3/12/02 - Devious

By ANDREW JOYNER
Daily Progress staff writer

The NIT selection committee, sometimes pressed by logistical and geographic concerns more than anything, is often a little creative with its first-round contests.
Certainly, South Carolina coach Dave Odom thinks that the NIT’s flare for creating interesting matchups is why his Gamecocks will play Virginia at University Hall on Wednesday night.
Might it have something to do with the fact that Odom is a former UVa assistant and a former Wake Forest head coach? Or even that South Carolina was a former member of the ACC? Absolutely, was Odom’s answer Monday.
“I don’t think there was anything that was happenstance about it. I think that absolutely was the case. I think the fact that I have Virginia ties and ACC ties certainly had a bearing on it,” said Odom, who is in his first season after spending 12 at Wake and seven as an assistant at UVa before that.
The game is also one of the few NIT first-round games that will be televised (ESPN2 is carrying Wednesday’s game), and both coaches believe that is another reason these two teams — two of the more appealing squads in the 40-team field — will be facing each other.
“I think, and I don’t know this, but I think television had something to do with it. I’m sure they wanted teams from bigger conferences playing each other,” UVa coach Pete Gillen said. “I think television and some recommendations. I think that had some kind of input.”
Added Odom: “I’d be surprised if there were four or maybe five teams in the NIT field that have better RPIs than Virginia and South Carolina. I wouldn’t be surprised that if TV said, ‘Look, if you want for us to continue to keep the NIT on television, you have to give us good first-round matches.’ They looked at this game and figured it would be one that would get people’s attention.”
Odom is correct in his assumption. Only Villanova, with a No. 43 RPI, has a better such ranking than South Carolina (No. 47) and Virginia (No. 50) in the NIT field. Those three schools also account for three of the top four RPIs left out of the NCAA tournament. Arkansas, which finished 14-15, was No. 46 in the RPI but was not selected for either tournament because of its losing record.
The Gamecocks (18-14) and Cavaliers (17-11) might share similarities in that area but that is the only manner in which the two schools mirror each other. The Gamecocks enter Wednesday’s game having lost four of their past six games, while Virginia has lost nine of 12. Yet, South Carolina’s late-season woes contrast from Virginia in that it played its best basketball of the season this past weekend as it advanced to the SEC semifinals before falling to Alabama 65-57 on Saturday.
Conversely, Virginia lost 92-72 to N.C. State in the ACC quarterfinals in a game that had UVa won, likely would have put it in the NCAAs.
On Monday, Gillen admitted that he knew that loss ended any NCAA hopes for the Cavaliers.
“I was not surprised. I knew that we were not going to make it because we didn’t finish strong. We didn’t earn our way in,” said Gillen, who said that the team did not gather for the watching of the selections Sunday night. “We met with the players Sunday night and we talked about it and hopefully we can start getting their spirits back up.”
That latter portion of his statement could be crucial for Wednesday’s game. Just more than two months ago, the Cavaliers were 9-0 and No. 4 in the country and the discussion at that time was not if but where the Cavaliers would be seeded in the NCAAs.
Traditionally, teams such as Virginia and South Carolina, whose NCAA aspirations were denied, take one of three paths in the NIT. Some are still feeling slighted by the NCAAs and are not motivated to play when their NIT contests arrive. Others use the tournament as a stage to perform well and prove the NCAA committee made a mistake. And some teams use the event as a springboard for the next season.
“I don’t have any sense of where our spirits are right now. They are disappointed. Hopefully, between now and 7:30 on Wednesday night, we’ll have them more motivated,” Gillen said. “When you are in a major conference, everything is the NCAA. Mental is 80 percent of it and we’ll have to get them ready to play. Hopefully, we play with energy, emotion and pride.”

Notes. While NCAA selection chairman Lee Fowler said last week the unfinished game between Michigan State and Virginia in the Richmond Coliseum on Nov. 28 would have no bearing on the committee’s decision, Gillen said Monday that he and his staff did try to reschedule the game but there were conflicts for the Spartans. Michigan State is the 10th seed in the NCAA’s East Region and will be playing seventh-seeded N.C. State on Friday in Washington.
“When the game was canceled, we wanted to play it, but Michigan State could not fit it into their schedule. We said that we wouldn’t push it and went from there. We wanted to play. … We said that we would not be jerks about it. We would have been willing to play it, but hindsight’s easy.” …
Gillen also addressed Monday several reports, both from sources and on the Internet, that a handful of his players were seen out past curfew near the team hotel in Charlotte, N.C., on Thursday night before the Cavaliers’ 92-72 ACC quarterfinal loss to N.C. State on Friday. The UVa coach emphatically denied such reports.
“It’s not true. That’s not true. They were all checked in personally, and they were all checked in. That is all not true,” said Gillen, who said his team has an 11 p.m. curfew on nights before games. “When you lose a game, a few people drag things down. The players were all in bed and all checked in.”

NIT sends South Carolina and coach Dave Odom back to Virginia and ACC land
Odom finds humor in NIT pairing

South Carolina and UVa meet in the first round of the NIT on Wednesday in Charlottesville.

Dave Odom has been around basketball too long not to be suspicious of the NIT pairings that will send his South Carolina team to Virginia.

"I don't think there's anything that's happenstance about it," Odom said Monday. "The fact that I have not only Virginia ties, but Atlantic Coast Conference ties, and South Carolina having been [in the ACC] had some bearing on it.

"I would be surprised if there were more than four or five teams in the NIT field with higher RPIs than Virginia and South Carolina. Television probably said, 'Look, if you want us to continue to cover the NIT on television, you've got to give us great first-round matchups.'

Odom went to South Carolina this season after 12 years at Wake Forest, where he was a three-time ACC coach of the year, but before that he was an assistant at Virginia from 1982-1989.

Odom replaced current Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage on the UVa staff in 1982, then worked with Littlepage when he rejoined head coach Terry Holland's staff in 1988-89.

It was a double whammy for the Gamecocks (18-14) to be sent on the road for their game with Virginia (17-11) at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday.

"Any time you're talking anything devious, between Littlepage and Holland there's a lot of strings to be pulled," said Odom, who also has known UVa coach Pete Gillen for 25 years.

He used the word "devious" in jest, but he had no explanation for the NIT's decision not to give the Gamecocks a home game.

"That I could not answer," Odom said. "I'm sure we put in a very competitive bid.

"Maybe the people who filled out the draw sheets are Irish. Pete's Irish and we're getting close to St. Patrick's Day. As far as I know, I don't have any Irish blood."

Virginia, a two-time champion, traditionally has drawn well for the NIT. In 2002, after the NCAA had snubbed them at 19-11, the Cavaliers drew 8,251 - less than 200 under capacity - for a first-round game with Georgetown.

South Carolina is just beginning to regain its fan support after eight seasons under Eddie Fogler, whose final team went 15-15, including a loss at Connecticut in the first round of last year's NIT.

The Gamecocks averaged nearly 10,500 spectators at home this year and that was before their run through the SEC tournament, where they upset Mississippi and 12th-ranked Kentucky before losing in the final minute to No.8 Alabama in the semifinals.

It was a big lift for Odom, whose Gamecocks had lost 10 of 16 games after a 10-3 start.

"It's taken a lot of energy to get our system in and work through some of the things that needed adjusting," Odom, 59, said. "That's what you expect when you take on a new challenge. It's the end of a year and this [spurt] has been like a booster battery for me."

Wake Forest averaged exactly 20 victories in Odom's 12 seasons, but Odom's contract was to have expired after this season and terms of a proposed extension were not exactly to his liking.

"When you make a move at this stage of your career," Odom said, "you do it because everything fits and you know it right away. To me, the key ingredients were a comparable league, a state university that held the same name as the state itself and a very minor geographical move.

"Lastly, it was a school that wanted to establish or re-establish - as the case may be - a consistently competitive and winning basketball program. Once the opportunity was presented to me, it took me a very, very short time to say, 'It's right for me and my family. Let's go for it.'

If he had not been at an ACC school, two openings that would have attracted Odom's interest were at North Carolina State in 1996 and Virginia in 1998. He is particularly well-liked in Charlottesville despite 12 seasons on the opposing bench.

"We'll be really happy to see him," Holland said, "but we preferred that it was in the third round or later."

Unlike Wake Forest, South Carolina has a rabid football following and Odom committed a faux pas Monday when he speculated that the Gamecocks were playing at Virginia in men's basketball because the Cavaliers are going to Columbia, S.C., in football.

Not so, he was reminded. South Carolina will come to Virginia in football next year.

NOT MUST-SEE TV: Virginia coach Pete Gillen didn't bother getting his players together Sunday night to see the 65-team field unveiled for the NCAA men's basketball tournament.

"I knew we were not going to make it," Gillen said yesterday on a teleconference with reporters. "We struggled down the stretch. You've got to earn your way in, and we didn't earn our way in."

And so the Cavaliers, who've lost nine of their past 12 games, accepted an invitation to the National Invitation Tournament. U.Va. (17-11) will play South Carolina (18-14) in the first round tomorrow at 7:30 p.m. at University Hall.

Gillen, a New York City native who's well-versed in the NIT's rich history, said his staff is looking forward to the tournament. "Now we just have to get our kids motivated to play, get them as excited as we are as coaches."

Asked if he expected his players to put aside their disappointment by game time, Gillen said, "I have no sense. When you're in a major conference, everything is the NCAA."

WHAT IF? During CBS' selection show, analyst Billy Packer said, "I'd like to know what would have happened if they had won the Michigan State game on the ice."

He was referring, of course, to the Cavaliers' Nov. 28 game with the Spartans at the Richmond Coliseum. With 15:04 left and Virginia ahead 31-28, that ACC/Big Ten Challenge game was halted because of condensation on the court.

"When the game was canceled, we wanted to [reschedule] it, but Michigan State couldn't squeeze it into their schedule," Gillen said.

At the time, U.Va. was undefeated and seemingly bound for the NCAA tournament. But the Cavs collapsed, while the Spartans steadily improved and earned an at-large berth to the NCAAs.

"If we'd beaten them, our chances [of making the NCAA tourney] would have been better," Gillen said. "Whether that would have been enough, I don't know."

Assuming the Cavaliers had beaten MSU and nothing else had changed, their resume still would have included a 7-10 record against ACC foes and losses in eight of their final 11 regular-season games.

REPORTS DISPROVED: Gillen refuted Internet reports that claimed several U.Va. players were out reveling late Thursday in Charlotte, N.C. The next afternoon, N.C. State crushed Virginia 92-72 in a first-round game.

"We checked them all in personally" at the team hotel, Gillen said. "That's not true."

The players had an 11 p.m. curfew Thursday, Gillen said. "Some of them might have been getting a bite to eat in one of their rooms, but they were all checked in."

LATE PUSH: Robert Armstrong, a 6-3, 275-pound defensive lineman who signed with U.Va. last month, has improved academically and might meet NCAA eligibility requirements this year, said Chad Lewis, his coach at Washington-Lee High in Arlington.

Armstrong had been expected to attend prep school in 2002-03, but "I think, right now, it's leaning more toward college," Lewis said. Armstrong placed sixth in the heavyweight class at last month's Group AAA wrestling tournament.

TALENT SEARCH: Roanoke Catholic junior J.R. Reynolds, who has committed to U.Va., isn't the only guard from Southwest Virginia who interests Gillen and his staff. They're also looking at point guard Darris Nichols, a 6-2 sophomore at Radford High. Nichols averaged 15 points for the Bobcats, who lost to the defending Group A champion Council Cobras in the state quarterfinals Friday.

The 6-3 Reynolds will play for the U.S. team in the Albert Schweitzer International Tournament in Germany during the Easter break. Teams from the United States and Europe made up of players 18 and under will compete in the tournament.

HOMECOMING: The U.Va. men's lacrosse team, coming off a victory over defending national champion Princeton, plays host today to another 2001 Final Four participant: Notre Dame. The fourth-ranked Cavaliers (2-1) meet the No. 19 Fighting Irish (1-2) at 4 p.m.

Notre Dame's coach is Kevin Corrigan, a U.Va. graduate and former head coach at Randolph-Macon College.

U.Va.'s Joe Yevoli, a first-year attackman from Long Island, N.Y., already has more goals (11) than the team's top freshman scorer, Justin Mullen, had last season (eight). Yevoli, whose father was an All-America attackman at North Carolina, is the first Virginia freshman since at least 1987 to score three or more goals in three straight games.

Yevoli ranks third nationally with 3.67 goals per game. - Jeff White

Will Virginia be up for NIT game with South Carolina?
By Steve Argeris
The News & Advance