Pete Gillen has resigned after seven seasons as Virginia's men's basketball head coach.

Pete was well liked upon his arrival, and just about everybody (including me) was happy with the hire. But his overall record, ACC record, and current state of the program left much to be desired.

Pressure to win at college basketball and football is intense, and expectations are frequently so high as to be delusional. For example, this College Football News Q&A. Ten active college football head coaches have won national championships, three of them more than once. Of course, woe be the other seven! Some Michigan fans want Lloyd Carr fired, though all he has done is win a national championship, go to consecutive Rose Bowls, and win 95 games in ten years. Bob Stoops arrived at Oklahoma when they hadn't had a winning season in six years. After a 7-5 first year, he has won sixty games in five years and a national championship. (Many college teams don't even play sixty games in five years.) Two of his seven losses in those five years came to national champions. And some guy has the gall to call him "overrated"!

The pressure to win is unreasonable at many places. But Virginia was not one of them. Finishing last in the ACC this year with only one NCAA tourney appearance in seven years is clearly unacceptable.

What are reasonable expectations for Virginia basketball? How do they compare to other schools? To answer these questions, I'd like to subjectively explore what factors influence basketball success, and see how well off Virginia is.

In rough order of acsending importance...

1) Academics. A double edged sword. Impressive academics can either attract or dissuade top recruits. The best recruits often aren't the best students, on the other hand many good players realize the value of a degree after their playing days are over. Virginia's academics are at least on par with UNC, Kansas, Duke, Wake, Stanford, Georgia Tech, and many other top schools which have had no problem finding basketball success. I could delve deep into this, but I believe ultimately it is not a big factor.

2) History / Reputation. Kentucky. UNC. Duke. Kansas. Indiana. Connecticut. All of these schools have tremendous basketball reputations. And well deserved ones. Each school has won multiple national titles and are among the winningest programs ever. UCONN is a bit of a newcomer though. While they went to the NCAAs regularly in the 50s and 60s, the Huskies suffered through the 70s and early 80s. They went through six straight losing seasons before current coach Jim Calhoun came on board. Louisville is a program that also won a national title before enduring hard times recently. However the Cardinals have also rebuilt themselves into a national contender with former Kentucky coach Rick Pitino.

While the history and basketball reputation of a school does tend to reinforce itself, it can be built or rebuilt in a relatively short period of time, say ten to fifteen years. Short term success can come quickly, in as little as two or three years with the right coach.

Virginia does not currently have a basketball reputation, and outside of a twenty year period hasn't had much history. The school had a reputation for hard nosed defense and hustle (1976-1995), occasional top recruits and several top 10 rankings. We had the second most wins in the ACC in the 80s That reputation has been dismantled in the past ten years, but I believe it could be restored as it has been at other schools.

3) Facilities. Show that you are dedicated to athletics, and people take note. Players generally go to schools with better athletic support.

University Hall was one of the smaller and more run down facilities in the ACC, to the point where it may have been affecting recruiting. The John Paul Jones Arena is being built. (Live webcam of the construction.) The new facility will increase the number of seats by over 50%, and replace the aging and ugly UHall. This could be a big selling point to recruits, an arena which is second to none in the ACC if not the nation. Maryland and NC State have both built new arenas recently. They were reflections of each school's commitment to basketball rather than a statement on the success of their teams.

4) League / Competition. Outside of six or seven major conferences it is a good deal harder to win a national championship. UNLV and Marquette are exceptions, but basically no other schools from a mid-level conference in recent memory. Utah, Memphis, and Indiana State have made the finals in the past thirty years, while they have successful programs, essentially they were one year wonders.

Virginia is in the best league for basketball. Not a problem as far as reputation goes, but it does increase the level of competition.

5) Recruiting. Pulling in the best players in is obviously crucial to success. A coaching staff must evaulate, accrue, and develop talent better than their opponents. This factor is affected by each other factor, but the most important factor is the coaches. Only they can offer scholarships, watch the players, evaluate the talent, and obviously coach them to get the best out of it.

The Wahoos have had good recruiting in the past, though the past three or four years have not been kind. I believe this shows that the primary factor holding back recruiting was the coaching staff. Gillen had a large amount of player turnover caused largely by poor evaluation and development of talent, and poor behavior by a few of those players which resulted in suspensions or transfers.

6) Coaching. The best career coaches persevere through short term adversity and achieve very long tenures where their success can feed back on itself by attracting better talent and more investment of capital into the program. See Duke's Coach K, UNC's Dean Smith, Syracuse's Jim Boeheim, UConn's Jim Calhoun, etc. There are some coaches who have had more nomadic careers, but they still usually spend at least five years at a stop. See Texas' Rick Barnes, Kentucky's Tubby Smith, Rick Majerus, Rick Pitino. Maryland's Gary Williams used to be the second type, but now that he is at his alma mater he likely will stay for life.

The quality of coaching seems to be the most important factor in the success of a basketball program. How to choose, attract or cultivate a top coach to the school is a different subject that I may address in a future long winded post.

Obviously this leads to the current coaching search.


Based on these factors, realistic long term expectations at Virginia could be very high. While our basketball reputation is not the highest, the past thirty years were better than most believe. And history can be made, not simply remembered. Every other factor is positioned for success.

One can say the same thing about several other ACC schools. With continued success, Georgia Tech, Wake, Maryland, or even NC State could position themselves to join UNC and Duke in the top tier. While Virginia is as good or even better in some factors than these schools, all four have better basketball programs and short term prognosis.

All of which heightens the importance of the coaching search. Virginia is in danger of stagnating behind these programs for too long. Already many have forgotten about the two final fours, the top ten 1995 team, or the significant success in the 80s and early 90s. How many people know that Jeff Jones had a winning record over Duke in his first six years (during which they won a national title, and were runners up in 1994), and that Pete Gillen started out with a 6-4 record against UNC even including his woefully undermanned first team?

It is critical that the basketball team be righted. It cannot be allowed to go much longer without postseason success, or Virginia may be unfairly remembered as a football school.

I believe that given all the factors above, there is no reason Virginia cannot compete with or even surpass the basketball success of most teams in the ACC. The only piece of the puzzle that remains is a great coach.

Will potential hires see a school in the toughest league that hasn't won an NCAA tourney game in ten years... or a school with great academics that will have a big new arena in the most prestigious league in the nation that is showing unprecedented commitment to its basketball program? Short term expectations would be low, and long term support would be high for someone willing to make a career in Charlottesville.

I can only hope that a talented, dedicated coach sees the same things I do.