Williams, Hall hope to end careers
on high note
By ANDREW JOYNER
Daily Progress staff writer
If one were to use a chart to follow the careers of Virginia senior forwards
Chris Williams and Adam Hall, there would be few spots of stability. The linear
graph would show about as many peaks as falls.
Their freshman seasons were spent as two of just six scholarship players in UVa
coach Pete Gillen’s first team at Virginia. They played for a coach that had
not even recruited them. The duo committed to former UVa coach Jeff Jones before
he resigned in March of 1998.
That squad, expected to win only a handful of games, finished a surprising
14-16. Williams was named the ACC’s rookie of the year as he averaged 16.8
points and 7.5 rebounds a contest while playing as an undersized power forward
on an undersized team. Hall, the more heralded recruit of the two, averaged 10.8
ppg and was also among the league’s best rookies.
“When we came in, we were like the stepping stones of the ACC or whatever,”
Williams said. “From then, I think we’ve built the program up to where we
get a little respect.”
Added Hall: “That year, we got playing time that a lot of freshmen don’t
usually get. We played hard and came out hard every night.”
Their sophomore seasons, the Cavaliers finished 19-12 and earned a berth in the
NIT after narrowly missing a trip to the NCAAs. Williams earned All-ACC second
team honors after leading the team in scoring (15.5 ppg) and finished second in
rebounding (6.1 rpg). Hall averaged 10.1 points per game and his team’s
biggest shot of the season when he connected on a 3-pointer with 25.8 seconds in
overtime to lift UVa to a 89-87 win over Maryland. It was a win that had been
expected to give UVa an NCAA tournament invitation.
At that point, those lines on the graph were definitely rising.
They rose a little more when Virginia finished 20-9 in their junior seasons as
the Cavaliers earned their first NCAA tournament berth since 1997. Again, it was
Hall, who one could argue has had more clutch shots than his classmate in their
careers, who hit a layup with 0.9 seconds remaining to lift Virginia to a 91-89
win over eventual national champion Duke.
That moment likely would have been the peak of their careers and of the rebirth
of Virginia basketball under Gillen.
“Chris and Adam have done a great job. They really have been the cornerstones
of our basketball program. We did not recruit either one as they were recruited
by Jeff Jones and [former UVa assistant] Ricky Stokes. They’ve had great
careers,” Gillen said. “They’ve helped to get the program going in the
right direction. They’re terrific young men and I’ve been lucky to coach
both of them.”
This season has been a rapid descent from that lofty position. The Cavaliers
opened the season 9-0 and rose to No. 4 in the country, their highest such
ranking in 19 years. Since then the Cavaliers are just 7-9 and enter tonight’s
game against Duke in desperate need of a win just to have a chance to reach the
NCAA tournament.
The Cavaliers have lost three straight and seven of nine and it could be assumed
that their last game, an 82-80 last-second loss to Georgia Tech on Saturday at
University Hall, could well have been the lowest point, at least team-wise, in
Hall and Williams’ careers.
Needless to say, the recent downturn has created a Senior Day that neither Hall,
Williams nor senior walk-on Jason Dowling could have envisioned.
“We were looking at it as our senior game but we still knew that being Duke it
was going to be a big game,” said Williams, who like Hall and Dowling, will
have the bulk of his family at tonight’s game. “Now, it’s a game that will
determine our postseason future so it’s a huge game now.”
Added Gillen: “It’s tough playing a tremendous team like Duke. It’s
difficult sometimes playing anybody on Senior Nights. Hopefully, they’ll play
a good game and not get too caught up in the emotion of playing in front of
their families and the like. I’ve seen a lot of Senior Days in which the
seniors play well and others in which they have subpar performances so I hope
they play well.”
Williams is averaging 13.6 points and 6.2 rebounds this season and is currently
among the top 10 in school history in steals (180, third place all-time),
blocked shots (96, sixth), 3-point field goals (123, eighth), rebounds (764,
eighth), field goals (625, eighth), points (1,746, ninth) and made free throws
(373, ninth). Yet, his senior season, like his team’s season, has been
somewhat disappointing.
Williams has had three games this season in which he failed to make a field goal
and was scoreless for the first time in his career in a 68-52 loss at Clemson on
Jan. 8.
“So far it’s been disappointing but the season is not over. We still have
some things to look forward to,” Williams said.
At least Williams has had a chance to play in all the Cavaliers’ games this
season.
Hall has missed 10 games this season with torn plantar fascia tissue in his
right foot. He has just made his return to action in UVa’s last two games.
“It’s been disappointing because I think we’re one of the most talented
teams in the country and we’re not living up to our potential,” Hall said.
“For me personally, it’s been very frustrating sitting out for six weeks and
not being able to play.”
Both Hall and Williams are on pace to graduate if not by May then by this
summer. Williams is a sociology major while Hall is majoring in urban and
environmental planning. Both also aspire for futures in professional basketball.
Of course, as both stressed, their UVa careers are not over. It’s likely they
hope tonight’s game is their last in U-Hall instead of a first-round NIT
contest.
“We still have games left to play,” Williams said.
Added Hall: “I’m not thinking of the NIT or anything like that. We have two
more games and then the ACC tournament. That’s all I’m concentrating on
now.”
Littlepage named to selection committee
By ANDREW JOYNER
Daily Progress staff writer
UVa athletic director Craig Littlepage was appointed Wednesday to the
10-member Division I Men’s Basketball Committe.
His term will begin Sept. 1 and continues through Sept. 1, 2006. Also joining
the committee at this time is Gary Walters, athletic director at Princeton.
The committee is responsible for the administration of the NCAA basketball
tournament. One of its primary functions is the selection of the teams to
compete in the tournament each March. The chairman of this year’s committee is
Lee Fowler, the athletic director at N.C. State. His term will end in September.
Previously, former UVa athletic director Terry Holland served on the committee
in the mid-1990s and was the chairman in 1997.
“I’m thrilled to have been appointed. It is a tremendous honor to be
selected and it’s certainly an honor to to be appointed as a first-year AD,”
Littlepage said Thursday. “It’s something that has come into focus for me in
the past few weeks as people have congratulated me on being nominated and
selected. I think that gave me a focus on the signifigance and honor of being
selected for the committee.”
Littlepage was named UVa athletic director on Aug. 21, 2001, after spending four
months as the school’s interim athletic director after Holland resigned to
become a special assistant to UVa president John T. Casteen III. Littlepage had
also served as the interim athletic director from December 1994 to July 1995 as
UVa conducted a search to replace former UVa athletic director Jim Copeland.
Littlepage has been a member of Virginia’s athletic administration since 1990.
He had spent six years as senior associate athletic director and four years as
the associate athletic director.
Littlepage has served two stints as an assistant coach at UVa (1976-82, 1988-90)
and was also head coach at Pennsylvania, his alma mater, from 1982-85 and at
Rutgers (1985-88).
Cavaliers need team chemistry
By JERRY RATCLIFFE
Daily Progress sports editor
It’s now or never for Virginia’s Cavaliers. Looking at the NCAA
Tournament from the far side of the bubble, Coach Pete Gillen’s team is
attempting to slam the brakes on perhaps the most monumental collapse of a top
five team in college basketball history.
While most teams in the country would have no way out of the predicament (a
losing record since Jan. 1 when UVa was ranked No. 4 in the nation), the
Cavaliers have a way out.
Beat Duke.
Easier said than done. But this is basically the same Virginia team that stunned
Duke in University Hall late last season.
Or is it?
This year’s Cavaliers could take some lessons from last year’s Wahoos. Last
year’s team worked TOGETHER to knock off Duke and Maryland and North Carolina
and Tennessee. Last year’s team didn’t sit and pout about playing time and
back bite the coaches. Instead they followed coaches’ orders and cared more
about winning than their own personal statistics.
This team owes Gillen and his staff the best effort they can possibly give
tonight. They owe the students who have camped out in freezing temperatures to
watch their heroes play hoops. They owe the fans who have supported them all
season long.
But most of all, they owe it to themselves to walk out of U-Hall tonight knowing
that they left every ounce of effort on the playing floor.
If there’s anything to the whispers that one prominent upperclassmen will be
gone at the end of the season and that other underclassman are considering
transferring because they are too impatient to wait their turn, then they need
to put all the griping and differences aside tonight, come together and show
everyone that they can still play basketball.
The atmosphere will be right. Sold out U-Hall can be one of the toughest places
in the country to play, especially when my man, Dickie V, is in the joint. Ask
Duke’s players. Ask Maryland’s players. They’ve all commented that it gets
crazy in Virginia’s antiquated arena.
Just about every hoops junkie from sea to shining sea will be watching
tonight’s game as well as members of the NCAA Tournament selection committee.
A win over No. 3 Duke would speak volumes about Virginia.
That is, if this UVa team truly comes together. As center Travis Watson said the
other night, the team can choose to go its separate ways for what’s left of
the season or it can come together. Personal differences, egos, all that crap
has to be checked at the door.
Go separate ways and play a team like Duke and you’ll lose by 40. Is that how
this Virginia team wants to be remembered? Is that any way to send out seniors
Adam Hall and Chris Williams, who weathered the terrible storm of four years ago
when the Cavaliers rose from the heap?
As Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski once said about teamwork: “I think the trend is
for more individualism and that individualism can show up in ‘I’m going to
concentrate on my game, I’m going to concentrate on my career.’ Everything I
said had to do with ‘my.’ There seems to be some of that mentality coming
into basketball. ‘My game, my game.’ The beauty of the game has always been
‘our game.’”
Virginia, you owe it to your coach. You owe it to the fans. But most of all you
owe it to yourself, even if this is the last time you set foot on the U-Hall
floor for a game, that you put everything else aside to be a true part of a real
team effort.
| Season tough for seniors |
| Chris Williams and Adam Hall helped jump-start the Pete Gillen era but have struggled this year. |
| By
DOUG DOUGHTY THE ROANOKE TIMES |
Under different circumstances, the Duke-Virginia men's basketball game tonight would have been the perfect time to celebrate the careers of two seniors who were instrumental in the resurgence of UVa's program. However, these are not celebratory times for the Cavaliers, who have lost seven of their last nine games, including three in a row. Moreover, though Chris Williams and Adam Hall will be honored on the occasion of their final home game, it may not be their final home game. In fact, it is likely that unranked Virginia (16-9, 6-8) will be invited to the National Invitation Tournament, in which case it probably would get another home game. "I don't even want to think about that," Hall said this week. Hall has been the fire to Williams' ice during a four-year career that has coincided with the arrival of Pete Gillen as coach. Actually, Hall and Williams preceded Gillen as part of the UVa program, having signed with the Cavaliers in the fall of 1997. Jeff Jones was the head coach, and current Virginia Tech coach Ricky Stokes was the UVa assistant who recruited them. From the time Jones resigned March16 until Gillen was named 13 days later, Hall and Williams didn't know who their coach would be. "It was a shocker when I saw on ESPN that our coach had been fired," said Hall, a 6-foot-5 wing player, "but then coach Gillen came down to our school [in Jaty, Texas] the first day he was hired." Everything was cool with Hall, who had moved from Connecticut to Texas when he was 12 and had relatives on the east coast. Things were different for Williams, who is from Birmingham, Ala., and the son of University of Alabama graduates. The Crimson Tide had not recruited Williams during the fall, when David Hobbs was the head coach, but new coach Mark Gottfried took a different attitude in the spring. The Williams family asked if Chris could be released from his letter of intent, but Gillen would not budge. He was out of players. The Cavaliers went into Gillen's first season, 1998-99, with seven scholarship players. Then center Colin Ducharme suffered a season-ending injury in an off-court accident the night after the opening game. Never mind that Hall and Williams had not made any All-America teams in high school. Williams played 33.5 minutes per game, still his career high, and Hall averaged 27.2. They were the Nos.2 and 3 scorers on the team. "We got the playing time that many freshmen would not get," Hall said. "We went out every night and we were undersized and undermatched. That's one thing I've noticed over the years: Teams that don't have the talent or potential that other teams have, they play much harder." Williams, a 6-foot-7 forward, says the highlight of his career remains his selection as ACC Freshman of the Year in 1998-99. The runner-up for that award was Duke's Corey Maggette, now in his third season with the Los Angeles Clippers. After being named second-team All-ACC as a sophomore in 1999-2000, Williams dropped to third last year and may have difficulty making one of the three teams this year. He is averaging 13.5 points, a career low, and failed to make a field goal in three ACC games. "After some games, you know you could have done a little bit more," Williams said. "The offense hasn't always been there. Sometimes, it's been the defense of other teams. Sometimes, I've let myself become frustrated. "There's been a lot of pressure, pressure put on us by other people and pressure we've put on ourselves. We have a great team and we know it and we set our goals high. After we lost to N.C. State the second time [to go 14-3], you could feel the pressure building and building." While Williams has been struggling on the court, Hall has been suffering off the court. He suffered a partial tear of the plantar fascia Jan.12 and missed 10 of the next 11 games. The one time he did play, he was on the floor for five minutes against Maryland on Jan.31. "It was a little bit too soon," Hall said. "I wanted to play. I never decided [not to play], but I had a second opinion before I did. I was told I could wait six months and come back and tear it again. I told myself, 'I might as well play now. If it happens. It happens.'" Hall, starting for the first time since Jan.8, had one of the most inspired performances of his career Saturday against Georgia Tech. He played 34 minutes and had 15 points, including the driving layup that put the Cavaliers ahead 80-74 with just more than a minute remaining. Nobody would have believed that Georgia Tech would win 82-80 on a 3-pointer by Marvin Lewis with one second remaining. "It was very painful the way it happened," Hall said. "You always imagine doing that to other teams, hitting the game-winning shot. When it happens to you, especially on your home court, it's a shock. We're like, 'What else can go wrong with this team?'" Hall said he didn't watch ESPN or read a sports section for 3-4 days, but the impending arrival of his family has caused his competitive juices to return. The family gathering tonight will be a rare event, considering the distance both players live from Charlottesville. Third-ranked Duke (25-2, 12-2) should help attract a big crowd and a warm send-off for Williams, whose name is all over the Cavaliers' record book, and Hall, who ranks among the best defensive players to wear a Cavaliers uniform. "I think I'm the best defensive player in the country," said Hall, who also has scored more than 1,000 points in his UVa career. While the Cavaliers' late-season slide has obscured some of the team's accomplishments during the Hall-Williams era, UVa would have been lost without them. |
Cavaliers Not Ready to Quit
By Jim Reedy
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, February 28, 2002; Page D5
CHARLOTTESVILLE, Feb. 27 – Virginia tri-captain Roger Mason Jr. printed out the signs and taped them up in the locker room after the Cavaliers stumbled and lost at Florida State last week. "It's not too late!" they read in part. "How bad do you want it? You decide our own destiny."
The signs predated the Cavaliers' last-minute collapse Saturday against a sub-.500 Georgia Tech team and their subsequent disappearance from both top 25 polls. The message, however, retains truth even two weeks later: Virginia, which has lost seven of its past nine games, still has a chance to put itself in the NCAA tournament because it closes the regular season against No. 3 Duke (25-2, 12-2 ACC) and No. 2 Maryland (23-3, 13-1).
"I just felt like we have a lot of basketball left and everybody needed to get re-dedicated," said Mason, who called a players-only meeting the day after the 66-59 loss in Tallahassee. "I gave everybody one of [the signs] and told them to put it on their lockers and look at it before practice and before games."
If Virginia (16-9, 6-8) can win Thursday at home against Duke or Sunday at Maryland and win at least one game in the ACC tournament, it might wriggle an NCAA bid. This, of course, is much easier said than done for a team that is 1-5 this season against the conference's top four teams.
"There isn't too much you can say," senior forward Chris Williams said in a quiet Virginia locker room after Georgia Tech's last-second 82-80 win. "We've just got to look ahead. We dug a great hole for ourselves, and we've got two games coming up that we must win to be even considered for postseason play."
The Cavaliers' free fall began with losses to Duke and Maryland in the last week of January, but they had a chance to win both games. At Cameron Indoor Stadium on Jan. 27, the Blue Devils pulled away in the second half for a 94-81 win after Virginia got in foul trouble. Four days later against the Terps, Virginia allowed what would have been a redemptive home victory fade in the final three minutes into a 91-87 loss. Cavaliers Coach Pete Gillen admitted Tuesday his team might not have recovered from that stunning defeat.
"Obviously we're in a bad rhythm right now," said Gillen, whose team broke a 12-game losing streak to the Blue Devils with last season's 91-89 win at University Hall. The players "are down; they're frustrated. I'm doing my best to try to get them up, but it's not going to be easy."
For weeks, Virginia has been headed for the ACC tournament's 4-5 seed game, but now it could slip further if Georgia Tech or Florida State finishes strong.
"Everybody is very disappointed," Mason said, "because it's one thing to lose a game, but the way we're losing is not particularly good."
Part of the problem for Gillen has been finding a consistent lineup. Senior swingman Adam Hall has returned from a foot injury that kept him out for more than a month, but Virginia still relies heavily on four freshmen and a sophomore in its nine-man rotation.
Among the rookies, Gillen has played Keith Jenifer because he has no other true point guard. But Jenifer, like forward-center Elton Brown, struggles defensively, so Gillen has tried athletic but unpolished power forward Jason Clark, the team's leading shot-blocker. The result has been six starting lineups in the past seven games.
"Starting out without a veteran point guard, we're robbing Peter to pay Paul," Gillen said. "We're just juggling. We don't know. We have guys that are good players, but a lot of them aren't ready yet to be full-time guys in the ACC. When you've got to start two freshmen, that's a big challenge in the ACC."
For now, though, the Cavaliers are trying to refocus after Georgia Tech's Marvin Lewis beat them with a last-second three-pointer.
"It's hard, but you have to," Williams said. "You can't have this game lingering in your head with the number [two] and number three teams coming up."
Forget for a moment that the Virginia men's basketball team (16-9, 6-8 ACC) is in the midst of a four-game losing streak. Also, forget that the Cavaliers have lost seven of their last nine games and currently sit on the wrong side of the NCAA tournament bubble. Despite recent woes, the Cavaliers have a chance to do something extremely special tonight, as they attempt to defeat the Duke Blue Devils at University Hall for the second year in a row.
"The kids are down right now and it has been a tough stretch for us," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. "We need to come out ready to play from the get-go and execute in key situations."
Duke (25-2, 12-2) comes to Charlottesville less than two weeks removed from a loss to Maryland in College Park. With that defeat, the Blue Devils find themselves in danger of not winning a piece of the ACC regular-season title for the first time since 1996. However, anyone who thinks that Duke is in the midst of a slump is glaringly mistaken.
Jason Williams serves as the floor leader for this year's Blue Devil squad. The junior guard combines a deadly three-point jump shot with lightning quickness and undying defensive intensity. He leads the team with 28.3 points a game, and is uncontested as the best point guard in the nation. Yet, Williams has shot a modest 65 percent from the free-throw line, exposing what might be his only weakness as a basketball player. He went 0-for-6 from the line in the closing minutes of Duke's loss to Florida State, and has remained inconsistent all season.
Behind Williams is a strong supporting cast, most notably junior forward Mike Dunleavy Jr. Dunleavy has shown tremendous versatility throughout the season, while consistently showing a knack for transforming games within a span of a few minutes. His 19-point second-half performance against Maryland in January was reminiscent of his national championship performance from last season, when he hit three three-pointers in one minute to help secure the title. Last season, Dunleavy struggled in Charlottesville, as he was plagued by foul trouble. For Virginia to have a chance of pulling the upset, they must contain Dunleavy and keep him from hitting game-breaking shots.
Virginia shocked Duke 91-89 in U-Hall last year in front of a rabid group of fans that survived a week-long campout. Virginia senior Adam Hall was the hero of the evening, scoring 17 points, including the game-winning layup with .9 seconds left. Hall electrified the crowd throughout the game with a spectacular aerial display that included an alley-oop dunk that left Shane Battier with a Reebok logo implanted on his forehead.
Hall has been hampered by injuries all season, but played inspired basketball in Virginia's loss to Gerogia Tech last Saturday. For Hall and fellow seniors Chris Williams and Jason Dowling, tonight's contest represents their final game at U-Hall. For the seniors to go out on top, they must provide some desperately needed leadership for this struggling Virginia team.
"We are better than we are playing and I know we can play better," Williams said.
Virginia still has an outside shot to make the NCAA tournament. However, if Virginia plays with an inspired sense of urgency, and if and U-Hall rocks with fan support the way it did last year, the Cavaliers might be able to keep those tournament hopes alive to see another day.
Virginia puts NCAA bid on line against Duke, Maryland
CHARLOTTESVILLE - For Virginia, there is always the old mantra that on
any given day, any given team can win. Only problem is, the Cavaliers need to be
that any given team twice in the next four days.
If Virginia is to have any shot at cracking the NCAA Tournament field, barring an almost unthinkable run to the ACC Tournament championship next week in Charlotte, it will have to include upsets today against No. 3 Duke in University Hall and Sunday at No. 2 Maryland in the final game at Cole Field House.
A win in either one of those games would be enough to at least give the Cavaliers a reason to watch the selection show, especially if they can pick up a win or two at the ACC Tournament. A loss in both, and it's over.
It is very near that point anyway. Three straight losses, two in must-win situations at Florida State and last Saturday's dramatic gone-in-60-seconds routine against Georgia Tech in which the Cavaliers blew a six-point lead in the final minute at home, have left the Cavaliers at 16-9, 6-8 in the ACC. Their RPI is 54, far too low to ensure an automatic bid.
"We have three more games guaranteed to us this year," guard Adam Hall said. "We can go out and play hard."
Most hopes are pinned to the Duke game, mainly because Virginia knocked off the Blue Devils 91-89 here last year and got shellacked 102-67 by the Terrapins at Cole.
The Cavaliers are in freefall despite the return of Adam Hall, who has been impressive in his two games since missing over a month with a foot injury. Tonight marks the final regular season home game for both Hall and Chris Williams, a pair of 1,000-point scorers that helped rebuild the program over the past four seasons from an ACC cellar dweller into a team that has expectations high enough to disappoint as much as the Cavaliers have this year.
Virginia coach Pete Gillen has used four different starting lineups in the past four games, and playing time has been rationed differently each game as Gillen incorporates Hall back into the lineup.
"We're robbing Peter to pay Paul," Gillen said. "We're just juggling. We have a lot of guys who aren't ready yet to be fulltime in the ACC. They're going to be good, but when you have to start two to three freshmen in the ACC, it's rough."
Determined Duke ready to take
on vanishing Virginia
First place in the ACC might be out of Duke's reach now, but that hasn't stopped Coach Mike Krzyzewski's team from starting another winning streak in which it is mauling the opposition.
Taking to the road today for the last time this season, Duke will continue its bid to overtake Maryland and secure the No. 1 seed for the ACC Tournament. Slumping Virginia will be the opponent at University Hall in Charlottesville, Va., in a 9 p.m. game.
Both of Duke's losses this season came on the road. And it was in University Hall a year ago that Virginia eked out a 91-89 decision that snapped Duke's 24-game ACC road winning streak, the longest in conference history.
Even if the Blue Devils can't overtake the Terrapins, Krzyzewski is sharpening his team for a run at defending its NCAA championship and winning the fourth national title in school history.
"It has nothing to do with Maryland," Krzyzewski said. "I would think that most people in the country would like to be 25-2 at this point in the season and have been ranked where we've been ranked the entire season and had the consistency of performance we've had.
"Really, we don't measure ourselves with somebody else. The fact that Maryland has had a great year, I think they should be congratulated. That really has nothing to do with us. What we do has to do with us, and what we've done has been very good."
The Blue Devils are 12-2 in the ACC and have won their past two games by 42 and 29 points. The Cavaliers, once 9-0 and ranked No. 4, have fallen to 16-9 and 6-8 in the ACC, and it have lost seven of their past nine games.
Virginia is playing its way out of the NCAA Tournament and into the NIT. It will close the regular season on Sunday in the final game at Cole Field House.
"We're in a bad rhythm right now, a bad tick," Coach Pete Gillen of Virginia said. "(My players) are down; we're frustrated. Any negative thing you can be, they are. I'm doing my best to try and get them up, but it's not going to be easy. I tell them, 'You can't quit, you can't give up. You've got to keep swinging.'"
Virginia's most recent loss was to Georgia Tech at home when Roger Mason and Travis Watson missed four free throws in the final minute. Mason, a career 87.5-percent free-throw shooter, missed his first one-and-one all season.
Gillen traced his team's troubles to the second game of the losing stretch. Virginia was nine points up on Maryland at home with three minutes to go but could not hold on and lost 91-87. That started a four-game losing streak.
"I don't know if we ever completely got over it," Gillen said of the loss to Maryland. "That was a big blow to our confidence and then we had a brutal stretch (of games). We really have not completely gotten over it, in my opinion."