Gillen is out at UVa
Virginia AD Littlepage to make announcement today
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 14, 2005

Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepage will officially announce today (Monday) that Pete Gillen will not be retained as the Cavaliers’ men’s basketball coach.

A source close to Gillen confirmed to The Daily Progress on Sunday that Gillen’s seven-year era at Virginia is over. The personable, 57-year-old coach has been under fire for the past two seasons after his teams faltered in Atlantic Coast Conference play.

He will leave the Cavaliers with an overall record of 118 wins and 93 losses (.560) and an overall head coaching mark of 392-221 (.640) in 20 seasons that span tenures at Xavier, Providence and UVa. Gillen bowed out this season with a 14-15 record, including a 4-12 mark and a last-place finish in the ACC.

The Cavaliers did manage to win only their second ACC Tournament game in seven seasons under the Brooklyn, N.Y., native this past week when 11th-seeded Virginia upset

No. 6 seed Miami in the opening round of the event. UVa fell in the quarterfinal round to eventual champion Duke.

In recent meetings with media, Gillen refused to discuss his future with the program. In a press conference last Monday at University Hall, the coach instructed the school’s media relations director that he would accept questions only about basketball and not his coaching fate.

After Friday night’s loss to Duke, Gillen again declined to discuss the future, which included six years remaining on his contract. The school is expected to make a negotiated buyout of that deal for approximately $2 million.

“I don’t want to talk about that ... it will be addressed next week,” said the embattled coach, after Friday’s loss to Duke. “I’ll just say this ... Virginia deserves better than 14-15. I’ll take the blame for that, not the players.”

Gillen had a brush with losing his job last season when the Cavs finished 18-13. His team made a late season run in conference play, aided by a series of last-minute winning baskets by senior guard Todd Billett. That team went on to win its first ACC Tournament game under Gillen (defeating Clemson in the “play-in” game), then advanced to the second round of the National Invitation Tournament before losing at Villanova.

Littlepage conducted a series of meetings with Gillen during and after the season before announcing during the Final Four weekend that the coach would be retained. However, it was during those meetings that Gillen convinced the athletic director that this year’s Virginia team would be good enough to compete for the upper echelon of the ACC and for a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

It appeared the Cavaliers might just do that after getting off to an 8-1 start and a top 25 ranking, including a lopsided triumph over then 10th-ranked Arizona in late November. But the Wahoos faltered in ACC play.

The team received a blow when senior starting forward Jason Clark was declared academically ineligible in early January. Virginia was also affected by losing senior small forward Devin Smith to injury for a series of games as well as freshman Adrian Joseph.

Littlepage spent the weekend in Indianapolis where he was a member of the NCAA Division I Men’s NCAA Tournament selection committee and was scheduled to return to Charlottesville on Sunday night.

Among the burrs in Gillen’s saddle during his seven-year tenure at Virginia were an anemic road record in ACC play and a poor postseason record.

The Cavaliers were 2-7 in ACC Tournament action, 2-4 in NIT play and lost their only NCAA Tournament game under Gillen. The Cavs lost to Gonzaga in the opening round of the 2000-01 NCAA Tournament, Virginia’s only 20-win campaign under Gillen.

UVa won only 11 of 56 road games in conference play during that seven-year span, including back-to-back 1-7 ACC road records the past two seasons.

Gillen arrived in Charlottesville prior to the 1998-99 season and inherited a program that had fallen upon hard times. He had only seven scholarship players on the roster, but was an instant hit with Cavalier fans with his quick wit and energetic coaching style that was reflected in his up-tempo “chuck-and-duck” basketball.

Virginia managed to nearly break even that season, finishing 14-16 and winning the hearts of ACC fans for the team’s spirited play.

In only his second season, Gillen led the Cavaliers to a 19-12 record and the NIT, boosted by an impressive recruiting effort that included New York point guard Majestic Mapp, Oak Hill Academy center Travis Watson and shooting guard Roger Mason Jr., out of the Washington D.C., suburbs.

The highlight of Gillen’s seven seasons came in his third year when the Cavaliers went 20-9 and suffered a heart-breaking loss in the final minute to Gonzaga. Mason took an early exit to the NBA after the season.

Following the season, Virginia fans were highly optimistic about the program’s future and couldn’t conceive such a downturn. As a reward for Gillen’s earlier than expected fast start, Virginia enthusiastically negotiated a 10-year contract for the coach that would average out to approximately $900,000 a year over the course of the deal.

Things were never quite the same as UVa went 17-12, 16-16 and 18-13 the next three seasons, making it only to the NIT those three seasons prior to this year’s 14-15 mark.

Cavaliers' Leachman nets 7 goals in victory
By Jerry Miller / Daily Progress staff writer
March 14, 2005

With winless Richmond coming to Charlottesville on Sunday afternoon, the No. 1 Virginia women’s lacrosse team was set to play its fourth game in nine days.

Cavalier coach Julie Myers said she could see the heavy mileage, much of it in bitter conditions, was taking its toll on the team.

“The mental and physical fatigue was creeping in,” Myers said.

And though the Cavs did show signs of weariness, the Spiders failed to, or just plain couldn’t, match Virginia’s offensive firepower or steadily penetrate its guarded cage.

Tyler Leachman notched a game-high seven goals while the UVa defense stayed steady in earning an 11-5 home victory over Richmond at Klockner Stadium.

The win improves Virginia’s record to 3-1 on the season - last Friday Penn State topped the Cavs 10-7 in Charlottesville. The Spiders, who have lost 21 consecutive games to UVa, fall to 0-3 on the year.

“Their legs and lungs weren’t prepared for four games in nine days,” said Myers, who indicated the team needed to improve both in decision making and in collecting ground balls.

Although the Cavs held a 19-15 turnover advantage and a 25-19 edge in groundballs, their play grew sloppy in the second half, allowing the Spiders to whittle the Virginia lead from 7-2 down to 7-5 with just less than 10 minutes left in the contest.

After Richmond’s Caroline McGuire scored her fourth of a team-high five goals to inch the score to 7-5, the Spiders looked to build momentum and intensity - pounding their sticks to the turf in Wojo-like fashion.

Kim Connors had enough of the rumble.

The UVa middie won the ensuing draw, weaved through the Richmond defense as if she was Bob Barker’s Plinko disc and then rifled a goal by Jackie Swansburg (28 shots, 12 saves), just 15 seconds after the Spiders closed the gap, devastating any comeback hopes.

“Kim’s goal woke us up,” said Leachman, whose team followed the Connors goal with a 3-0 run to close the game at 11-5.

“[Kim] got a clean draw control,” Myers said. “For her to go down through the entire Richmond defense, it just shut them down.”

Reigning National Player of the Year Amy Appelt added a game-high three assists, with each pass earmarked for Leachman.

“Amy and Tyler love playing with each other,” Myers said. “They have a great sense where the other person is before the pass is thrown. The two of them together are pretty deadly.”

Along with her key score, Connors also had an assist while Nikki Lied, Cary Chasney and Megan O’Malley each scored one goal, respectively.

“Day after day, we [the offense and the defense] push each other in practice,” Leachman said. “We push each other to do well.”

Ginger Miles, in her first season in goal for UVa, had eight saves on 20 UR shots.

The Hyattsville, Maryland, native was instrumental in keeping the lead when play got slopping in the second half.

“Ginger’s played four great games for us. It’s fun to have her emerge on the scene,” said Myers, whose team travels to North Carolina on Saturday. “It’s nice to know she can find the ball on some of those point blank shots.”

Postseason won't include the Cavaliers
By Andy Bitter / Lynchburg News & Advance
March 14, 2005

Never did the University of Virginia men’s basketball team envision its season ending now, before the madness of March reaches its apex and without so much as even an NIT game in its near future.

Yet here the Cavaliers sit, idle until the fall, outsiders to the postseason world with their coach expected to be fired as early as today.

“I thought we were going to make the (NCAA) Tournament,” freshman point guard Sean Singletary said. “The way we were playing. I didn’t think we’d end up like this at the bottom of the ACC.”

Where did it go wrong? How did a season that started with a promising 8-1 start, an early ranking in the national polls and a behind-the-woodshed beating of Pac-10 heavyweight Arizona dissolve into a 14-15 overall record and 4-12 mark in the ACC, the Cavaliers’ worst finish since 1998-99?

The answers aren’t all too clear.

Sure, there was the academic casualty of 6-foot-8, 240-pound senior co-captain Jason Clark, the defensive-minded, reluctant-to-shoot yin to Elton Brown’s sieve-like, ball-craving yang in the post. The argument could be made that the Cavaliers were never the same defensively without Clark.

But to hear Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski’s assertion after his Blue Devils ended the Cavaliers’ season that Virginia would have been a 20-win team with Clark raises some eyebrows. UVa had lost its first four ACC games and was already sliding downhill before Clark was declared ineligible by the school.

Others point to injuries. Devin Smith, another co-captain, severely sprained his ankle in December, freshman reserve Adrian Joseph missed six games with a quad injury and sophomore Donte Minter never emerged as a viable minute-eater thanks to a knee injury sustained in the offseason.

But Smith’s injury only forced him to miss the first two conference games, Joseph rarely saw significant minutes and it is questionable whether Minter would have made an impact had he been healthy.

The biggest explanation for UVa’s struggles might just be inexperience. Brown and Smith were the team’s only two upperclassmen of significance and Brown’s playing time dwindled as the season progressed.

It’s telling that the Cavaliers’ most vocal leader both on and off the court was Singletary, a freshman. When the Cavaliers were playing well, it was behind his play and a host of other underclassmen, including sophomores T.J. Bannister, J.R. Reynolds, Gary Forbes and Jason Cain.

The result was intermittent bursts of competitiveness between large stretches of inconsistency, a trait that can be chalked up to Virginia’s youth more than it can suspensions, injuries or a lack of depth.

Ultimately, head coach Pete Gillen will take the fall for Virginia’s underachieving 2004-05 squad. Gillen’s future was mapped out from the start of the season when he said the Cavaliers’ proper place was in the NCAA Tournament, a stance athletic director Craig Littlepage reiterated and an expectation that will ultimately cost Gillen his job.

Gillen’s job status weighed on the team throughout the season.

“You can’t avoid it. You try not to focus on it as much,” Reynolds said. “I’m pretty sure it may have taken a toll on him. It’s hard with guys breathing down your neck, trying to get you to win all the time. … It’s hard for a coach to stay focused and try to worry about his job at the same time.”

Now, it appears Gillen’s seven-year run is over. Whoever replaces Gillen will have some maturing talent and a solid core with which to work.

Both Singletary and Reynolds said they were committed to Virginia even if Gillen is fired. In UVa’s season finale against Duke, the starting lineup consisted of two freshmen, two sophomores and just one senior, and the Cavaliers’ roster next year will not have a senior on scholarship.

While it seems most Virginia fans think the team will be better without Gillen, Singletary isn’t of the same opinion.

“I think he’s bringing in good players (and) the assistant coaches are recruiting well,” he said. “I think things are on the up and up. I think if we get rid of him, things are going to be tough.”