Cyclones consume Cavs
Smith drops in 40 points during loss
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
December 7, 2004

AMES, Iowa - Virginia’s guy scored 40 but the other team’s guy scored 30 and won the game.

Curtis Stinson scored the last three of his 30 points on a trey with 18.6 seconds left to lift Iowa State to a 81-79 win over No. 19 Virginia on Monday night at Hilton Coliseum.

Devin Smith led UVa with 40 and became the first Virginia player to score 40 in a game since Donald Hand had 41 against N.C. State on Feb. 14, 1999.

“Our guy was great with 40 and he [Stinson] was great with 30. We couldn’t stop him at times. It was a great college basketball game in a very tough environment,” Virginia coach Pete Gillen said.

On the Cavs’ final possession, freshman Sean Singletary drove for a layup that missed its mark. Several Virginia players had a chance to tip in the rebound and send the game to overtime but the attempts were to no avail.

Smith, who made 11 of 17 shots from the floor (4 of 8 on treys) and connected on 14 of 15 attempts from the stripe, took little solace in his night compared to the overall outcome.

“I felt like I was the one that needed to step up tonight. … I wasn’t looking at how many points I had. I was just trying to win the game. None of that means anything since we came away with a loss,” said Smith, whose previous career high was 30 against Clemson two years ago.

The win improved Iowa State, which lost at Northern Iowa by 17 points in its previous game, to 4-1 on the season and 21-1 at Hilton under second-year coach Wayne Morgan. Virginia, playing with its highest ranking since Feb. 11, 2002, suffered its first loss and fell to 6-1 on the season.

As Gillen stated repeatedly in the locker room after the game, Stinson, a Bronx native, entered the game 3 of 14 from behind the arc but finished 5 of 6 on treys Monday.

His fifth and final 3-pointer came after Gary Forbes had put Virginia up 79-77 with a jumper with 27 seconds left. Iowa State came up the court and Stinson pulled the trigger on the shot in the flow of the offense.

He showed no hesitation while his coach hoped for at least a little patience.

“I wouldn’t say we called that from the bench. He was just incredible. He has the heart of a great white shark,” said Morgan, whose team won despite making just 12 of 27 free throws.

At times, it looked as if this game would never come down to any kind of meaningful shot in the final minute.

After trailing 42-41 at intermission, the Cyclones were the aggressors most of the second half. A pretty behind-the-back pass from Will Blalock to Rahshon Clark for a dunk gave the Cyclones a 57-49 lead with 13:16 left. Iowa State eventually pushed the lead to 70-59 with 6:22 left. It was a span that caused Virginia to take its final timeout with 8:10 left.

Facing a double-digit deficit for the second time on the evening, the Cavaliers rallied again and reeled off an 11-0 run and tied the game at 70 on a jumper by J.R. Reynolds.

That run was spurred by a play in which freshman Adrian Joseph took a hard foul from Iowa State’s Jared Homan. A skirmish ensued and a technical was assessed to Virginia’s Jason Clark.

“You have to stick up for each other on the road. Nobody has your back on the road but your teammates. It fired us up,” said Elton Brown.

The game see-sawed back and forth over the final minutes. Virginia took a 76-75 lead on a layup by Singletary with 1:38 to play but the Cyclones responded with a layup of their own to regain the lead.

Forbes made 1 of 2 from the line to tie it at 77-77 with 1:13 left and then he put the Cavaliers ahead with that jumper with 27 seconds left.

As for the final attempt, Gillen said he couldn’t question Singletary’s decision to drive to the basket. Singletary drove past his initial defender put seemed unable to complete the full drive for the layup as Homan came over to defend him.

“Sean drove to the basket. I thought he had a good chance there,” Gillen said.

Brown was one of the players that had a chance to tip the ball in as three Cavaliers converged near the rebound. None of the follow shots could be labeled as controlled attempts but rather just trying to the tip the ball back.

“I thought I had a good shot. It just rolled out. It’s one of those shots you hope goes in and then you go to overtime,” Brown said.

Brown was the only other player in double digits for the Cavaliers as he had 13 points and 11 rebounds. Homan added 10 for the Cyclones.

Virginia led 42-41 at halftime and it was almost entirely thanks to Smith. Smith scored 25 first-half points, 20 of which came in the final six and a half minutes of the half.

After trailing, 41-31, Smith and the Cavaliers rattled off an 11-0 run to end the half to gain the one-point edge.

“Devin was really the only guy that played for us,” Gillen said. “I think the other guys were bothered by the crowd and were out of sync. Devin was just spectacular.”

Iowa's not an idyllic setting for Cavaliers
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
December 7, 2004

AMES, Iowa

Kevin Costner’s character asked the question in the movie “Field of Dreams” and quickly learned that he wasn’t in heaven. He was in Iowa.

Pete Gillen already knew that the ‘H’ in Iowa State’s Hilton Arena didn’t stand for heaven when he arrived to the great Midwest for Monday night’s showdown with the Cyclones. Iowa State had won 20 of their last 21 here.

Make that 21 out of 22.

The Big 12 team, frustrated from an upset loss to neighboring Northern Iowa a week ago, laid in wait for Virginia. It was the perfect setting for an upset. The 19th-ranked Cavaliers from the mighty ACC rolled into town on a wave of unbeaten emotion.

But Devin Smith was the only Wahoo to pack his ‘A’ game for the trip. Most of his teammates did not rise to the occasion and paid the price as the Cavaliers fought back from an 11-point deficit, swapped the lead, then lost in the final seconds in an 81-79 slugfest.

A taste of postseason

This one’s atmosphere smelled of March, not December. Cyclones fans wanted the upset and helped spur their team’s quest. Give Iowa State credit for leaving it all on the floor.

“This was a great win against a nationally ranked team,” said Iowa State forward Robert Faulkner, who typified the kind of effort the Cyclones got from all of their players. He scored 10 points and had five boards, but his scrappiness, tipping rebounds to keep them alive for teammates, was the kind of stuff that eventually won this game for his team. “The sixth man is the arena, and the crowd was great. We just tried to step up the intensity.”

Gillen knew this was a potential trap. The Cyclones have knocked off three ranked teams during that 21-1 run over the past three seasons.

Asked later if he would consider extending the series (UVa knocked off Iowa State with a late rally in Charlottesville last New Year’s Eve), the Virginia coach said he loved Ames and its inhabitants, but wasn’t thrilled about the concept of playing in Hilton every other year.

You can’t blame him

The intensity level matched that of a Duke, Maryland or North Carolina in the storied ACC. It wasn’t what a visitor from the East might have expected from this Big 12 location, starving for national attention.

Gillen described his hosts’ determination as “desperate.”

Locals viewed this ACC visit as exactly what the Cyclones program needed to put itself on the college hoops map. The school had only two nationally televised games last season, one in the NIT semis, and had lost the last nine times it had played on national TV.

That’s really not exposure. That’s getting exposed.

Iowa State set greater goals for this opportunity and made the most of it. Virginia cooperated in the first half by getting outhustled. Once the Cavaliers seemed to gain interest, they showed some guts by raising their own intensity level. They took ISU’s best shot and answered the bell.

In the end, things could have gone either way as UVa freshman phenom Sean Singletary’s coast-to-coast drive to the basket over the final nine seconds gave him a clear shot at sending things to overtime, but maybe there was too much juice flowing through his young veins and it appeared he over compensated for any potential defenders.

Subsequent tips were futile.

Smith’s 40 points went for naught. By his own confession, it didn’t mean anything in a loss. When Iowa State attempted to suffocate his scoring prowess over the last 10 minutes of the game by throwing a box-and-one on him, it should have opened up more for his teammates. Smith was held to four points the rest of the game.

But as Gillen so aptly put it, “Devin was really the only guy that played for us. The other guys were bothered by the crowd and they weren’t in sync. Execution wasn’t great, but they played though.”

While Smith was 11 of 17 from the floor, the rest of his teammates were a collective 14 for 39. The Cyclones turned UVa’s 18 turnovers into 21 points, but didn’t return the favor, committing only nine miscues. ISU outscored the Cavs in the paint 40-28 and 19-6 on second-chance points.

All wasn’t lost.

Yes, this could have been a big RPI bonus buster in Virginia’s hip pocket come NCAA Judgment Day, when the invitations to the Big Dance go out. Still, this one might not count that much against the Cavaliers if they take care of business once conference play begins.

Standing at 6-1, the Cavs have already scored wins over teams from the Big Ten, SEC, Atlantic 10 and the Pac-10 (over then 10th-ranked Arizona). If they can polish off Furman and Loyola Marymount prior to ACC play, they will enter conference warfare with as solid a resume as any Virginia team has in the Gillen era.

“This is a very tough environment,” Gillen said. “A very tough place to play. Hopefully, our guys learned from it.”

Known for his penchant of squandering timeouts like a sheik on a roll in Las Vegas, Gillen burned his last one with eight minutes to play. He defended his frequent stoppages to keep his team from coming apart at the seams under the pressure. He also said he couldn’t have asked for a better shot than what Singletary created on his own at the end.

“I think we can take something away from this because we fought back at the end,” Smith said. “We have each other’s back. We didn’t really play our best game and still were up two with 25 seconds to play. We won’t lose many like that.”

If the Cavaliers can take that attitude on the ACC road, they might not have to sweat bubbles when the bids come out.

Heartland heartbreaker
Iowa State hands UVa its first loss of the basketball season despite 40 points from Devin Smith.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

AMES, Iowa - Pete Gillen had to come all the way to Iowa to have his heart broken by a fellow New Yorker.

"Stuck it in my ear, right?" Gillen said Monday night after Iowa State knocked off 19th-ranked Virginia 81-79 at Hilton Coliseum. On a night when Virginia senior Devin Smith scored a career-high 40 points, Cyclones' sophomore Curtis Stinson made five of six 3-pointers, the last giving Iowa State an 80-79 lead with 18.6 seconds remaining.

"What was he on 3-pointers coming into the game, three-for-14?" said Gillen as he checked the final boxscore. "That's your story."

After Will Blalock made one of two free throws to give Iowa State a two-point lead with 9.1 seconds left, Virginia got a driving layup attempt from freshman guard Sean Singletary and several uncontrolled tips in an effort to send the game into overtime.

"We didn't have any timeouts left," said Gillen, who had used the fifth of his five allotted timeouts with 8:10 left, "but I don't know how we could have gotten a better shot."

In fact, after beating two Cyclone defenders along the right sideline, Singletary may have had a clearer path to the basket than first anticipated. He put the ball high off the hoop in an effort to avoid a block by 6-10 Iowa State center Jared Homan, although Homan may have been late in getting in position.

"It looked like Gary Forbes got to the ball first; I had a tip, too," UVa senior Elton Brown said. "That's all we could have asked for."

Previously unbeaten Virginia rallied from a 10-point deficit to go on top at the half, 42-41, and then made up an 11-point deficit in the final 6 1/2 minutes of the second half.

The Cavaliers (6-1) took a 76-75 lead on a Singletary drive with 1:38 left and had a 79-77 lead after a Forbes leaner with 27.4 seconds on the clock.

As he was trying to deny the ball to the post, Smith said he was surprised to see Stinson, a Bronx, N.Y., product, launch the go-ahead 3-pointer.

"I was thinking, 'I can't hesitate no more,'" said Stinson, who finished with a team-high 30 points. "We've got people on this team who can make big shots. I'm just one of them."

Iowa State coach Wayne Morgan asked, "How much courage did the kid have to knock down that kind of shot? The kid has a tremendous amount of confidence in himself. He has the heart of a white shark."

The Cyclones (4-1) made seven of 12 3-pointers on a night when they were only 12-of-27 from the free-throw line. At one point in the second half, they were 1-for-9.

Iowa State's poor free-throw shooting helped the Cavaliers get back in the game, but it was an inspired Virginia bunch after Homan swatted UVa freshman Adrian Joseph across the face on a layup attempt with 6:07 left. UVa senior Jason Clark immediately pushed Homan, drawing a technical.

"I'll take a technical for that," Gillen said.

UVa responded with an 11-0 run that started when Smith tipped in Joseph's missed second free throw. With that, he became the eighth player in Virginia history to score 40 points in a game, but he got only one shot the rest of the way as Iowa State went to a box-and-one, with John Neal shadowing Smith.

"John was unbelievable in that," Morgan said. "If not, Smith would have scored 60."

Smith's previous high was 30 points.

"None of this means anything if you don't come away with a win," Smith said.

Oddsmakers, perhaps mindful of Iowa State's 21-1 record at home over the last two seasons, had rated the game a toss-up.

"I love Ames, Iowa," said Gillen, a Brooklyn, N.Y., native when asked about a future series with the Cyclones, "but I don't know if I'd like to come back here every other year."

No. 19 Cavs fall short
Smith scores 40 points, but Virginia is handed its first loss of the season
Times-Dispatch Resources
Dec 7, 2004
IOWA ST. 81 VIRGINIA 79
TOMORROW: Furman at Virginia, 7 p.m.

AMES, Iowa - The University of Virginia basketball team wasted a magnificent effort by forward Devin Smith last night.

"It's a crying shame that with him playing such a great game, we can't come away with a victory," Cavaliers coach Pete Gillen said after his team's 81-79 loss to Iowa State.

On a night when many of Smith's teammates looked lost - at least for the game's first 34 minutes - the 6-5 senior from New Castle, Del., scored a career-high 40 points to keep the 19th-ranked Cavs in contention. But the Cyclones' Curtis Stinson played brilliantly, too, and his late heroics proved decisive against previously unbeaten U.Va. Stinson, a sophomore guard, finished with 30 points.

"We couldn't stop him," Gillen said.

Maybe so, but an egregious defensive error made it easier for Stinson to hit the game's biggest shot. Left open on the left wing when Virginia guard J.R. Reynolds dropped back into the lane, Stinson drained a 3-pointer with 18.6 seconds left to put Iowa State ahead 80-79.

Then, after the Cavaliers' 18th turnover - Reynolds lost the ball trying to split two defenders - Iowa State guard Will Blalock was fouled and made 1 of 2 free throws with 9.1 seconds remaining.

Gillen had called his final timeout at the 8:10 mark, so Virginia wasn't able to map out its final possession. The Cavaliers (6-1) nearly forced overtime anyway, but freshman point guard Sean Singletary failed to convert on a drive, and two tip attempts fell off the rim.

Smith, who came in averaging 15.8 points, became the first U.Va. player to score 40 in a game since guard Donald Hand had 41 against N.C. State on Feb. 14, 1999. Smith also pulled down nine rebounds.

"He was spectacular," Gillen said. "To get 40 points on the road, in this tough atmosphere, he had so much courage and heart, he was unbelievable."

Smith said: "None of that really matters when we don't come out with a win."

The victory was Iowa State's 21st in its past 22 games at Hilton Coliseum. Had the Cyclones (4-1) shot better from the free throw line, they wouldn't have had to sweat out the final seconds. Iowa State made only 12 of 28 foul shots.

Smith missed only once from the line in 15 attempts, and he made 11 of 17 shots from the floor, including 4 of 8 from beyond the 3-point arc. Senior center Elton Brown added 13 points and 10 rebounds for U.Va., his fifth double-double of the season.

Iowa State's starting guards, Stinson and Blalock, combined for 40 points, compared to only 10 for U.Va. starters Reynolds and Singletary. Reynolds' two points were a season low, though his lone field goal capped an 11-0 run and pulled Virginia to 70-70 with 4:14.

Trailing 70-59 with 6:20 left, U.Va. had seemed on the verge of getting blown out. Instead, the Cavaliers had showed terrific resolve, rallying and finally going ahead 76-75 when Singletary scored on a full-court drive with 1:38 left. Alas for the Cavaliers, Iowa State scored 6 seconds later to move back on top.

Virginia took its final lead, 79-77, when sophomore swingman Gary Forbes scored on a drive with 27.4 seconds left. Forbes scored all five of his points in the final 2 minutes.

Smith, who torched the Cyclones for 25 points at University Hall last season, matched that total in the first half last night, scoring in virtually every way imaginable.

After Iowa State went up 41-31 with 2:17 remaining, Smith sparked a comeback that stunned the raucous crowd at Hilton and sent Virginia into the break with a one-point lead.

Smith scored on a bank shot to make it 41-33. He then buried his second 3-pointer to make it 41-36 with 1:20 left. Brown was fouled away from the ball on the play, and he hit 1 of 2 free throws to make it a four-point game. After an Iowa State miss, Smith bombed in another trey, and then Brown scored on a fast break to give U.Va. a 42-41 lead.

Virginia plays host to Furman at U-Hall tomorrow night.

Without taking credit, Welsh lent credibility
BOB LIPPER
POINT OF VIEW
Dec 7, 2004

George Welsh doesn't do vanity. He isn't drawn to spotlights. He's not glib. He doesn't vogue. He isn't the type to toot his own legacy.

So let me do it for him.

George Welsh, more than anyone who preceded him and maybe more than anyone who'll follow, made football matter in our state. He rescued U.Va. from terminal disrepair. He made it acceptable, then fashionable, for schoolboy hot-shots to stay home and not flee to Chapel Hill or Columbus. He laid the foundation for the expansion of Scott Stadium and sparked retaliatory answers from Blacksburg. He seeded the landscape from which William and Marys, James Madisons, Hamptons, Bridgewaters and Christopher Newports sprouted.

Welsh won games, he ushered players to graduation, he forwarded Dombrowskis and Barbers to the pros, he obeyed the NCAA rulebook, he went the whole 10 yards. Other than that, it wasn't much of a career.

He'll be treated as a celebrity in New York tonight, and it couldn't happen to a nicer grump. The occasion is the induction ceremony for the College Football Hall of Fame. Welsh, along with fellow coaching luminary LaVell Edwards of Brigham Young, is among those being honored. The setting is the Waldorf-Astoria. It'll be a grand affair.

Attendees should not expect Welsh to do cartwheels or vamp at the podium when he's introduced. Not his style. He's lukewarm about awards and testimonials. That explains why he was a knot of pride and reticence the day his bust was unveiled at Scott Stadium. And why he accepts Hall of Fame attention but only so much.

"I appreciate it," he said. "Well, maybe eventually."

He's surprised he made the cut, and it's not false modesty. Welsh never claimed a national championship, after all, never finished a season in the top 10, didn't think his won-lost ratio was gaudy enough to impress voters.

"Most all the coaches in it were 60 percent and above," he said. "Mine was 59-point something. I mean, all those guys who are in there - Lavell has 250-some wins and only coached one year longer than I did. People used to say to me, 'You might get in the Hall of Fame,' and I just sort of dismissed it. I didn't think I had enough wins. I guess I was close enough."

And then some. Here's George Welsh's credentials: He won at Navy and Virginia, each dead in the water when he arrived. 'Nuff said. All told, he was 55-46-1 during his nine seasons in Annapolis and 134-86-3 over 19 years in Charlottesville. That works out to 58.8 percent, but who's calculating? As a body of work - and he was second in the '55 Heisman vote as Navy's quarterback, if he needs extra credit - it rivals most anything other coaches accomplished at more user-friendly locales.

What he did at U.Va. borders on miracle. In the 29 seasons before Welsh set up his revival tent, the Cavs produced the grand total of two winners. Two! Friends in the business warned Welsh he was setting himself for a fall if he took the job. He, however, saw possibilities.

"If it's a coach's graveyard," he said at the time, "it's a pretty nice graveyard."

He breathed life into this Lazarus. He steered the Cavs to their first-ever bowl and then 11 more. He made them a factor in the ACC - this after they'd managed only 1.14 victories per year against league opponents between 1953-81. He was voted the ACC's coach of the year five times. He finished up as the all-time winner at two different schools.

Now, at 71, he's about to become a Hall of Famer, an official part of history.

"I haven't thought about it that way," Welsh said, and he laughed. "You know, there are a lot of names in there. Fielding Yost. Knute Rockne. Woody Hayes."

And, now, George Welsh. He belongs.