Ohio University coach Tim O’Shea described it as situation that will likely never happen again. UVa coach Pete Gillen likely dreads that it happened at all. Through a quirky scheduling agreement agreed to well before O’Shea’s arrival at Ohio, Virginia “returned” a game to the Bobcats for their appearance at University Hall in December 2000. ACC schools rarely return such a game to mid-major programs. That was what O’Shea was referring to when he said that the scene that occurred after his team’s 78-72 victory over Virginia on Wednesday night would not be seen again. It was a rare return game, and it produced only negative returns for Virginia. The loss was the fifth straight for the Cavaliers and dropped them to 14-12 overall. In the process, it ended any realistic shot of an at-large bid for the Cavaliers and pushed them off the NCAA bubble and onto the NIT bubble. Virginia must still win at least win one more game to even qualify for a NIT bid, something that was probably not in the Cavaliers’ mindset before this season-breaking five-game skid. “Confidence is a problem when you lose five games in a row. I believe in them and I still think they believe in themselves. It’s tough to beat anybody on the road. MAC teams are good teams. … This is their Super Bowl,” said UVa coach Pete Gillen, whose team concluded its three-game road trip at Florida State on Saturday. If it indeed was Ohio’s Super Bowl, it should have been at least a playoff game for the Cavaliers. The team’s players used the old must-win phrase frequently after their loss at Wake Forest on Sunday. They knew the starkness of their plight and knew that wins in their final four games were a necessity to have any chance of reaching the NCAAs. Instead, their NCAA chances likely ended in southeastern Ohio to a team apparently wanted to be 10-14 more than Cavaliers wanted to reach the NCAA tournament. “This really hurts. There’s been a lot of disappointment. It’s been a long season. … We really need to rally. We need to step it up,” said Virginia center Nick Vander Laan, whose 15 points paced the Cavs on Wednesday. “This is about character and we need to show that and show that on the floor. We’re going to have to learn from this.” Hindsight will tell if Vander Laan’s statement should have been needed to rally. Virginia’s woes in this game were the usual ones. There was poor ballhandling, poor defense at crucial times and the inability to make the necessary shots at the necessary times. Virginia allowed Steve Esterkamp to score a career-high 31 points and allowed his teammates to make critical 3-pointers when a defensive stop was needed. In total, the Cavaliers committed 13 turnovers that led to 16 Ohio points. Virginia has now had double-digit turnovers in all of its road games this season. In addition, the Cavaliers only managed three baskets in the game’s final three minutes. There was a small scoring drought at Wake Forest on Sunday. It’s not an expert analysis, but most would agree that points need to be generated down the stretch in order for a team to win games. Of course, winning games is not something the Cavaliers have done since beating N.C. State at U-Hall on Feb. 9. “We have the talent but we’re just at the point where we are trying to get things done,” Vander Laan said. Time, however, is not on Virginia’s side.
Steve Smith has witnessed a lot of great shooting performances during his years as coach of Oak Hill Academy’s storied basketball program. But what Virginia recruit J.R. Reynolds did a couple of weeks ago blew Smith’s mind. The 6-foot-2 shooting guard broke Oak Hill’s record for 3-pointers in a game with 14, beating former Kentucky recruit Rashad Carruth’s record by two. It could have been more, but Reynolds didn’t even play in the fourth quarter of the Warriors’ win over Laurinburg Institute. “I thought the record of 12 would stand for a while,” said Smith. He quickly re-evaluated his thoughts after watching Reynolds go 11 for 12 from bonusphere in the first half. Reynolds will bring his shooting talents to University Hall on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. when Oak Hill meets Montrose Christian in a game dubbed by USA Today as the best high school game in the nation this week. Oak Hill is ranked No. 1 in the South and Montrose No. 2 in the East. In a zone “He was in a zone,” said Smith. “Shooters get like that sometimes. But on four or five of ‘em, the net didn’t even move. One of them went in so purely that I wasn’t even sure that it went in, but it did.” Smith said that the record didn’t come against a cheap opponent, that Laurinburg was just as big and athletic as Oak Hill. Knowing that Reynolds deserved the record after a half like that, he tried to get his guard some shots early in the second half. Reynolds missed a few early in the third quarter after Laurinburg kept switching in an attempt to shut him down. So, Reynolds just took a couple of steps deeper behind the arch and knocked down two straight for the record and Smith took him out. For the record he made 14 of 20 from behind the line, including seven in a row at one stretch. He also made the only shot he attempted from inside the arch for a career-high 44 points. He did all that in only 24 minutes. Feeling good “I just felt good that night,” said Reynolds. “Every shot I threw up just seemed like I couldn’t miss. After a while my teammates started looking for me. I kept making them and they kept on coming to me.” Perhaps it was a quirk; perhaps it was the results of hard work and patience. Reynolds has scored more than 40 a couple of times in his career at Roanoke Catholic before playing his senior year at Oak Hill. It’s a different game under Smith. There are so many other talented players on the roster that most of the best players average around 16 points a game (as Travis Watson did as a senior). It is rare for anyone to average 20 or more. Reynolds averages around 16 although in the last eight games or so, he has averaged more than 20 per outing. In fact, over the last four-game stretch, he has drilled 29 of 47 shots from 3-point range. “I think he’s probably playing the best he’s played all year,” said Smith. “He’s really shooting the ball.” It hasn’t been that way all year. He went through a stretch in January when he lost confidence and it showed in his game. Smith told him that if he wasn’t making shots, then concentrate on defense and rebounding. “He’s gotten back on track the last three weeks and he’s shooting the ball as good as any guard I’ve ever had,” said Smith, who also coached UVa players Cory Alexander and NCAA 3-point record-holder Curtis Staples. “People compare J.R. to Curt because they’re both from Roanoke and because they can both shoot,” said Smith. The Oak Hill coach explained there is a difference, that Reynolds isn’t as one-dimensional as Staples, who seemed to only be capable of shooting the long ball. Reynolds also has a nice touch from intermediate range and if defenders play him tight, he has the ability to drive by them. He’s not just a 3-point shooter. “Curt had to come of screens to get his shot but J.R. can get his own shot,” said Smith. “J.R. has physically enhanced himself in the weight room. He’s a lot stronger now and that has helped his game a lot.” Reynolds said that the thing he’s most proud of this season is his improvement as a defensive player, something he focused on at Oak Hill. “This year, I have better players surrounding me. Everyone on the team can score, so I have to do other things to score,” said Reynolds. Defensively, he always draws the assignment of guarding the opponents’ best guard. Included among his best defensive performances was that against McDonald’s All-American candidate Rodrick Stewart of Ranier Beach High out of Seattle. “That guy was the key to their whole team and we put J.R. on him,” said Smith. “The kid had 14 points but he took a ton of shots to get it.” Oak Hill won the game 69-65 in a Texas tournament. “We’ll need J.R. to shoot like that at University Hall on Saturday,” said Smith. “We’re a different team when he’s bombing away from out there.” Reynolds was admittedly nervous the last time he played in U-Hall with a high school team, two years ago when Roanoke Catholic played Blue Ridge School. “I think me playing there before, I’ll be a little more comfortable than in the past,” said Reynolds. “I should be more relaxed, but I am excited about playing there. It’s going to be a big game, the last game of my high school career and at UVa, the school I’ll be playing for next season. It’s a big game for me.”
Ohio wasn't the worst
Other than the records, there is one noteworthy similary between the 2001-2002 and 2002-2003 Virginia men's basketball seasons. Both have been marked by seniors tarnishing their legacy with career-ending slumps.
In 2001-2002, it was Chris Williams, who finished his career as the No. 7 scorer and No. 7 rebounder in school history but has been forgotten to the point where I have no idea where he is.
This year, it's Travis Watson, who didn't start Wednesday against Ohio University for what coach Pete Gillen termed "a coach's decision."
It was the second game in a row Watson had not started, although there were reasons he sat out the tip of the Cavaliers' game Sunday at Wake Forest. Gillen explained that Watson, the No. 16 scorer and No. 2 rebounder in school history, had missed both a class and another, undisclosed obligation.
I am not going to change my position of a week ago, when I said Watson should start and play as close to 40 minutes as possible, but I can see why he didn't start Wednesday.
Gillen wanted to send the message that he had appreciated the Cavaliers' effort Sunday in a 75-71 loss to 10th-ranked Wake Forest in Winston-Salem, N.C., even if Watson's replacement, Nick Vander Laan, had not distinguished himself by going scoreless and committing three turnovers in 15 minutes.
It's unlikely Gillen will bench Vander Laan now, not after he went 7-for-7 from the field and had 15 points and a game-high eight rebounds in a 78-72 loss to the Bobcats. Vander Laan let the Cavaliers down when he missed the front end of a one-and-one with 4:21 remaining and the Cavaliers trailing 65-62, but that was no worse than Watson missing a one-and-one in the first half.
Vander Laan's miss dropped him to 56.3 percent from the line for the season and, while Watson is shooting 66.1 percent for the season, he is 1-for-5 from the line in his last two games (both of which the Cavaliers could have won) and 4-for-11 on free throws over the last four games.
Watson, with 11 points and six rebounds, wasn't outclassed by Ohio's 6-7, 260-pound Brandon Hunter, the nation's leading rebounder, who had 14 points and seven rebounds. However, here's a remarkable statistic on the two big men: Hunter has attempted 287 free throws in 24 games, while Watson has attempted 109 in 26.
Hunter doesn't shoot free throws any better than Watson. In fact, he's worse, hitting 56.8 percent. What is apparent is that Ohio, for all of its problems at 10-14, looks for Hunter. At Virginia, either Watson doesn't work to get open, his teammates don't look for him, or both.
There is some merit to the argument that Watson was better suited to the center position he played for his first three years. Watson is playing forward this season, a move that might help at the next level, but he is also more mobile and more skilled than UVa's other two post men.
Anybody who has seen Watson in the last two weeks might be wondering if there will be a next level. Watson fouled out of the Ohio game on a play that sent 81-percent free-throw shooter Jeff Halbert to the line with the Bobcats leading 69-66 with 1:15 left and five seconds on the shot clock.
You don't want to foul out, you don't want to foul an 81-percent free-throw shooter and you don't want to help an opponent out of a bad position at the end of a possession. But that's the way Watson's month is going.
OF THE PHONE messages that awaited me upon my return from Ohio, one that caught my attention came from a coaching friend.
"Have they hit rock bottom?" was the question in an apparent reference to the Cavaliers.
Hypothetically, things could get worse, but I think the season hit rock bottom Feb. 18, when the Cavaliers lost 73-64 against visiting Clemson. When you hold a team to 37.9-percent shooting from the field and still can't win at home, there's no hope for you.
I certainly think the Cavaliers have played worse than they did Wednesday night, when they shot 48.3 percent from the field, outrebounded the Bobcats 31-26 and had 13 turnovers. Since Nov. 27, when they had 10 turnovers against Indiana in the championship game of the Maui Invitational, they haven't had fewer than 13 turnovers in a game.
Moreover, if Vander Laan and Elton Brown are to be UVa's post players next year, the situation might not be as bleak as it appeared during a five-game stretch when Vander Laan had a total of seven points in 51 minutes. I'm still not sold on Vander Laan as an ACC post man, but I'll give him his due: He did some good things Wednesday night.
Point guards Todd Billet and Majestic Mapp, turnover-prone in recent games, had nine assists and one turnover in a combined 60 minutes. Mapp had four turnovers and zero assists in 24 minutes but was 0-for-4 from the field and is 1-for-13 over the last five games.
For the first time in 4-5 games, thankfully, Gillen did not bemoan the loss of his point guard. Presumably, he has been talking about Keith Jenifer, although Jenifer had not started UVa's three games before a fight Feb. 2 that led to his suspension. Jenifer was 0-for-7 from the field in those games and had gone 9-for-21 from the free-throw line over an 11-game span.
SO HOW COULD UVa have lost to Ohio? Like the Cavaliers, the Bobcats have the unenviable distinction of having more turnovers than assists for the season. However, Ohio had a season-low eight turnovers against a Virginia team that tried to press but does not have the personnel to take advantage of a team's ball-handling weaknesses.
On top of that, the Bobcats came into the game with fewer than six 3-point field goals per game, but went 9-for-15 against the Cavaliers, well above their season percentage of 34.5 percent. Steve Esterkamp scored only two points in the final 13 1/2 minutes but finished with a career-high 31.
UVa tried a variety of defenders on Esterkamp -- Devin Smith, Jason Clark, Derrick Byars and Jermaine Harper -- and also played zone. What has become apparent is that UVa has nobody in the Adam Hall mold who is capable of stopping a high-scoring perimeter player.
Cavs' season on the brink
U.Va. could miss even NIT bid
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 28, 2003
On his radio show Monday night, Virginia basketball coach Pete Gillen lauded his
team's effort against Wake Forest 24 hours earlier. U.Va. didn't beat the
ACC-leading Demon Deacons, but it played like a team determined to salvage its
season, a team that might yet claw its way into the NCAA tournament.
"If we can do that the rest of the way, we'll be OK," Gillen said. "I wish we
could bottle that."
They couldn't. The energy and passion so apparent at Lawrence Joel Coliseum
vanished Wednesday night, and so did the Cavaliers' hopes of earning an at-large
invitation to the NCAAs.
Virginia, on the road, lost 78-72 to Ohio - a mediocre Mid-American Conference
team - and fell to 14-12 with three regular-season games left. The Wahoos now
find themselves in danger of failing to make the National Invitation Tournament,
too. At this rate, U.Va. may end up in the ACC's tournament play-in game.
If the regular season ended today, that much-dreaded game would match the ACC's
eighth-place team, North Carolina (4-9, 14-13), against ninth-place Florida
State (3-11, 12-13). But Virginia (5-8 in conference play) is one of three
teams, along with Clemson (5-8, 15-9) and Georgia Tech (5-8, 12-12), that could
drop into the ACC tourney's Thursday night game.
U.Va. has lost five straight games, its longest skid in five years. To be
eligible for an NIT bid, a team must be .500 or better coming out of its
conference tournament. The Cavs need to win at least one of their remaining
regular-season games - or, if they lose all three, capture two ACC tourney games
- to qualify for NIT consideration. Virginia hasn't won an ACC tournament game
since 1995.
Virginia visits Florida State tomorrow, then returns home for games with Georgia
Tech (Wednesday) and defending NCAA champion Maryland (March 9). The Cavaliers
upset the Terrapins on the road Feb. 6.
"We're still confident we can end on a strong note," Gillen said Monday night,
but that was before the debacle at Ohio.
Against a lackluster U.Va. defense, the Bobcats (10-14) made 9 of 15 shots from
3-point range and shot 51.1 percent from the floor. Steve Esterkamp, a 6-6
senior who's averaging 14.1 points, torched Virginia for a career-high 31. The
Cavaliers had 13 turnovers and no steals.
For the second straight game, Gillen didn't start his top player, 6-8 senior
Travis Watson, who leads the ACC in rebounding. Watson, benched against Wake for
violating team rules, had 11 points and six rebounds in 28 minutes against Ohio.
U.Va.'s most effective post player against the Bobcats, surprisingly, was 6-10,
255-pound Nick Vander Laan. The junior center made all seven of his field goal
attempts and scored 15 points, his first game in double figures since Jan. 18.
Vander Laan also grabbed a game-high eight boards, one more than Ohio's Brandon
Hunter, the nation's leading rebounder.
"Nick was tremendous," Gillen said.
Wake sitting in the driver's seat
Jack Wilkinson -
Staff
Friday, February 28, 2003
With 10 days left in the regular season, with March upon us Saturday, we hold these ACC truths to be self-evident:
> The three best teams --- Wake Forest, Maryland and Duke --- clearly comprise the conference's upper echelon. All are crescendoing nicely toward the postseason.
> Two coaches in the early stages of long-term contracts --- Virginia's Pete Gillen and North Carolina's Matt Doherty --- have received the dreaded vote of confidence from their athletics directors.
> One player stands out above all others: Wake's Josh Howard, the certain ACC Player of the Year.
> No one, except perhaps the team that will receive the ACC's fourth NCAA tournament bid --- N.C. State, despite its dismal nonconference schedule and performance --- will vie with Wake, Maryland or Duke for the ACC tournament title and its automatic NCAA bid.
"I think our league is a hard league," said Wake second-year coach Skip Prosser, who can claim the Demon Deacons' first outright ACC regular-season title since 1962 by sweeping his last three games vs. Clemson, North Carolina and State. "I hear people say, 'How can you let a team in [to the NCAA tournament] with 7-9, a losing [conference] record?' I think it'd be hard for some of those schools in other conferences to come in and go 7-9 in our league."
Not to worry for Wake. Nor Maryland, seeking coach Gary Williams' 500th career victory Sunday night at N.C. State. Nor Duke, where Mike Krzyzewski was thrilled with his Blue Devils' defense Wednesday at Georgia Tech. He hopes to see the same ball-denial defense Sunday in Madison Square Garden against St. John's.
Gillen and Doherty have graver concerns. "I wish I was in Maui right now," said the Virginia coach, recalling November when UVa reached the championship game in Maui, beating mighty Kentucky along the way. "I'd be hiding under a freakin' volcano. Everybody is after me."
Two years ago, when Gillen's first Virginia team became the first Cavaliers team since 1995 to reach the NCAA tournament, the school rewarded him with a 10-year contract. Last season, the Cavs lost in the first round of the NIT. Now, after a 10-3 start, Virginia is 14-12, Gillen has suspended point guard Keith Jenifer and some fans are livid.
"Pete is our coach, and I am supporting him," athletics director Craig Littlepage said --- before Virginia lost at 10-14 Ohio University Wednesday night, its fifth consecutive defeat. "It might be difficult for everyone to be positive about the program, but the only way for the team to be successful is for all of us to support them. . . . I know [Gillen] will succeed here over the long haul."
Doherty might, too, at his alma mater. But his third season has unraveled from a 5-0 start to a 14-13, 4-9 ACC horror that includes a five-game losing streak, disenchantment by some talented Carolina freshmen and many Tar Heel backers who are livid over a potential second consecutive losing season.
"I am very supportive of Matt," athletics director Dick Baddour said. "He's trying to build this program."
But when asked if Doherty --- in the third year of a six-year contract --- would be back next season, Baddour hesitated. "I don't want to get into a word game," he said. "I support Matt, and he will be evaluated after the season, just as any of our coaches would be."
CHAPEL HILL - Every North Carolina men's basketball game is a referendum.
If the Tar Heels lose, coach Matt Doherty must go or should go or, according to the Internet report filed by the anonymous guy with the fake name, will go. And if the Tar Heels win? Then Doherty must go or should go or is already gone.
Does anybody still believe Doherty is the coach to bring North Carolina basketball back?
Doherty does.
"Oh yeah, yeah," Doherty says from the sofa in his nondescript office early Wednesday afternoon.
"I got a call Tuesday from (Kansas) coach (Roy) Williams. He said, `You had a tough loss against Maryland. I had a tough loss against Oklahoma. Stay the course. You have a plan, stay with it.' "
Doherty adds: "What I do is what I learned as a player here, and what I learned (as an assistant) under Roy Williams at Kansas. It's sound. We just need to grow with it. We are the youngest team in major college basketball. Everybody's young. We're the youngest."
This is Doherty's third season at his alma mater, and he, too, was young when he arrived. On Tuesday, he turned 41. N.C. State beat the Tar Heels in Chapel Hill, in overtime, anyway.
Doherty drove home after the loss, and at 12:30 a.m. his wife, Kelly, heated up beef tenderloins and sweet potatoes and gave him a piece of chocolate cake. He fell asleep watching SportsCenter.
Doherty was 26-7 his first season and 8-20 his second. This season the Tar Heels are 14-13 and 4-9 in the ACC.
A woman brings a basketball to Doherty's office Wednesday and, although she has no appointment, wants the coaches to walk out of the film room to sign it. When they don't, she announces she does not want their signatures anyway, not after the losses to Maryland and N.C. State. She takes her ball and goes home.
Is there a reason to believe, should your staff let her anywhere near you, that she will want the ball autographed next season? Is there a reason for reasonable fans to get excited again?
"We'll be relatively the same team we were before Sean (May) got hurt," Doherty says.
May, a 6-foot-8 freshman, was the North Carolina big man willing to play big. He broke his foot after one conference game and has yet to return.
"We'll just be a year older and a year wiser and a year stronger, mentally and physically," says Doherty. "We showed in the preseason (NIT tournament, which they won) we could be pretty good. Just put a year on top of that team and we can be very good."
But you add only Reyshawn Terry, a 6-7 guard. Can a team whose big man is a 6-8 forward be good enough to compete for the national championship?
"I think we can because the game has gotten smaller," says Doherty. "When was the last time a national champion had a player 6-10 or over? Look at Maryland last year and Duke before that and Michigan State before that."
But to win, May and your other star freshmen, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants, have to return? Will they?
"I don't see why not," says Doherty. "I told them Johnny Dawkins, when he was a freshman at Duke, lost by 43 to Virginia. And two years later he was in the national championship. This team can do the same thing. The foundation has been laid."
But why would they return? The foundation laid by your predecessors in Chapel Hill is one of gentility and civility. Nobody sweats and nobody screams. It was a major news story when Bill Guthridge, whom you replaced, moved. You might be the first basketball coach in school history to yell at a player.
"I've heard coach (Dean) Smith yell," says Doherty. "He yelled at me and kicked me out of practice one day."
What for?
"I got in an altercation with a player."
Who?
"Uh, John Brownlee."
It would be a better story if you said James Worthy.
"I'm smarter than that," he says. "I wanted to stay on the team."
He adds: "Tell me a coach that doesn't raise his voice. But I've changed a lot this season because the team is so young."
Since 1975, the Tar Heels have missed only one NCAA tournament, and that was last season. There are people within the athletic department who wince at the idea of the Tar Heels, who as recently as 2000 played in the Final Four, hosting a first-round NIT (Not In Tournament) game.
If the NIT offers you a berth, will you accept?
"Oh, yeah, no question," says Doherty.
Maybe it could be like Tuesday night all over again, and you could host N.C. State.
"No comment," he says.