Leitao's whereabouts unknown to many
By Jerry Ratcliffe and Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writers
April 7, 2005

DePaul coach Dave Leitao didn’t show in Charlottesville on Wednesday and his official whereabouts were even a mystery to his own coaching staff.

Leitao, who is speculated to be one of the leading candidates to replace Pete Gillen as the University of Virginia’s new basketball coach, was rumored to have visited the school for the past two days. However, DePaul officials insisted Wednesday that the 43-year-old coach was scheduled to take a recruiting trip to Kansas instead.

A source close to one of the DePaul assistant coaches told The Daily Progress that even the staff was in the dark as to Leitao’s plans and that coaches there were curious to find out if he actually was a candidate for the Cavaliers’ job.

Meanwhile, another source informed The Progress that Virginia will not conduct official interviews of candidates in Charlottesville because of the immense interest in the process. Because the UVa job is the only major college opening in the country, it has attracted national interest, unprecedented in previous UVa coaching searches.

Wednesday, Virginia President John T. Casteen III was reportedly in Nashville, Tenn., supposedly on a fundraising trip and was scheduled to meet with other university presidents. However, that trip would not necessarily prohibit the Virginia president from conducting an interview with an interested candidate for the coaching vacancy.

Casteen acknowledged this week that he has conducted such interviews already and is playing an “active” role in the search for Gillen’s successor. Gillen was fired on March 14 and Virginia Athletics Director Craig Littlepgae announced a 4- to 6-week timetable for introducing a new Cavalier coach. Last weekend, Littlepage said the search was on schedule.

Apparently Littlepage spent much of his Wednesday conducting some damage control that had occurred during the search.

According to The State newspaper in Columbia, S.C., Littlepage had a long telephone conversation with South Carolina Athletics Director Mike McGee.

McGee told The State that Littlepage did not call to ask permission to talk to Gamecocks basketball coach Dave Odom about the job, but described the nature of the conversation as one athletic director talking to the other about the Virginia search.

Odom said Monday that he had talked to Littlepage, an old coaching colleague on the Virginia staff during the 1980s, several times about various issues concerning college basketball but never considered himself a candidate for the job. Odom denied a Washington Post story that stated UVa had offered him the position and he was ready to accept.

McGee also said that he expected Odom to be South Carolina’s coach well into the future.

Another report aired Tuesday by a Charlottesville television station that claimed Virginia had agreed to terms with Odom on a four-year, $1.5 million annual contract to be announced by Friday, apparently sent tremors through the UVa Athletics Department. Casteen denied the rumors and Littlepage was reportedly so outraged by the report that he ordered all athletic department staff to remain silent about the search until it is completed.

DePaul is still denying that Virginia has contacted the school in regards to Leitao. In fact, DePaul Athletics Director Jean Lenti-Ponsetto said she planned to contact Littlepage to learn if Leitao is a candidate for the Cavaliers’ opening.

Sources still insist that Virginia has not closed the door on its top choice for the job, Kentucky coach Tubby Smith, who has said he is happy in his current job. Sources have said that Virginia is prepared to pay the Wildcats’ coach, who formerly coached at VCU and whose wife, Donna, is from Richmond, a salary of $3 million annually to lure him to Charlottesville.

Virginia rumors also have not stopped popping up in South Bend, Ind., according to a FOX affiliate there on Wednesday. Notre Dame coach Mike Brey’s name has been attached to the UVa search for several weeks.

Names sound familiar to former Virginia AD
Jim Copeland dealt with many of the same people following the 1990 retirement of Terry Holland.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

When Jim Copeland hears some of the names being mentioned in connection with Virginia's search for a men's basketball search, he must feel as if he's been caught in a time warp.

Rick Barnes, Mike Montgomery, Dave Odom, Pete Gillen. Even Tubby Smith and Dave Leitao. All were involved, in some fashion, with the transition that followed Terry Holland's resignation that became effective following the 1990 season.

"Sure, I've made the connection," said Copeland, named the athletic director at Southern Methodist in December 1994.

Prior to that, Copeland had been the athletic director at UVa for more than seven years.

"The very hardest thing an athletic director has to do is hire a football or basketball coach," said Copeland in a phone interview Wednesday from Dallas. "Sure, I caught a lot of flak, but it wasn't too bad a hire."

Copeland was referring to his elevation of assistant coach Jeff Jones, then 29. In Jones' first five seasons, the Cavaliers went to the NCAA tournament four times and captured the 1992 NIT championship.

"At the time, if I'm not mistaken, he had more victories over his first four seasons than any coach in ACC history," Copeland said.

Jones won 80 games in his first four seasons, a mark surpassed this year by Skip Prosser, who has a 96-35 record after four seasons at Wake Forest. Vic Bubas won 86 games in his first four years at Duke, 1960-63, but that did not diminish Jones' feat.

If it seems like the current search - now in its 24th day - has taken a long time, there has been no comparison with 1990.

"I had too much time," said Copeland when asked if he had any regrets.

Holland had announced June23, 1989, that the 1989-90 season would be his last. However, nearly 10 months would pass before Jones was introduced as the new coach April16, 1990.

Two weeks earlier, Copeland thought he had an agreement with Barnes, then the coach at Providence.

"He sat down in front of the president [Robert O'Neil] and me, we offered him the job and he accepted it," Copeland said.

Then, Copeland and Barnes flew back to Providence, where Barnes was to tell Providence and Big East officials of the decisions. Copeland waited in the pilot's lounge for what seemed like an eternity before Barnes informed him that he was staying.

They have run into each other on several occasions in Texas, where Barnes has been head coach at the University of Texas for seven seasons, but the Barnes snub has not come up. Copeland knows the decision was not made frivolously.

"You could see he was torn by it," Copeland said. "I felt like he had put me and the university in an awkward spot."

In the short period of time between Barnes' acceptance and his reversal, Copeland called his other two finalists, Mike Montgomery and Bruce Parkhill, then the head coaches at Stanford and Penn State. That gave them the opportunity to withdraw their names from consideration.

"I felt it was the honorable thing to do," Copeland said. "Some people wondered how smart it was."

Copeland subsequently turned to Gillen, who was at Xavier. However, Gillen was preparing for an overseas trip and there were logistical problems in arranging a trip to campus.

Obviously, there was a perception that any new candidates would know they were the second choice to Barnes, but Copeland didn't sense that with Gillen. Gillen became the UVa coach after Jones went 11-19 in 1997-98, his second losing season in three years.

"Pete and I just had a hard time making the calendar work," Copeland said.

By then, Odom, a long-time Virginia assistant, had wrapped up his first season as the head coach at Wake Forest. When the Deacons originally asked permission to speak to Odom in 1989, Holland went to Copeland and pitched the idea of guaranteeing Odom's ascension to the top spot when Holland retired.

"I said Terry, 'When are you leaving?'" Copeland said. "There had to be a timetable and he didn't know. It could have been one to five to eight years. I couldn't commit to that."

Smith and Leitao were not involved in Virginia's search for a head coach in 1990, but both men were pursued by Virginia - as assistant coaches. Smith, then at Kentucky, was the first person approached by Jones as he attempted to put together a staff.

Jones, who had gotten to know Smith during the latter's tenure as a Virginia Commonwealth assistant, had gone as far as lining up the UVa school plane to fly to Lexington, Ky., before Wildcats' coach Rick Pitino persuaded Smith to stay.

With two positions to fill, Jones went after Leitao, who ultimately decided to remain with his mentor and former Northeastern University coach, Jim Calhoun, on the staff at Connecticut. The full-time assistants on Jones' first staff were Brian Ellerbe and Dennis Wolff, who, after four straight 20-win seasons at Boston University, has attracted a cult following among past UVa colleagues.

At SMU, Copeland has the benefits of a clip service that has enabled him to follow the Virginia coach search and other college trends. Moreover, his son, Trey, is one of the operators of thesabre.com Web site, although Copeland doesn't spend his time in Internet chat rooms.

"I never get on those chat pages," he said. "Never have and never will."

That's one headache he didn't have 15 years ago.

Leitao a target for Virginia job
DePaul coach spent yesterday recruiting for Blue Demons
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Apr 7, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE - DePaul's Dave Leitao remains one of the University of Virginia's targets in its search for a new basketball coach, according to numerous sources. As of late yesterday afternoon, however, U.Va. still had not requested permission to speak to Leitao, a DePaul spokesman said.

A published report that cited anonymous sources said Leitao would tour U.Va. and its facilities and meet with the school's president, John T. Casteen III, yesterday. But unless Leitao slipped into Charlottesville under cover of darkness last night, no such visit took place, apparently.

Moreover, Casteen has been on the road this week and spent yesterday in Knoxville, Tenn., he told The Times-Dispatch in an e-mail from there last night

Scott Reed, DePaul's sports information director, told the T-D that a DePaul assistant coach drove Leitao to the airport in Chicago yesterday morning. Leitao, on a recruiting trip, flew to Denver and then to Garden City, Kan., from which he called DePaul yesterday afternoon, Reed said. Leitao was scheduled to fly back to Denver and then home to Chicago last night, Reed said.

The Chicago Tribune reported yesterday that Leitao on Tuesday night said, "None of the information" is true about his reported visit to U.Va.

Leitao, 43, is a former assistant to Connecticut's Hall of Fame coach, Jim Calhoun. Virginia is seeking a replacement for Pete Gillen, who stepped down last month after seven seasons as coach.

Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said early in the search that, before talking officially to a candidate, U.Va. would request permission from that coach's school. Littlepage reiterated Tuesday that Virginia's policy hadn't changed.

For now, business is as usual for Odom
As Virgina continues search, USC coach makes recruiting trip, talks about 2005-06
By STEVE WISEMAN
Staff Writer

While Virginia made no public moves in its coaching search Wednesday, Dave Odom went about his business as South Carolina’s coach.

Odom flew out of town on a recruiting trip while sources close to him continued to say he would accept the Cavaliers’ head coaching position if offered.

USC athletics director Mike McGee said he spoke with Virginia athletics director Craig Littlepage on Tuesday night. McGee said Littlepage did not ask for permission to contact Odom about the Virginia job.

“Specifically, he did not,” McGee said Wednesday.

McGee characterized the conversation as a “professional discussion” during which the two talked about Virginia’s coaching search.

“Suffice to say,” McGee said, “it is my strong belief that coach Odom will be our coach next year and on into the future.”

Odom was not available for comment Wednesday other than in a USC release regarding November’s Great Alaska Shootout. The Gamecocks will open next season in the eight-team tournament, which will include Southern California, Marquette, Eastern Washington, Oral Roberts, Monmouth and the host, Alaska-Anchorage. One additional team, possibly Gonzaga, will be added this summer.

In the news release Odom stated he looked forward to the trip to Alaska, and said the team was excited to be included in the field.

“It will serve as a very strong early test for our team,” Odom said. “All the teams in the Great Alaska Shootout should be quality competition. It sounds like a very balanced field with no team, at least at this point, being the odds-on favorite.”

While Odom is behaving as if he will be with the Gamecocks next year, others remain uncertain.

At Fullerton (Calif.) College, guard Bryce Sheldon wonders if the coaching staff that recruited him and led him to sign with USC will be in place when he arrives in the summer. Fullerton coach Dieter Horton said Wednesday his conversation with USC’s coaches make him uncertain about what will happen.

But Horton said Sheldon, who flew to New York to attend the Gamecocks’ National Invitation Tournament championship game win against Saint Joseph’s in New York last Thursday, has made it clear he will come to USC regardless of who the coach is.

“He will be there because he’s confident that even if coach Odom leaves that South Carolina will attract a quality coach,” Horton said.

One of Odom’s top assistants took a step toward finding a head coaching position on Wednesday.

Rick Duckett, a member of Odom’s USC staff since his arrival in 2001, confirmed he met with Coastal Carolina’s search committee in Conway. It is the second interview the 47-year-old Duckett has had with the Chanticleers about their position.

Former Tennessee coach Buzz Peterson is scheduled to be in Conway today to meet with Coastal. Peterson is considered to be the front-runner, with Duckett in line next should Peterson not come to terms.

U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Apr 7, 2005

MARATHON, NOT A SPRINT: The successor to center Zac Yarbrough on Virginia's offensive line this season will be a redshirt sophomore: converted guard Ian-Yates Cunningham or Jordy Lipsey. Neither has gained a significant edge on the other this spring, Cavaliers coach Al Groh said yesterday.

"It looks like it will probably go on through [the April 23 spring game], maybe into the fall," Groh said. "It's not quite like some of the other spots. If you've got three guards, you're usually comfortable in interchanging them.

"If you've got two centers -because of, obviously, the relationship between the center and the quarterback -you tend to stay with one. So I know that for the players involved, it's a very meaningful competition."

Cunningham, who started at left guard late in the 2003 season, redshirted in 2004 while recovering from back surgery. Lipsey redshirted in 2003 and backed up Yarbrough last season.

DON'T BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU READ: Yarbrough was one of two senior starters on the offensive line last season. The other was Elton Brown, an All-American who's widely considered the best guard in this month's NFL draft.

According to SI.com, however, Brown's stock has dropped recently in the wake of reportedly unimpressive workouts for pro scouts.

"I would tell you the same thing that I tell our players," Groh said when asked about Brown. "The only information that's out there is disinformation."

NFL representatives have visited U.Va. regularly this spring, and "I know that the offensive line coach who was in here yesterday hasn't dropped [Brown] in his estimation," Groh said.

WAITING GAME: Twenty-two recruits signed with U.Va. in February. Overall, Groh said on signing day, the class ranks among the strongest academically in the program's history. But it's too early to say if every member will pass admissions.

"There are a couple of issues that we're still monitoring," Groh said last week. "I think that'll always be the case, unless we decide to play in the Ivy League. I don't think we're interested in doing that."

BIG SHOES TO FILL: Brown's probable successor at right guard is Marshal Ausberry, who'll be a redshirt sophomore in the fall. Ausberry played in six games last season.

"I'm very excited to get out there and prove myself and be able to contribute to the team more than I did the past season," he said.

Like Brown, the 6-5 Ausberry is a mammoth linemen. At West Springfield High, he weighed as much as 380 pounds. When Ausberry visited U.Va., he said, strength coach Evan Marcus told "me for health reasons, first and foremost, I needed to lose weight. I worked on that, and it's just helping me now this season."

Ausberry said he's down to around 330 pounds.

On losing Brown, who twice was honored as the ACC's best blocker, Virginia quarterback Marques Hagans said, "Things change. The world turns. You got to roll with what you gotta roll with. We gotta adjust to Big E not being there."

ON THE CORNER: On Internet message boards devoted to U.Va. football, posters often have stated their desire to see Tony Franklin move from cornerback, where he's started 18 games, to safety.

As far as Franklin knows, his coaches never have considered such a move.

"That's just something I heard from the fans," said Franklin, a rising junior who was Virginia's third-leading tackler in 2004.

IN THE MIX: Among the offensive linemen trying to make the two-deep is walk-on Jeff Schrad, a rising junior from Mechanicsville who attended high school at Fork Union Military Academy.

Schrad, a 6-4, 280-pound guard, played in two games last season. He transferred to U.Va. in 2003 from Eastern Michigan, where he was a recruited walk-on.

"He's a very determined, very scrappy player," Groh said.

OFFSEASON OPPORTUNITIES: Groh and his assistants will hold a Football 101 clinic at U.Va. on April 30 for fans interested in learning more about the game's finer points. The cost is $75.

The Cavaliers' coaching staff also will offer three camps. The first, for ages 9 to 14, is June 4, and the cost is $50. The second, for ages 6 to 8, is June 5, and the cost is $50. The Al Groh Football Camp, June 26 to 29, costs $300.

Three-and-a-half weeks in: Back to square one
J.D. Moss, Cavalier Daily Sports Columnist

I woke up Monday morning in horror. The Washington Post reported that Virginia offered its coaching job to Dave Odom and he would accept shortly.

Thankfully, The Post's source was erroneous (see, it happens to the best of us), and Odom reiterated Monday night that, though he and Virginia athletic director Craig Littlepage had talked as friends about the Virginia job, he was not a candidate for it.

That is not a knock on the 63-year-old former Virginia assistant but rather a statement that he is not the right person for the job. He did great at Wake Forest and is doing a solid job now at South Carolina. But Odom, while a good coach, cannot resuscitate this program at his age. In five years, he would possibly make two or three NCAAs as a low seed and NITs the other years. He cannot take Virginia to the next level. Basically, it's settling for well-coached mediocrity instead of the poorly-coached mediocrity under Gillen.

So where does this leave Virginia?

Mike Montgomery and Rick Barnes have reportedly said "no." And everyone's favorite, Tubby? Littlepage contacted Kentucky's athletic director over the weekend, though it is not known whether he asked permission to speak with him. Rumor has it that Tubby Smith has said "no," but the door's not completely shut, with Virginia rumored to be offering $25 million over eight years. But let's assume that Tubby stays.

When Gillen was fired, Littlepage set a timetable of four to six weeks, and today is three-and-a-half. But what progress has been made?

This process has gotten more ridiculous than the number of commercials CBS aired between the end of the title game and One Shining Moment.

The top candidate at this juncture has to be 44-year-old DePaul coach Dave Leitao, a longtime Jim Calhoun protégé who, according to the Daily Progress, visited Charlottesville yesterday. Leitao spent 10 years as an assistant under Calhoun and six more as his associate head coach, sandwiched around a two-year stint as coach at Northeastern.

He is in his third year at DePaul, has a great pedigree and has a national championship ring. His teams exude toughness and play defense, holding opponents to under 65 points in each of his three seasons at DePaul. He has the chance to become a great coach in a league of hall-of-famers. He can recruit and brings in solid people; he put three Blue Demons on conference honor roll last year. This is not a Gillen-like hire. He did not earn this with a NCAA run, nor do his teams play a style that cannot win in the ACC.

The downsides are threefold: First, he could be Calhoun's eventual successor at UConn. I don't think this should figure into the equation. If he leaves down the road, so be it. Second, he has a $3 million buyout. This is a concern, with Gillen currently enjoying a $2 million payout. Third, with DePaul headed to the Big East next year, will Leitao part ways for the ACC?

As much as I like Leitao, my top choice remains Marc Iavaroni, a man who I have been touting since last year. Iavaroni is currently an assistant with the Phoenix Suns and a great one at that. He has been the main coach to work with All-Star Amare Stoudamire, having the experience of 10 years of work at Pete Newell's Big Man Camp.

He has roots here, having led Virginia to its sole ACC Tournament title in 1976, his sophomore year, and serving as a graduate assistant on the 1981 Final Four team. He also started on the 1983 NBA Champion 76ers.

Think he'll struggle recruiting with his NBA ring and the name Amare? I don't. He spent three years as an assistant at Bowling Green, and he'll pick things up quickly. Though he may not know the nuances of the college game, his ability to teach and develop talent separate him from others.

The problem is that Iavaroni has been mentioned as a candidate for three separate NBA jobs and could want to pursue them. Also, he might not want to discuss Virginia during the Suns season, which could go until June.

Unfortunately, the other candidates being mentioned hold little appeal. Mike Brey has struggled at Notre Dame once he was playing with his own recruits; Karl Hobbs and Mike Anderson play Gillen-esque styles in smaller conferences. ODU's Blaine Taylor and VCU's Jeff Capel are unproven.

I'd like to float two more names that could be great hires but probably won't happen. First, I like former UCLA coach and current ESPN analyst Steve Lavin. Though greasy, Lavin led his UCLA teams to win 20 games in six of his seven seasons and to five Sweet Sixteens in that span. Only Coach K equaled that feat. Lavin was UCLA's best defensive coach since John Wooden, has shown he can recruit (the nation's top class in 1998), is respected and would be a big-name hire.

Conversely, I'd like to float a name that hasn't gotten much talk anywhere: Arizona assistant Josh Pastner. Though just 27, he is viewed as one of the top young minds in the game. Pastner recruited himself to Arizona to play, graduated in two and a half years by taking as many as 33 credits a semester and worked his way onto Lute Olsen's staff.

He'd be a huge risk, but I bet he will be one of the nation's top coaches in a decade. Where better to do it? At least interview him. And remember his name.

To recap, Tubby remains a pipe dream, Leitao sits atop the list, Iavoroni is an outside chance and other names are lesser candidates. The only thing new is Dave Odom rumors.

Basically, we're back to square one. All I can ask is that I don't wake up in horror again.