake Forest and No. 5 Duke - and another (No. 9 Georgia Tech) in the top 10. No other conference can match that.

"The ACC has the most really good teams at the top, but some of the teams haven't performed as well as you would have thought initially," said Jay Bilas, a former Duke player who is now an ESPN analyst. "N.C. State is one of them. They are a good team, but not a great team.

"I think the ACC has seven very good teams and I don't think any other league has that, but there is not one team in the league that is unbeatable and they all are an injury away from being in a little bit of trouble."

Without reigning ACC Player of the Year Julius Hodge (ankle) and with an ailing Tony Bethel (colitis) on Sunday, N.C. State was beaten by 19 at home by West Virginia. That came just three nights after an embarrassing 18-point loss to St. John's.

Georgia Tech could be without B.J. Elder (strained hamstring) for three weeks and Duke's depth is even more troubling now without Shavlik Randolph (mono) and Reggie Love (broken foot).

However, North Carolina, which plays the Terps tomorrow, has won 12 straight since a season-opening loss to Santa Clara.

Bilas said he feels that the Tar Heels, who have showed few signs of the disjointed team they were a season ago, are the best team in the country, just ahead of top-ranked Illinois.

"I am pleased with what we've done so far," Tar Heels coach Roy Williams said yesterday. "But I think our players understand the level of competition we're about to play. It's a completely different level. The competition right now [in the ACC] is the best it could possibly be."

In three marquee non-league, top 10 matchups, the ACC is 1-2. Second-ranked and the Big 12's Kansas, sans star forward Wayne Simien, upended Georgia Tech, who played most of the game without Elder, in overtime on the Jayhawks' home court.

Illinois, of the Big Ten, pounded visiting Wake Forest in the ACC/Big Ten Challenge, but the Tar Heels boast of a 13-point win over No. 8 Kentucky, the class of the SEC.

League coaches, like the Terps' Gary Williams, refer to other results to illustrate the ACC's depth that they say other leagues can't match. Williams noted how Florida State and Miami already have wins over Florida, one of the SEC's best.

Virginia, predicted to finish eighth, beat Pac-10 favorite Arizona by 18 in November. Clemson won at South Carolina's home court and Virginia Tech, probably the least feared ACC team, gave 18th-ranked Mississippi State problems last week.

"Look at the Pac-10, they have Arizona ... Washington," said the Terps' Williams, speaking to a group of reporters recently. "Anybody want to add another school? That's two. In the Big Ten, Iowa looks pretty good, Illinois is obviously very good and Michigan State is like us.

"But when you look at the ACC, you can name six or seven teams right off the top of your head that at the end of the year, given they make the tournament, they could be a factor."

Added Prosser: "There are no layups in our league."

Last season, the ACC got six teams in the NCAA tournament and two in the Final Four, but for the second straight year, it was the Big East that crowned the national champion.

Speculation has already begun on how many teams will represent the ACC in the tournament this year with several analysts predicting that the league will place seven.

"I think our league is the best in the country and we'll continue to show that," said the Tar Heels' Williams. "But what difference does it make what I think? Tournament time is when you get to show it."

ESPN analyst Andy Katz said he is reserving judgment on how wide the gap is between the league and other conferences.

"If the [ACC] gets three teams in the Final Four, which could happen, people are going to say this is the best league by far," Katz said. "We have to see what happens."