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Red Storm blows past Cavaliers
Hatten drops 30 points; Virginia finishes at .500
By Andrew Joyner  / Daily Progress staff writer
March 25, 2003
 

JAMAICA, N.Y. — Prior to Monday’s game, Virginia coach Pete Gillen said that St. John’s guard Marcus Hatten possessed skills not seen in the ACC. He was right, but Hatten did something very familiar, at least for UVa opponents: He scored 30 points. Hatten scored a game-high 30, including a go-ahead layup and 3-pointer in the final five minutes, to lead St. John’s to a 73-63 victory over Virginia in a second-round NIT contest at Alumni Hall. Hatten’s performance made him the seventh player this season and fifth in the last nine games to score 30 or more against the Cavaliers. “Hatten was great. He’s the best guard we’ve played this season. … It seemed like he was making shots out there with his eyes closed,” Gillen said. The win improves St. John’s, which will host either Siena or UAB in the tournament quarterfinals Thursday, to 18-13 overall. In the process, the loss ended Virginia’s up-and-down season with a fitting 16-16 mark. “It really was a microcosm of our season. We had the opportunities tonight,” Gillen said. Hatten finished 10 of 20 from the floor and four of eight from behind the arc. Anthony Glover added 12 points — including 10 in the final 3:12 — for the Red Storm, which shot just 39 percent for the game. Devin Smith led Virginia with 19 while Travis Watson, playing in his final game in a UVa uniform, had 15 points and just four rebounds. Junior guard Todd Billet also had 15 as he connected on five of his nine shots from behind the arc. When Gillen referred to the game as a microcosm of his season, his explanation included a segment on turnovers, of which Virginia committed 22 on Monday. “We had 22 turnovers. We can’t beat a good team like St. John’s with 22 mistakes,” Gillen said. If the turnovers were a continual problem for the Cavaliers this season, consistent play was as well. Virginia would play stretches of good basketball followed by bad ones and that’s exactly what happened Monday. Virginia led 31-29 at halftime and pushed out to a 45-37 advantage with 16:04 left to play after Billet connected on the last of four treys in four-straight possessions for the Cavaliers. The Red Storm rallied to cut it to 46-44 but back-to-back treys by Billet pushed the lead to 52-46. That’s when the other Virginia team reappeared. With a chance to increase that lead to eight, Watson traveled on a fast break and then picked up a charge on another open-court situation. “We were up six and have a breakaway and Travis gets a walking call. The next time down, we’re also up six and we get a charge. … Those broke our hearts and the air went out of our balloons,” Gillen said. Yes it did, figuratively and literally. A visibly tired Virginia team managed just two baskets in the next six minutes while also missing four-straight free throws at one point. That allowed the Red Storm to surge to the lead as they sensed the Cavaliers fading. “We’re the smaller team and that’s what the smaller team is supposed to do, win the marathon,” said St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis. Added Billet: “We got stalled on offense. I don’t know if it was fatigue or execution.” The Red Storm went ahead for good on Hatten’s layup with 5:01 left and then he lifted his team to a four-point advantage with a trey 27 seconds later that made it 58-54. The Red Storm then made 13 of its final 14 free throws to seal the victory. Continuing with the microcosm theory, Virginia led 21-8 after the game’s first six and a half minutes as it made seven of its first eight shots from the field. The Cavaliers, however, then went equally cold from the floor. From the 13:32 mark of the first half to the 4:12 mark — a span of nine minutes and 20 seconds — the Cavaliers failed to score a basket from the field and missed 11 straight shots while also committing a handful of turnovers. In that stretch, St. John’s cut Virginia’s lead to 24-22 after a trey by Hatten with 4:33 remaining before intermission. A Billet 3-pointer finally ended Virginia’s drought with 4:12 left and gave UVa a 27-22 advantage but St. John’s regained the momentum in the half’s final second. Hatten hit Grady Reynolds with a perfect alley-oop lob as the buzzer sounded that cut Virginia’s lead to 31-29 at the break. “I never panicked. As long as we weren’t thirty points down, we have a chance to win. We were down 21-8 but came back to cut it to two at halftime. We knew it was a ballgame then,” Hatten said.

 

 

St. John's puts Virginia out of its misery
By Jerry Ratcliffe  / Daily Progress sports editor
March 25, 2003
 

JAMAICA, N.Y. Last night had to be one of the longest plane rides of Pete Gillen’s career after the door slammed shut on Virginia’s 16-16 season. His Cavaliers dropped a 73-63 decision to host St. John’s in the NIT’s second round, finally putting this team out of misery. It won’t be easy to rest in peace after this one. Even Gillen called the loss a microcosm of the entire season. Up 21-8 early in the game, it appeared the Cavs and senior Travis Watson might be in for a big night. Watson was unstoppable early, scoring nine points in the first four minutes. Invisible Man But just like in many of UVa’s losses this season, things began to unravel and the Cavaliers developed amnesia. Instead of becoming the go-to-guy, Watson might as well have been Claude Raines, the Invisible Man. He scored only seven more points the rest of the game, five free throws and only one field goal — a slam dunk to begin the second half. Meanwhile, after building the 13-point early lead in the game, Virginia missed 11 consecutive shots before point guard Todd Billet made a 3-pointer with 4:12 remaining in the first half. With six turnovers in their final seven possessions of the half, the Cavs somehow managed to lead 31-29. Only a barrage from bonusphere — a half dozen 3-pointers from Billet (3), Devin Smith (2) and Jermaine Harper — kept Virginia ahead as St. John’s kept fighting back. A 30-point performance (the seventh against UVa this season) by Red Storm guard Marcus Hatten kept his team close enough until Virginia imploded in the final five minutes. Once St. John’s went up 55-54 with 5:03 to play, the Storm never relinquished. It wasn’t the way Watson wanted to go out. “I just looked at the stat sheet and it showed I went 4 for 4,” said Watson. “I took four shots for the game? Four touches ... I don’t know. I’m just a player. I do what I’m told.” This was just another strange performance by Virginia. The Cavs held St. John’s to 39 percent shooting for the game and still lost by 10. Consistency One thing didn’t change, UVa’s inability to protect the basketball. A total of 22 turnovers, including a season-high seven by Billet, didn’t help. Neither did the Storm’s quickness. St. John’s was a smaller, quicker team as evidenced by Hatten’s seven steals. Virginia appeared to hit the wall late in the game, even by Gillen’s own admission. The Cavs appeared winded, unresponsive to St. John’s suffocating pressure. “In all fairness to Virginia, that’s what was supposed to happen,” said St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis. “When you’re the smaller team, playing at a good pace in a pretty hot gym, the little people are at an advantage.” Ah, quickness. That’s the rub. Or at least one of them for this Virginia team. Quickness, ballhandling, that is Priority One for Gillen in the offseason as he attempts to raise the level of his program. The beleaguered Virginia coach has already confessed this has been the toughest season of his career, the same thing he said after last season. He hopes he won’t have to say that again next time. “We’re trying to recruit some more guards to help us,” Gillen said after the season-ending game. “We’re going to work with our perimeter guys. We recruited three perimeter guys [J.R. Reynolds, Gary Forbes and T.J. Bannister] to take some of the pressure off. College basketball is a guards game. We need some quickness to take the pressure off — quickness is everything.” Billet, who struggled to handle the dual role of scorer and ballhandler when he played the point, believes things will be different next season. “A lot of guys on this team were playing their first year in the ACC and a lot of guys were playing only their second year in the ACC,” said Billet. “I think that experience will help next year. Also, everyone on the team has to step up individually and make a commitment to get better at their position.” Can I get an amen. Billet said that a lot of teams, particularly in such a finesse league as the ACC, are sometimes putting essentially five guards on the floor (ala Duke) at once. “You need to put three or four people on the floor who can handle the ball to match up,” said Billet. Watson was all slumped in a chair yards away from the court, not really knowing what to make of the final game of his career. “I put in four years and I knew this wasn’t going to last forever,” he said. Asked what he will remember most, he kind of chuckled to himself, almost like he was holding something back before he carefully answered. “I played with a great bunch of guys,” said Watson. “It was a family atmosphere. That’s what I will miss the most.” For most Wahoo fans, they were glad to put this thing to rest. They couldn’t take much more without throwing something through their TVs in anguish. Gillen must certainly be glad it’s over. At least now he can turn full attention to next year’s team and try to straighten out the woes that plagued this team on and off the court all season long. Rest in peace, Virginia. If you can.

 

 

U.Va. bows out at St. John's
By DOUG DOUGHTY, The Virginian-Pilot
© March 25, 2003

JAMAICA, N.Y. — Virginia might have guessed it would be in trouble Monday night if it gave up 30 points to Marcus Hatten or one of his St. John’s teammates.
On six earlier occasions, the Cavaliers had lost games when an opposing player scored 30 points or more, and Hatten became the seventh as the Red Storm rallied for a 73-63 victory in the second round of the National Invitation Tournament.

St. John’s (18-13) trailed by 13 points in the first half and by as many as eight in the second half, but seemed to gain strength as the Cavaliers (16-16) wilted.

“In fairness, that’s what’s supposed to happen when you’re the smaller team,” said St. John’s coach Mike Jarvis after the Red Storm’s sixth victory in the past seven games.

“Smaller people usually win the marathon. The bigger people usually run the shorter events. The game was close, the gym was very hot and it was a pretty good pace and the intensity was pretty good. So, the conditioning’s supposed to go to us.”

Virginia had 22 turnovers, including 14 in the first half, when the Cavaliers were up 21-8 after the first 6 1/2 minutes but stumbled into halftime ahead 31-29.

The Cavaliers seemed refreshed after the break and went on top 42-34 after the third of three consecutive 3-pointers, the last two by sophomore guard Devin Smith.

Virginia made 6 of 8 3-pointers to start the second half, including a bomb by Todd Billet with 11:44 left that put the Cavaliers on top 52-46. U.Va. then stopped St. John’s on three straight possessions, but came away empty.

On the first, Derrick Byars forced a turnover and tipped the ball to a wide-open Watson, who took too many steps on his way to a breakaway dunk. Watson’s second turnover in that span came on an offensive foul.

“Those things break your heart,” Virginia coach Pete Gillen said. “A lot of air went out of our balloon at that point. We did get tired. I don’t know what the reason was. They outrebounded us badly in the second half.”

After outrebounding the Red Storm in the first half 20-14, U.Va. was hammered on the boards in the second half, 24-12.

St. John’s got its first lead of the second half — and its first since scoring the first basket of the game — when Hatten followed his own miss to make it 55-54 with 5:03 left. Moments later, Hatten stretched the difference to four when he was left unguarded and hit a 3-pointer off an in-bounds play.

“I think they were in a match-up zone and I just went to an open spot on the floor,” said Hatten, who scored 21 of his 30 points in the second half. “They left me wide open.”

U.Va. was reduced to fouling down the stretch and the Red Storm made the Cavaliers pay by going 10 for 10 from the line over the final 1:29. St. John’s was 17 of 20 from the line in the second half after going 3 of 7 in the first half.

The Red Storm was notified after the game that it will receive a third consecutive NIT home game against the winner of tonight’s game between Siena and Alabama-Birmingham.

Virginia was relegated to its 13th loss in its last 14 postseason games and dropped to 0-7 all time against St. John’s. No other team has played the Cavaliers more than twice without losing once. Smith led the Cavaliers with 19 points. Watson and Billet had 15 each.

 

 

Virginia runs out of gas
Cavs bow to Storm after taking big lead
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 25, 2003

JAMAICA, N.Y. - For the University of Virginia men's basketball team, a disappointing and frustrating season ended last night at Alumni Hall on the campus of St. John's University.

The Cavaliers, who beat Kentucky in November, fell 73-63 to St. John's in the National Invitation Tournament's second round. U.Va. fin- ished 16-16 after losing for the ninth time in 11 games.

Virginia went ahead less than two minutes in, led by 13 later in the half and didn't relinquish the lead until senior guard Marcus Hatten scored on a follow to put St. John's up 55-54 with 5:02 remaining. But U.Va. seemed to have no energy left in the final 10 minutes, while the smaller, quicker Red Storm grew stronger and stronger.

"Our running up and down the floor wore them out," Hatten said.

Sophomore swingman Devin Smith led U.Va. with 19 points, and senior forward Travis Watson and junior guard Todd Billet added 15 apiece. But the other Cavs combined for only 14 points. Billet made five 3-pointers and Smith hit four.

The Red Storm, which outrebounded the Cavaliers 24-12 in the second half, outscored them 27-11 in the final 9:25. Watson, the ACC's leading rebounder, had four boards, more than six under his average.

"They're a good team, but it was a game we could have won," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said. "We had our opportunities, but it was kind of a microcosm of the season."

Poor free throw shooting - particularly during a crucial stretch of the second half - and sloppy ballhandling again contributed heavily to a Virginia defeat. On a night when St. John's (18-13) made 13 of 14 foul shots in the final four minutes, Virginia shot 65 percent from the line.

More damaging, perhaps, the Wahoos turned over the ball 22 times. The stat sheet showed Billet with a career-worst seven turnovers and Smith with four. Watson and sophomore guard Jermaine Harper had three turnovers apiece.

"You can't beat a good team like St. John's with that many mistakes," Gillen said.

Hatten had seven steals to go with 30 points, six rebounds and four assists - a performance that led Gillen to call him "the best guard we've played against" this season.

St. John's was rewarded with a third straight home game in the NIT. The Red Storm's third-round opponent will be UAB or Siena, which play tonight.

Five times in its final nine games, Virginia allowed an opposing player to score at least 30. But defense wasn't the Cavaliers' downfall in a game in which St. John's shot only 39 percent from the floor. An inability to execute on offense at key times doomed Virginia.

Smith, who'd hit two 3-pointers early in the second half, was fouled with 15:13 remaining while attempting a trey with U.Va. ahead 45-40. He made only 1 of 3 free throws. About four minutes later, after the Cavs went up 52-46 on a Billet trey, they blew several chances to add to their lead.

With 11:23 left, Watson was called for traveling on a breakaway dunk. It was still 52-46 when reserve point guard Majestic Mapp made an ill-advised pass on a fast break to Watson, who slammed into a Red Storm defender and was called for a charge.

"That broke our hearts," Gillen said of the back-to-back errors.

Thirty-five seconds later, Watson missed a pair from the line, and then St. John's went on a 12-2 tear capped by a wide-open Hatten 3-pointer on an inbounds play.

Virginia hit eight of its first 10 shots from the floor and led 21-8 with 13:32 left in the half. Then the Cavaliers' offense suffered a near-total collapse, with turnovers and missed shots coming at a furious pace.

U.Va. scored one point in the next nine minutes - on a free throw by reserve center Nick Vander Laan - and didn't make another field goal until Billet bombed in a 3-pointer with 4:11 remaining in the half.