Gillen staying at Virginia
Coach gets vote of confidence
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
April 2, 2004

Virginia men’s basketball coach Pete Gillen will return next season the school announced in a statement Thursday.

Gillen has seven years remaining on a contract that pays him approximately $900,000 per year but UVa Athletics Director Craig Littlepage had refused to give Gillen a vote of confidence on his return next season until Thursday. Since the Cavaliers’ 18-13 season ended nearly two weeks ago, Littlepage made a full review of the program and Gillen, who has compiled a 104-78 record in six seasons.

“I wanted to express my confidence that coach Gillen is prepared to take the challenges of building our program for the future and over the last couple weeks I’ve been impressed with his responsiveness and thoughts on where we are right now and why we are where we are and what it will take for us to be a championship-level basketball team,” Littlepage said Thursday evening from San Antonio, where he’s attending the Final Four. “Pete has handled these last few weeks in a professional manner and Pete has my support to continue the program’s development.”

Added UVa president John T. Casteen III in a released statement: “I feel confident that under Craig’s guidance and with Pete’s commitment, the UVa men’s basketball program will reach its full potential.”

Gillen has guided Virginia to five straight postseason appearances, including a fourth NIT berth in five years this season. Yet, Gillen has faced near constant criticism over the past two seasons for items ranging from defensive performance, off-the-court incidents by players and even his feverish use of timeouts.

This past season, Gillen’s squad had no major off-the-court issues as his 16-16 team in 2002-03 did but the Cavaliers were just 12-9 in mid February. The Cavaliers, however, finished strong by winning six of their final 10 games, including three victories over top 15 teams. One of those squads - Georgia Tech - will be playing in Saturday’s national semifinals. That stretch also included a win over Clemson in the ACC tournament’s play-in contest. That was Gillen’s first ACC tournament win and the program’s first since 1995.

Sources indicate that it was that end of the season performance that pushed UVa officials toward retaining the 56-year-old Gillen. Had the young squad not finished strong, Gillen’s fate might have been sealed in an opposite direction.

Littlepage did not validate that reasoning completely but did say that the late-season performance certainly showed the program was making the proper strides.

“It was important because it indicated that Pete and the staff continued to work very hard. Nobody threw in the towel. There was a point in early February when many people thought the season was going to be a complete bust. … There are a lot of factors in the development of this team,” said Littlepage, who mentioned the rise of freshman point guard T.J. Bannister and the continued back troubles of junior Devin Smith, arguably the team’s best player. “The fact that the team and coaches continued to work hard, played with spirit and had success certainly had to be a plus as I look at the team and the coach as well.”

Gillen was not available for comment Thursday but did issue a statement in the school’s release.

“Craig and I agree on the direction the program is headed and we’re looking forward to building on the successes we achieved at the end of this season,” Gillen said. “Our goal is to make this a championship-caliber program, and I believe all the pieces are in place to do that. We have terrific student-athletes who will represent the university well. We’re excited about their contribution, and the contributions our three new recruits will make. I can’t wait until the start of next season.”

That recruiting class includes 5-foot-10 Sean Singletary of Philadelphia, rated as one of the top point guard’s in the nation. The Cavaliers lose only one player - Todd Billet - who was a major contributor on this season’s team.

Sources say, however, that Gillen’s return does come with certain conditions. Among those conditions are changes in scheduling philosophy and even possible changes to his coaching staff, sources said. Another source said changes may be made to Gillen’s contract which is guaranteed with no certain buyout clause. Littlepage declined comment Thursday on any specifics regarding the coach’s contract.

“As I have in all previous situations, the topic of contracts is not something I’ll talk about nor will we as a university talk about other than what we provide upon Freedom of Information Act requests. Those deal with compensation primarily,” Littlepage said.

Littlepage did address other changes but spoke in broad terms, not specific ones.

“Any time that you don’t reach your goals as a program, you have to realize what the impediments were. As I had conversations with Pete, I think it came down to Pete understanding that he wants more for the program and we want more for the program. We have to look at what kept us from being where we want to be. Our conversations took us to examining ways to do things differently,” Littlepage said. “Pete would have to speak specifically to changes in X’s and O’s, player development, strength and conditioning and what he feels he needs to do bring us to the level we expect to have at the university. … I have not demanded changes, but we have talked about the type of things he would want to do and that I would be supportive of. I’ve told Pete that he has to be clear and that the changes aren’t just cosmetic.”

Littlepage, a member of the NCAA Division I men’s basketball committee, was a little more specific when it came to scheduling and it seemed as if that was something certainly discussed at length.

Virginia’s out-of-conference slate this past season was ranked as one of the worst in the ACC and it was a likely factor in Virginia being kept out of the NCAA tournament despite that strong finish. Virginia will play at Providence and Iowa State next season and will face a Big-10 opponent away from home as part of the ACC/Big 10 Challenge. The Cavaliers also will face Auburn in the continuation of a series from two seasons ago. That game will be played at a venue in the Commonwealth.

“One of the topics we talked about is scheduling. In a number of different situations, Pete has addressed non-conference scheduling. It’s been a topic asked about in many different forms. … We have a good schedule next year and are working on some other games. Pete and his staff have worked with Jon Oliver [UVa’s senior associate athletic director] to put together an ambitious but balanced non-conference schedule,” Littlepage said. “When I look at it from my experience on the Committee, I think you can help yourself with non-conference scheduling if you are a bubble team and you can hurt yourself with non-conference scheduling if you are a bubble team. Maybe the key is being well beyond being a bubble team but still you want to play a non-conference schedule that will distinguish yourself.”
 

Questions still linger about Gillen
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
April 2, 2004

When Craig Littlepage officially announced Thursday that Pete Gillen would return as Virginia’s basketball coach, it is more of what he didn’t say that peaked the interest of Cavalier fans.

There were a few fine points about Gillen’s return that the UVa Athletics Director danced around courtesy of state law and his own discretion. We may someday learn what happened behind closed doors. Maybe we won’t.

Nevertheless, questions will arise about these issues in the coming days just as they did during Littlepage’s half-hour teleconference from San Antonio with state media.

Certainly we all want to know certain things. Was Gillen’s remaining seven-year contract altered or restructured? Will there be changes among coaching staff personnel? Was there an acceptable number of wins or NCAA tournament requirement agreed upon? Will a more demanding nonconference schedule be emphasized?

Inquiring minds want to know. Littlepage noted that when a program fails to reach its goals, then it must be put under a magnifying glass to determine what impeded the progress.

“I think Pete has to speak to that, whether in terms of style, X’s and O’s, player development, strength and conditioning, along with how he and his staff have to bring us to the championship level,” Littlepage said. “I have not demanded changes, but we have talked about things he would want to do and that I would be supportive of in terms of how to get the program to progress.”

Gillen’s contract

The one issue Littlepage declined to discuss was the contract. Gillen just finished the third year of a 10-year deal that pays him an average of more than $900,000 per year.

State law prohibits revealing any more than the compensation stated in such contracts. Unless Gillen volunteers the information, we will not learn whether the contract was shortened or whether possible renegotiations may have stipulated certain performance demands.

Assistant changes?

What we did discover during Thursday’s conversation was that Littlepage and Gillen did discuss the coaching staff. Gillen has been criticized for assembling what critics have unfairly or fairly described as the weakest overall staff in the ACC.

He was forced to hire at least one assistant after critics attacked the lack of defensive success by previous teams. How comfortable or uncomfortable an arrangement that may be is not known to media.

“Pete and I have talked about personnel, not only in terms of student-athletes and recruiting, but everything from coaching staff to administrative staff,” Littlepage said. “... Pete needs to consider the organization and role of the staff.”

Now, that’s what I call a non-answer, answer. Yes, the topic was discussed. No, we don’t know to what degree. Gillen could tell us today when he conducts a separate teleconference, again from San Antonio, at noon. But don’t hold your breath.

If the staff is reorganized or an assistant is asked to fall on his sword, we probably won’t know until after it happens. It could be that Gillen is satisfied with the current arrangement. Only time will tell.

One thing is certain. In years past, Gillen has had some assistants to rely on who went on to become or are on their way to becoming successful head coaches in their own right: Skip Prosser, Louis Orr, Bobby Gonzalez and Tommy Herrion. Is there another such guy on Gillen’s bench?

That is a question that the athletic director and head coach probably examined at length during their recent series of discussions.

So, as far as we know, Gillen has been retained for the length of the deal, not just for one year. Does that remove the lame duck stigma toward potential recruits and if the process repeats itself, will fans spend every game consumed by the question about Gillen’s future next season?

Littlepage doesn’t believe recruiting will be an issue. If Gillen’s young team underachieves next year, the AD plans to handle things differently.

“I will say on the front end that I won’t answer questions,” Littlepage said.

The last thing he wanted to do this year was offer up the “dreaded vote of confidence,” as Littlepage put it. That could have created a firestorm in the anti-Pete camp with the whole mess blowing up in his face as witnessed at Georgetown. He took his time to settle the issue after gathering all the facts.

In the end, he liked what he saw. He liked the fact that Gillen had taken measures since the end of the 2002-2003 season dealing with deplorable conduct by some members of his team and that the current team’s academic status is solid, one of the school’s main goals.

“I would have to give him very high marks for him taking serious the message that character counts,” Littlepage said.

Make no mistake, though, that the pressure is on Gillen to perform, whether it be in terms of a certain level of wins he must reach.

Littlepage made it clear that Virginia expects the basketball team to annually compete for the ACC championship and participate in the NCAA tournament.

Some outsiders call that a pipe dream, that Virginia has unrealistic expectations. Defenders of that logic simply point to Wake Forest and Georgia Tech and ask, “If they can do it, why can’t we?”

It’s difficult to come up with a good comeback for that one.

Certainly one of the things Virginia can control is its schedule. Littlepage knew it long ago as a coach that teams can either help or hurt themselves in terms of impressing the NCAA tournament selection committee with how they schedule.

The Cavaliers were bypassed a couple of seasons ago because of a weak nonconference schedule filled with creampuffs. However, a quick glance at recent schedules detected a decrease in Cupcake City.

UVa played four or five gimmes this past season, about the same number as the previous two seasons. Prior to that, it was at least six in 1999-2000 and seven the year after, ironically the year the Cavaliers did make it to the dance.

Don’t expect a drastic change in schedule next season because the Hoos already have return dates at NIT semifinalist Iowa State, at Providence, a road or neutral court game in the ACC/Big Ten Shootout, and a return home game from Auburn. Still, playing a couple of teams that aren’t in the bottom 150 of the RPI might help UVa get where it needs to go.
 

Gillen gets a reprieve
VIRGINIA BASKETBALL COACH WILL RETURN FOR 7TH SEASON
BY DAVE JOHNSON
Published April 2, 2004

After weeks of speculation that had come to polarize the basketball program's fan base, University of Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage praised coach Pete Gillen on Thursday as an honest, hard-working man who can lead the Cavaliers to "championship-level results."

Littlepage's public pat on the back came after a season-ending review that Littlepage termed "complete, thorough and comprehensive." Littlepage wouldn't go into much detail about what he and Gillen discussed in three meetings over the past 12 days. Nor would he answer directly when asked what conditions or changes the coach might have agreed to.

"Probably the best way to answer that is to say that any time you don't reach all of your goals, you have to understand what the impediments were," Littlepage said from San Antonio, where he is attending the Final Four.

"As we have had these conversations, I think it's come down to Pete understanding that he wants more for the program and we want more for the program," Littlepage added. "In other words, we need to look at what it was that kept us from being able to get there.

"I have not demanded changes, but we have talked about the types of things he would want to do and that I would be supportive of in terms of how he wants the program to progress. Also, I told Pete he needs to be clear in what it is that he says.

"If, in fact, he's going to make changes, that it's not just cosmetic. I think he feels as though we have the pieces to put things together to be that type of championship team, but he will need to speak to the specifics of that."

Littlepage did suggest that Gillen, who is scheduled to speak with reporters today in a teleconference from San Antonio, will beef up the non-conference schedule. This past season, the Cavaliers ranked 257th out of 326 Division I teams in that category. Littlepage said next season's schedule will include Providence, Iowa State, Auburn and as many as two Big Ten teams.

As for Gillen being asked to make changes in his coaching staff, Littlepage said only that the two discussed all personnel issues, from "student-athletes to coaching staff to administrative staff."

Asked if Gillen's contract, which has seven years remaining at $900,000 annually, had been restructured, Littlepage declined to answer, citing university policy.

Once wildly popular among U.Va. fans, Gillen saw his approval rating slip with unsatisfactory results. Although he has a 104-78 record in six seasons, only one of his teams reached the NCAA tournament. He is 19-29 in the ACC over the last three seasons, and attendance has dropped each year in that span.

But Littlepage credited Gillen with being open to dialogue while his job was being questioned daily in a public forum. And he said the team's strong play down the stretch - Virginia won six of its final 10 games for the first time since 1995 - showed his ability to lead.

"It was important because it indicated that Pete and the staff continued to work very hard, that nobody threw in the towel," Littlepage said. "There was a point in late January, early February, where many probably thought the season was going to be a complete bust. But that the coaches and players continued to work hard certainly had to be a plus."

Nine of Virginia's top 10 scorers this season were underclassmen, including three freshmen who started a combined 45 games. And Gillen's three-man recruiting class from the fall includes what might be the missing ingredient - Sean Singletary, a point guard from Philadelphia who can score and defend.

"We have the ingredients," Littlepage said. "We have a young team, and he's going to continue working hard in recruiting to continue bringing the kinds of players in the program that are going to help make us a championship-caliber program.

"Every year it should be our goal to win the ACC, to be in the NCAA tournament and to have a chance to win a national championship. We should be, from year to year, getting closer as opposed to stepping backward. And I do think we took an incremental step forward this year from the standpoint of the way the team finished the season."
 

Gillen to return for seventh season
Question is, what form will changes take
By Doug Doughty
Exclusive to roanoke.com by 5 p.m. Thursdays

Bad mistake.

I came in the office early Thursday to write something timely about Pete Gillen, and it was timely for all of about 42 minutes.

If you haven’t heard, UVa put out a news release at 12:26 p.m. Thursday in which athletic director Craig Littlepage acknowledged that Gillen would be returning for a seventh year as men’s basketball coach.

The first word I got that Littlepage would retain Gillen came at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. When I talked to Littlepage at approximately 6:50 p.m. Eastern time, he told me from San Antonio, “I don’t have anything to say right now,” which wasn’t exactly a denial.

It wasn’t a confirmation either. At 10:30 p.m., I was told again that Gillen was coming back, this time by a second source whom I trusted as much as the first one. We have a strict policy on using sources here at The Roanoke Times, so, after three conversations with our new sports editor, Michael Stowe, we ran a two-paragraph item with only Littlepage’s quote.

I don’t think that Jeff White had the same sources, but he had the same information and The Richmond Times-Dispatch ran with the story. We’ve debated the issue of sources here this morning and the only thing I can say is, in repeated efforts to get more recognizable sources, I talked to people all night — people in the know, I thought — who had not been informed of the decision.

As readers go, it would take a real newspaper “junkie” to care who broke the story. All that matters is, it’s true. Gillen is coming back and what will really interesting now is the fallout.

What will be the reaction from adminsistrators and boosters who were told two months ago that Gillen was history? Initial indications are that some powerful people are really ticked off.

In his article, White quoted sources as saying there would be changes. The version I was given was, “Visible changes.”

Does that mean staff changes? That would be visible. So, would a schedule upgrade.

Virginia already has road games next year at Providence, Iowa State and an unnamed Big Ten school. The Cavaliers will play Auburn at a site in Virginia, if Auburn doesn’t weasel out of it again. How much tougher do you want the non-conference schedule?

UVa went 11-1 against non-ACC opposition in the regular season this year. I could see the Cavaliers losing two games or more in non-conference regular-season play.

If Virginia goes 9-3 out of conference and 7-9 in the conference, which would be an improvement in ACC play, will we be at the same spot — talking about Gillen’s status — against next March?

One of my sources told me that there might be changes in Gillen’s contract, which would make sense.

I’ve wondered for some time, if given the chance of not returning for a seventh year or having a buyout added to his contract, whether Gillen might not take the latter.

No lawyer would leave $4 or $5 million on the table, but I talked to somebody Wednesday night who had seen Gillen’s agent, Dennis Coleman, at the coaches’ convention in San Antonio, Texas.

When asked about the possibility of Gillen’s return, Coleman is reported to have said, “We’re working on it.”

If Gillen wanted to return so badly that he risked at least part of a potential $6.3-million payout, that would say something for his devotion to the job and to the school.

So, maybe the contract has been tweaked. Maybe the schedule has been upgraded. What happens with the staff?

I think it would help if Gillen paid more attention to the assistants he has now, particularly two-year aide Ron Jensen, once the head coach at Boise State.

Imagine the following scenario:

Gillen: “Hey, Rod, I’m thinking of calling a timeout.”

Jensen: “Pete, we’re ahead 7-6, there’s 16:08 left in the first half. You’re going to get a TV timeout with the next dead ball. Why don’t you wait? Besides, we might be inbounding the ball with four seconds left in the game and need a timeout to avoid a five-second call.”

I received an e-mail the other day from somebody who said Gillen doesn’t “understand” basketball. I don’t think that’s the case at all. Do a Google search and you’ll see that Gillen has written manuals on the subject. For $39.95, you can order a “Gillen 2-Pack” on “How to Beat the Match-up Zone.”

There was nothing available on “the Science of Calling Timeouts.”

Frankly, I think he gets nervous (I’ve experienced the same symptoms for years on the golf course) and I don’t know how you ever get over that. I do know that he has tremendous resources at UVa, where the administrative staff includes three ex-Division I coaches, Littlepage, Terry Holland and Barry Parkhill. If he doesn’t make full use of their experience and expertise, that’s his fault.

I’ve already heard it said that, when faced with the toughest decision of his short tenure as AD, Littlepage couldn’t pull the trigger. Maybe so. But, if Littlepage is taking as much heat as I hear, then maybe this was tougher than letting Gillen go.

Hewitt getting raise to $1 million
By JOHN HOLLIS
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 4/1/04

San Antonio -- Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt has agreed to a new contract that will pay him about $1 million annually, school officials confirmed Thursday afternoon.

"He's going to be at Georgia Tech for a good while," athletics director Dave Braine said. "I know he's happy, and we sure are."

The six-year rollover deal, which still has to be formally approved by school President Wayne Clough and the school's athletic board, will include incentives that would keep Hewitt under contract at Tech through the 2010 season.

The deal comes on the eve of the Yellow Jackets' second Final Four appearance in school history and after recent speculation about the 40-year-old Hewitt's future.

"It really wasn't a pressing issue in my mind because I have a pretty good situation here," Hewitt said Thursday. "I have two people, in Dave Braine and Dr. Clough, who understand what it takes to be successful in the classroom and on the playing field."

Hewitt, who is in his fourth year at Tech, was in the first year of a new rollover deal he signed last summer that bumped his total package up to $750,000 with bonuses.

The market changed this winter, however, as Hewitt quickly became one of the hottest commodities in the coaching ranks by guiding Tech to a surprising 27-9 season and into the Final Four for the first time since 1990.

"I learned something a long time ago from George Raveling [Hewitt's mentor, the former Southern Cal coach]. If you do your job well, people will notice and compensate you fairly."

His name had been mentioned prominently for several coaching vacancies, most notably the one at St. John's following Mike Jarvis' firing in December. Hewitt is a Long Island native with deep ties to the New York City area.

Braine had said as early as late January that he planned to sign his coach to a new deal after the season, but felt compelled to act now to have a new contract in place to avoid further talk about Hewitt's future at this weekend's Final Four.

"Now it's put to bed for good," Braine said. "We're going to have Paul for a while, and that means an awful lot to the stability of the program."

Hewitt enters Saturday's national semifinal against Oklahoma State with a career 141-80 mark in six-plus seasons as a head coach, and has led three teams to at least 20 victories, including this year's edition of the Jackets.

The 2001 ACC coach of the Year, Hewitt is 75-53 during his tenure at Tech.
 

Improvement is mandate, not option, at U.Va.
BOB LIPPER
POINT OF VIEW: Apr 2, 2004

This was no hallelujah-chorus endorsement. You wait till 12 days after the season ends to announce that yeah, well, OK, after long and ponderous deliberation we've decided to go ahead and (sigh) keep our coach (who's under contract, by the way), you are not precisely ordering up testimonials and a 76-trombones parade.

That's how it should be. Pete Gillen is on notice now, as he hasn't been before. This isn't idle chatter among disgruntled Virginia rooters. This isn't boosters flexing their muscles and checkbooks and attempting to insinuate themselves into personnel matters. This isn't Internet babble or talk-radio venting.

This is your employer saying loud and clear - well, maybe not loudly ('tisn't the U.Va. way) but certainly clearly - LIPPERthat your performance has been scrutinized and found not to be up to $900,000-per standards, and you'd best improve the product and deliver more bang for the bucks.

Or this issue will be revisited before the next annual report hits the presses.

U.Va.'s silence over the past 12 days spoke library stacks. If the front office had no qualms about Gillen - if it wanted to put to rest the incessant will-he-stay-or-will-he-go? babble of recent months - it could've long ago (or at least 12 days ago) spurted out a two-paragraph press release saying Pete's our guy, we expect to have a long and fruitful relationship, we are hopeful of much success in the future, yada-yada-yada.

Instead, AD Craig Littlepage let Gillen's status twist in cyberspace before coming through with ye olde vote of confidence and a subliminal (or frontal maybe - we'll likely never know) warning. The message: Ice is getting thin on the Rivanna River.

U.Va. did the right thing here. It probably could've found enough fat cats to throw gobs of money at the problem - to unearth Gillen and maybe replace him with someone as promising as he seemed six years ago. But that would've smudged the school's chaste reputation and made Mr. Jefferson's athletic department just another on-the-make subsidiary of College Sports Inc. It also would've ignored the fact the Cavs actually finished 2003-04 with a winning record and a modest rush down the stretch.

Not that a few Todd Billet rainbows and a couple of gut-wrenching wins over Clemson should gloss over Gillen's shortcomings. He's been a disappointment on balance - his product often maddeningly jumbled, his recruiting patterns haphazard, his tendency to place blame on players (while rarely holding himself accountable) unseemly.

His best year so far might've been his first - when he steered an outmanned crew of six scholarship players to 14 wins. He went 9-7 in the ACC the next two seasons - but if you're taking a glass-half-empty view, Dave Odom was wheezing to the exit door at Wake Forest, Julius Hodge had yet to check in at N.C. State and Georgia Tech was struggling through the Bobby Cremins/Paul Hewitt transition.

Since then, Gillen is 20-32 against league opponents and has slid from fifth to sixth to seventh in the standings. And despite the Cavs' youth and supposed upside, it's tough to envision them climbing rungs on the ACC ladder next season.

Put it this way: Unless Hodge bolts the Wolfpack or all of Duke's and North Carolina's glossy recruits detour to the NBA or Chris Paul becomes a ball hog or Hewitt and Gary Williams forget how to coach, Virginia enters 2004-05 as seventh-best in the ACC. Can Pete Gillen orchestrate upward mobility? That's the $900,000-per-annum question.

"We want to reach high, reach for the stars," Gillen said at his introductory press conference in 1998.

If he doesn't flirt with unexplored galaxies next season, he'll be reaching for a packing crate.