Gillen's job might be on the line
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 11, 2004

GREENSBORO, N.C.
When Pete Gillen steps onto the court tonight, he could be fighting for his coaching life. Whispers have evolved into newsprint, which strongly hint if Gillen’s Virginia team loses against bottom-seeded Clemson in this evening’s ACC tournament opener, that his future in Charlottesville is doomed.
The Wahoo Nation is a divided camp on Gillen’s fate. More importantly, the movers and shakers who decide such matters, linger over Gillen’s head as if they were Grim Reapers awaiting the last puff of breath from a cold corpse.

Silence from the top
For weeks now, Virginia’s coach for the past six seasons has been twisting in the wind with no word from upstairs. No vote of confidence, no indication that a pink slip is waiting.
After Wednesday night’s practice at the Greensboro Coliseum, site of tonight’s “play-in” game, Gillen was poised and upfront about his situation. He didn’t make excuses, he didn’t dodge the issue.
Normally a guy who perspires heavily during games, he couldn’t have broken a sweat in the chilly arena. If he was sweating the future, it wasn’t showing.
Asked point blank if he knew his future, Gillen didn’t blink.
“I have no idea,” the fast-talking New Yorker said. “You’d have to ask Mr. Littlepage. They can fire me tonight [as I am] walking out of the arena.”
He was referring to Virginia’s director of athletics, Craig Littlepage, who said a couple of weeks ago that his evaluation of his men’s basketball coach is an ongoing proposition. Obviously, Littlepage has declined to comment directly on Gillen’s status, although a printed report in the Richmond Times-Dispatch stated that UVa officials concluded in February that a change was needed and have not backed off that notion.
While supporters believed Gillen coached himself off the hot seat by winning four of his last six games, including upsets over teams ranked No. 11, 12 and 15 in the nation, critics claim the Cavaliers were lucky to win with 3-point baskets in the waning moments.

Littlepage’s decision
Littlepage said publicly that his decision will not be determined by a rash of wins or losses. All the while, Gillen is taking it one day at a time.
“There’s a lot of pressure ... I’d be lying if I didn’t say that,” Gillen said. “It’s been a tough year but I can’t worry about negatives. I’m in the arena, my face is marred with dust and sweat and blood.”
The last quote came from a Teddy Roosevelt speech but it displayed the doggedness of Gillen’s task in attempting to take the ACC’s youngest team to a higher level.
Gillen didn’t want to comment on the silence from UVa’s administration.
“That’s their right,” he said. “I’m giving my best effort. They have the right to do what they want. I don’t want to say it bothers me.”
Still, he admitted as much that he would like an answer, but he’s not about to barge into Littlepage’s office and demand one.
“I talk to Craig in bi-weekly meetings as he evaluates the situation, but it’s not my personality, not my style to come in and bang on the table,” Gillen said. “Craig’s been there and I don’t think his decision will be made off the cuff.”
Throughout his post-practice chat, Gillen kept talking about his young team getting better and about the recruits coming into the program next year.
“I feel good about the program’s future. I don’t know if I’ll be part of it,” Gillen said.
While Virginia law prevents media from probing into details of coaching contracts outside of compensation, there has been much speculation about whether there is a buyout clause in Gillen’s deal or if it’s all guaranteed money. Only the coach can reveal that information and this coach declined.
“We have a lot of years on the contract ... that’s all I want to say,” Gillen remarked.
Several Virginia players commented after practice that they hope Gillen is back next year, that they believe he deserves a chance to come back and that they are playing for more than just a chance to break a nine-year jinx in ACC tournament play. They’re playing for Pete, too.
Gillen was warmed by the notion but he prefers they play for themselves, their families and the fans.
Win tonight, and the Cavaliers will face Duke at high noon on Friday. Lose, and who knows. Could it be the biggest game of Gillen’s 29-year career?
“I don’t want to say it’s the biggest of my career, but it’s a very big game,” Gillen said. “Lose and there’s more mud they can throw at you ... more negatives.”
Dust and sweat and blood. What’s a little mud going to hurt?
 

Cavs try to rebound from loss to Terps
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
March 11, 2004

GREENSBORO, N.C. - For more than half a game, Virginia looked bound for the NCAA tournament. It entered the game having won four of its last five and then held an 11-point second-half lead over Maryland at Maryland.

All the momentum seemed to be going in the Cavaliers direction.

Just like that, however, it was gone.

Maryland erased the deficit en route to a 70-61 victory and now it’s the Terrapins that have nearly secured a NCAA tournament spot, leaving the Cavaliers on the outside looking in. Not only possibly bounced out of the NCAAs, the Cavaliers were bounced into the ACC play-in game, a not so desirable spot.

Add in the constant rumors surrounding their coach’s future and it would be easy to think that the Cavs are fragile emotionally at the moment. They claim they aren’t

“We have to turn the page. After that game, it’s over with. We have to now just come out and prepare for Clemson. Now this is the most important game because it’s the next one,” said junior forward Devin Smith after the team’s shoot-around in an empty and frigid Greensboro Coliseum.

Added junior Elton Brown: “The whole team is aware that we have to keep playing. The NCAAs are still a possibility. We have to keep playing and it all starts with Clemson and that’s our focus.”

Virginia coach Pete Gillen, always one to be part psychologist and part coach, thinks that those words aren’t hollow.

“I think they are fine. They are a lot more resilient than I am. I think the kids are going to play hard. I can’t predict if they are going to play well. I think they are excited to play,” Gillen said.

Unlike Virginia, Clemson has known for a while that it would be in today’s game. The Tigers finished 10-17 overall and 3-13 in the ACC. The Tigers apparently were happy to see the Cavaliers in the play-in contest considering how the last meeting between the two ended.

On Feb. 21, Todd Billet hit a 3-pointer with 16 seconds remaining that lifted UVa to a 58-55 victory at Littlejohn Coliseum. The Tigers felt they let that game slip away and wanted another chance at the Cavaliers, who also won the earlier meeting in Charlottesville.

“I was watching the UVa-Maryland game the other day and was pulling for Maryland,” said Clemson forward Olu Babalola.

While momentum and emotion might be the issue, there is always that other issue involving Virginia and ACC tournament play.

The Cavaliers have lost eight straight ACC tournament games and haven’t won one since defeating Georgia Tech in an ACC quarterfinal contest here in 1995.

This will be Virginia’s first and last appearance in the play-in contest given the ACC’s new additions of Miami and Virginia Tech next season.

“There is pressure. We’d like to get off the slide of not winning an ACC tournament game. We’re disappointed with that and it’s frustrating. We just have to play better,” Gillen said.
 

Reynolds follows the right path
A crushing blow makes J.R. Reynolds set aside his football aspirations for basketball.
By Doug Doughty
doug.doughty@roanoke.com

CHARLOTTESVILLE - J.R. Reynolds, never one to gush over himself or his basketball accomplishments, becomes unusually animated at the mention of his short-lived football career.

Reynolds was a strong-armed quarterback of some promise who played sandlot football with eventual Northside High School star Justin London, now a starting linebacker for UCLA.

"I remember the last game he played," said Dick Wall, Reynolds' varsity basketball coach for four seasons at Roanoke Catholic. "He was in the eighth grade. [Catholic assistant] Delmar Irving and I had been at a coaching clinic in North Carolina. We pulled up to Victory Stadium and they were playing Fuqua, I think.

"We weren't very good and they were pretty good. J.R. was the quarterback and he really got flattened. They took him to the hospital and checked him out, knew he hadn't damaged this or that. I told him, 'You were really lucky not to be injured.'"

Reynolds had such a good arm that he could throw a football 50 yards by the time he was in the seventh grade.

"He'd have been a tremendous quarterback," Irving said, "but there are times when you do not have to say anything. He was like, 'Once I get up and get out of here, it's over.' To see his face, he had a look that said, 'I can't do this any longer. I'm not going to do this any longer.'"

That winter, Reynolds moved up to the Catholic varsity basketball team, and it's been strictly basketball ever since, not that Reynolds hadn't been on the fast track before that point.

"Actually, he played on the junior varsity in the seventh grade, no, maybe the sixth grade," Wall said. "I remember because the principal called me in and she said, 'Do you have a sixth-grader playing on the JV basketball team. I said 'Yes' and she said, 'I've been to some games and I haven't noticed that.'

"I told her, 'You wouldn't notice that. You'd only notice if he were playing with the sixth-graders on Saturday morning.'"

Reynolds is starting to get noticed now, as evidenced by the announcement that he had made the ACC's all-freshman team, but his arrival at the University of Virginia this fall was not accompanied by a massive buildup.

When the ACC Sports Journal did its final ranking of the 2003-04 recruiting classes, Reynolds was 95th in the country and 13th among ACC freshmen. Ahead of him were the likes of Jeremy Ingram (Wake Forest), Reyshawn Terry (North Carolina) and two of Reynolds' UVa teammates, Gary Forbes and Donte Minter.

Ingram made one 3-pointer in ACC play this year and Terry didn't have a single point. Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 1/2 guard, averaged 8.4 points per game. That increased to 9.3 in ACC games, which was a higher scoring average than teammate Todd Billet in ACC games.

Florida State freshman Von Wafer was a 2003-04 McDonald's All-American who was ranked among the top 15 prospects in the country by USA Today. Reynolds, who didn't make a single All-America team, has better numbers than Wafer in virtually every statistical category.

It's not close between Reynolds and another shooting guard, Maryland's Mike Jones, who made the McDonald's and Parade teams.

"It motivates me a lot to hear people underrate me," Reynolds said. "I keep that running through the back of my head, but my goal coming in here wasn't to make the all-rookie team. I was just focusing on trying to get the program to win."

In five years of high school, Reynolds played on teams that were 120-37, an average of 24 wins per season. After playing on Roanoke Catholic teams that won a state championship of some description (Catholic or independent schools) in three straight seasons, Reynolds spent his senior year at Oak Hill Academy, which was 31-4.

It's a rare incoming college player who has the experience of 157 varsity games, much less at the highest levels. Little more than a year ago, Reynolds was playing on ESPN against the No.1 pick in the NBA Draft, LeBron James.

UVa coach Pete Gillen credits the instruction from Wall, Irving and Oak Hill's Steve Smith for turning Reynolds into one of the most fundamentally sound players to enter the UVa program.

"You wouldn't expect this," Gillen said, "but he's probably our best screener."

If there's any doubt that Reynolds is UVa's best perimeter defender, consider the players against whom he was matched during a recent six-game stretch: Duke's J.J. Redick, Florida State's Tim Pickett, North Carolina's Rashad McCants and Wake Forest's Justin Gray.

Those are four of the top five scorers in the ACC, but Reynolds held McCants and Pickett under double figures.

"I knew they wanted me to play McCants because I had done well against Pickett," Reynolds said. "I like challenges. It wasn't a big deal to me. Coach Delmar doesn't think I can play defense because I wasn't known for my defense in high school. It was a way to separate myself from other people."

Reynolds speaks regularly with Irving, who coached a Roanoke Jaguars rec team that included Redick and Reynolds' future Catholic teammates, Philip Wall (Dick Wall's son) and Matt Nowlin. His mother, Laverne Alexander, and father, Warren Reynolds, live in Roanoke and J.R. said he is close to both sides of his family.

"His mother is a very important part of his life," Irving said. "He gets a lot of support. As a coach, I became someone who didn't care if I hurt his feelings. A player has people around him who want to tell him how good he is. I tell him what he needs to do to be better."

With Reynolds, that sometimes becomes a stretch.
 

Somebody has to win play-in game
Clemson and Virginia battle to break their respective ACC tourney losing streaks.
By Doug Doughty
doug.doughty@roanoke.com
981-3129

In the midst of his preparation for his first ACC men's basketball tournament as a head coach, Clemson's Oliver Purnell has been hearing from the media about the Tigers' inability to get past the tournament's play-in game for the past two seasons.

If Purnell wants to hear about real futility, he should talk to his counterpart tonight at the Greensboro Coliseum, sixth-year Virginia coach Pete Gillen.

Gillen has never won an ACC Tournament game and the Cavaliers, as a program, have lost eight in a row.

"You'd like to get that hurdle off your back," said Gillen, an English major providing a textbook case of a mixed metaphor. "There is pressure. You've just got to deal with it. We've opened up with Duke a couple of times - they've won the tournament five times in a row - so it's difficult."

Instead of playing Duke in their first game, the Cavaliers (16-11, 6-10 ACC) will play Clemson (10-17, 3-13) for the right to play the Blue Devils.

The winner of tonight's 7 p.m. game will face top-seeded Duke (25-4, 13-3) at noon Friday.

"Whoever wins our game has a monster challenge," Gillen said. "You get a half hour's sleep, you change your underwear and, bang, you get back on the bus and you're ready to go."

Virginia finished in a seventh-place tie with Florida State (18-12, 6-10), but the Cavaliers and Seminoles split their regular-season series. After that, ties are broken by records against the top teams in the conference and those were all splits until the teams got down to sixth-place Maryland.

UVa lost both of its games with the Terrapins, but the Seminoles defeated Maryland in Tallahassee, Fla.

The Cavaliers beat Clemson twice, but never comfortably. In Charlottesville, the game was tied with less than 5 1/2 minutes remaining before UVa prevailed 61-50, and the Tigers had a 28-20 halftime lead before the second of three Todd Billet game-winners lifted the Cavaliers to a 58-55 victory at Clemson.

When he was watching Sunday night's game between Virginia and Maryland, Purnell said, it occurred to him that the Tigers "match up pretty well with Virginia," he said.

Most teams do.

For the first time since the ACC started picking three All-ACC teams in 1990, the Cavaliers didn't have a single player selected, although Purnell says that junior center Elton Brown "is as good an inside presence offensively as there is in the league."

Gillen makes no secret of his opinion that junior Devin Smith is the Cavaliers' best player, but Smith has been plagued by a herniated disk for most of the season and did not play in the second Clemson game, one of two games he has missed.

"He hasn't practiced for a second," Gillen said. "He hasn't done anything full-court. He hasn't done anything half-court. He hasn't even walked through stuff. In 29 years, I've never seen anything like it. Hopefully, he'll be able to play."

The outcome of tonight's game may be a factor in Gillen's return for a seventh season, but Purnell has no such pressure.

"Every year, three or four teams come out of the pack that people label 'Cinderella,'" Purnell said. "I know from personal experience that it can happen, so why not us?"

 

For Cavs, success in ACC tourney is distant memory
By BRYAN STRICKLAND : The Herald-Sun
bstrickland@heraldsun.com
Mar 10, 2004 : 11:47 pm ET

At the time, it seemed like any other ACC Tournament game.

But looking back, it is unlike any ACC Tournament game involving Virginia in nearly a decade.

On March 10, 1995, after the Cavaliers tied three other teams for the ACC's regular-season title, Virginia scored a seemingly routine 10-point victory over Georgia Tech in the quarterfinal round of the ACC Tournament.

Believe it or not, that's the last time Virginia won an ACC Tournament game.

"We're frustrated that we're not doing a better job in the ACC Tournament," said Virginia coach Pete Gillen, whose Cavaliers will try to reverse the troubling trend -- and keep their NCAA Tournament hopes afloat -- when they take on Clemson in tonight's play-in game. "There is pressure. You'd like to get that hurdle off your back."

If the Cavaliers can't shake the streak, they can forget about making the NCAA Tournament field. At 16-11, 6-10 in the ACC, the Cavs have hope if they beat Clemson tonight and then find a way to knock off top-seeded Duke in Friday's quarterfinals.

But given the Cavs' recent track record, looking ahead isn't an option.

Clemson also is aiming to keep its season alive, though the Tigers won't continue beyond the Greensboro Coliseum unless they shock the world and win the ACC Tournament for the first time in school history.

The Tigers (10-17, 3-13) fell twice to Virginia in a pair of low-scoring games in the regular season but have been preparing for the ACC Tournament since their last game nine days ago.

"This is our opportunity to make a name for ourselves, to make a statement, to create some magic for our season. This is our opportunity," Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. "The teams in this league can kind of smell it -- can smell the end, can smell the tournament coming up and can smell positioning, can smell the NCAA Tournament and all of those things.

"The bottom line is that what we have to smell is that we're in the granddaddy of them all in terms of conference tournaments."

Actually, the play-in game is viewed by some as the ugly step-sister of the main event, and the Tigers have plenty of experience with it. Though the game has unofficially been dubbed the "Les Robinson Invitational" for N.C. State's four straight appearances with Robinson as coach from 1993-96, Clemson is making its sixth appearance -- its fourth straight -- in the game. N.C. State did give a glimmer of hope to play-in teams in 1997, when Herb Sendek's first team went from play-in game participant to tournament runner-up. Otherwise, the Thursday night winner is 0-8 in the quarterfinal round.

Perhaps the play-in game is just what Virginia needs to end its slide. The Cavaliers never have appeared in the game before, coming the closest in 1999, one of the two seasons that the ACC experimented with two first-round games.

That year, against top-seeded Duke, the Cavaliers fell 104-67. But this time, against the bottom-seeded Tigers, Virginia is the favorite.

"It's going to be a tough ballgame for us," Purnell said. "Virginia has beaten us twice in two close ballgames.

"It just seems like they've come up with the big plays to make the difference."

 

Tigers will showcase new starting five
By JON SOLOMON
Staff Writer

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Clemson will unveil a new starting lineup tonight that has not been used this season.

The Tigers will open with Vernon Hamilton and Shawan Robinson in the backcourt, Akin Akingbala and Olu Babalola at forwards and Sharrod Ford at center. Hamilton replaces Chey Christie, and Akingbala replaces Chris Hobbs.

“It’s going to be a 15-round fight, and maybe that can get us started a little better,” coach Oliver Purnell said Wednesday. “Against Virginia the last time, we didn’t start well in either half. Obviously if we had started well either one of those halves, maybe it would have been different.”

Hamilton started the first 16 games, but is making his first start since committing nine turnovers at Virginia on Jan. 20. Christie has shot 9-of-31 (29 percent) and committed 13 turnovers during Clemson’s current four-game losing streak.

Akingbala started three consecutive games last month, including one against Virginia when he had 10 points and six rebounds. He had eight rebounds and two blocks in 22 minutes last week at North Carolina.

“I just think those guys have been playing pretty well in practice and in the games. It’s not a real departure for us,” Purnell said. “We’re looking to catch some magic here in the postseason, and maybe that combination will spark us a bit.”

• Pressure on Gillen. Virginia coach Pete Gillen still faces a shaky future entering tonight’s game.

Citing unidentified sources, the Richmond-Times Dispatch reported Wednesday that Virginia officials decided last month to remove Gillen and have not changed their stance yet. The newspaper said Gillen would be dismissed if he does not defeat Clemson.

Gillen said Wednesday that he does not know what his future holds. He reportedly makes about $900,000 a year, and his contract runs through 2011.

“There’s a lot of pressure,” he said. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say that.”

• Short turnaround. Count Purnell as an opponent of the short turnaround for ACC Tournament play-in teams — sort of.

The Clemson-Virginia winner tonight plays 15 hours later against No. 1 seed Duke at noon Friday.

“It probably would be fairer if it were a little later, there’s no question about that,” Purnell said. “But you should reward the top-seeded team. ... I’m not going to gripe too much about that until we get to that spot. Then I’ll be griping.”

• Extra points. Ford had his elbow drained this week but will play today. He was injured in a nasty fall at North Carolina last week. ... Purnell said five-time defending tournament champion Duke has to be the favorite this weekend. “It’s kind of like a Tiger Woods playing in a major,” Purnell said. “He’s a favorite. But nobody’s surprised if he loses a major because there are so many other good golfers.” ... Purnell, who badly wants to participate in Friday’s quarterfinals, has taken up calling the day different names. Some of the nicknames: “Bloody Friday,” “Frightful Friday,” and “Suicide First Round.”
 

Despite their history, Cavaliers are hopeful
NIT berth appears likely, but Virginia players keep their NCAA dream alive
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 11, 2004

Five ACC men's basketball teams are ranked in the latest Associated Press poll, and the 23,000-plus fans who pack the Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum tomorrow will catch all five in action.

"I think every team in the league . . . is really looking forward to Friday," Maryland coach Gary Williams said Monday. "I think that might be one of the greatest days ever at the ACC tournament, just given the quality of the teams involved."

Williams' enthusiasm is understandable. For all the talk about tomorrow's quarterfinal matchups, though, the 51st annual ACC tournament actually begins tonight at 7.

A capacity crowd won't be on hand, but eighth-seeded Virginia (16-11) and No. 9 seed Clemson (10-17) will clash in the tourney's play-in game. The reward for emerging from what ACC officials prefer to call the tournament's "first round" is a noon date with top-seeded Duke (25-4) tomorrow.

The Cavaliers played in the ACC's regular-season finale, losing Sunday night at Maryland. The Tigers haven't played since March 2, when they lost at North Carolina.

"Hopefully our guys should be hungry to play," first-year coach Oliver Purnell said.

Barring a one-in-a-million run to the ACC title - which carries with it an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament - the Tigers' season will end in Greensboro, because they won't have the .500 record required for NIT eligibility. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, are likely headed to the NIT for the third straight season, but they haven't stopped dreaming.

"The season's not over," junior center Elton Brown said Sunday night. "Everybody on the team still has faith that we can go to the [NCAA] tournament."

The Cavs won four of their final six regular-season games, and should they oust Clemson tonight and then stun Duke tomorrow, the NCAA selection committee would take note. Anything's possible, of course, but history doesn't favor Pete Gillen's club in this tourney.

Since beating Georgia Tech 77-67 in a first-round game in 1995, U.Va. has dropped nine consecutive games in the ACC tournament, the last five under Gillen. Still, Gillen doesn't believe the losing streak weighs heavily on his players.

"I'm sure they've heard about it and read about it," he said, "but I don't think it's going to bother them too much. They just go play. But there's some [pressure] on [the coaching staff], to be honest. We're frustrated that we're not doing a better job in the ACC tournament."

Tourney newcomers could play key roles tonight. U.Va. starts two freshmen - guards J.R. Reynolds and T.J. Bannister - and a third, swingman Gary Forbes, averages 24.4 minutes. Vernon Hamilton, a 2003 graduate of Richmond's Benedictine High, has started 16 games at point guard for Clemson. He averages 6.9 points, 3.7 rebounds, 3 assists and 3 turnovers.

"It's tough to come into a situation where you're not surrounded with players who've experienced winning a great deal," Purnell said. "Consequently, Vernon's had some outstanding games, and he's had some rough ones. I would love nothing better than for him to cap off his freshman season with an outstanding ACC tournament. I think that would kind of be a springboard for him going into next year."

Had the Cavaliers, who swept their regular-season series with Clemson, not melted down in the second half against Maryland, they'd be entering this tournament as the No. 6 seed and the ACC's hottest team. The play-in game isn't where U.Va.'s players wanted - or expected - to be, but they said their disappointment won't linger.

"It's not going to be hard to regroup," Reynolds said Sunday night at Comcast Center. "We're going to learn from our mistakes and go from there."