After Virginia's humiliating loss to North Carolina, a UNC basketball fan mailed me this:
> Lee, I am certainly not trying to rub it in, but what is going on at
> Virginia? Are the players in revolt against the coach. There was almost
> no effort. Virginia can not get down 50 points to the LA Lakers.
>
> Maybe they were just tired. I think the coach must be in trouble. One of
> the things that killed Matt Dor. at Chapel Hill was his letting the team
> lose to Maryland by about 40 with no effort on his part to call time out
> or make changes in what the team was doing.
If I had been surprised at all, I'd be a lot more pissed off about the loss. But honestly at this point that effort didn't surprise me at all.
You are right, it looks like everyone but perhaps Devin Smith and Sean Singletary has written off the season. We were down by single digits in the second half at Duke and no one showed any urgency. At this point I wouldn't be surprised if we finished with 12 wins or fewer.
I didn't expect us to compete with the upper echelon of the ACC this year. But we do have four solid players that are ACC caliber starters (Brown, Singletary, Smith, Reynolds). Forbes, Bannister, Joseph, and Clark (when he was eligible) provided depth. There doesn't appear to be a lack of talent, but our basketball team has obviously slid downhill since 2001. What went wrong?
1. Loss of assistant coaching talent
2. Poor coaching of fundamentals
3. Lack of player continuity
4. Poor game management
5. Three bad breaks
1. Pete came to Virginia with two assistants who went on to highly successful head coaching positions of their own (Herrion at Charleston, Gonzalez at Manhattan). Gillen replaced them with apparently inferior coaching talent. He brought in Rod Jensen to help coach the defense for a couple of years. He taught a strange 1-3-1 style defense that none of fans, and more importantly the players seemed to understand. Things started clicking at the end of last year when we played some good defense down the stretch (and hit some last second shots), but it wasn't enough to get an NCAA berth, or to save Jensen's job.
2. The players he has brought in have been reasonably talented, but not good enough all around players to compete at the ACC level. Our previous coaches were able to teach their recruits well enough that they learned secondary skills, to round themselves out so that they no longer had an obvious weakness. Gillen has not been able to teach the skills necessary to win in this league. The player who has a single skill but who does not improve in other areas has become the rule rather than the exception.
On top of that our players largely do not show solid fundamentals, good defense, good footwork, or good passing skills. We do not appear to have set plays on offense or to hustle on defense.
3. Jason Rogers, Roger Mason, Majestic Mapp, and Travis Watson were Pete's first class. (Adam Hall and Chris Williams were Jeff Jones' recruits.) Jason was not talented enough to contribute at the ACC level. Mapp was injured after his first season and was never the same. Watson did not noticeably improve during his four years, and could not carry the team as a senior. Mason did improve, but left a year early for the NBA.
Transfers in: Stephane Dondon (2 years), Keith Friel (2), Todd Billet (2), Nick Vanderlaan (1), Devin Smith (3)
Transfers out: Jermaine Harper (2 years), Keith Jenifer (2), JC Mathis (2), Maurice Young (1), Derrick Byars (2), Nick Vanderlaan (1), Roger Mason (3, NBA)
Missed time due to injury or academics: Jason Clark, Majestic Mapp
Stayed four years: Elton Brown, Jason Rogers, Travis Watson
(Still on team: sophomores TJ Bannister, JR Reynolds, W Gary Forbes, F Jason Cain, F/C Donte Minter, freshmen Adrian Joseph, Sean Singletary, and Tunji Soroye.)
Obviously there has been a higher than average attrition rate. When thirteen of sixteen players brought in are on the team for only a couple of years, there is a problem. (Also note Gillen had his most success with Jones' recruits: Hall, Williams, Donald Hand).
4. Gillen has shown maddening and consistently poor game management decisions. He calls timeouts frequently and without rhyme or reason. Last year there was no regular rotation. He does not know how to come from behind (fouling, clock management, timeouts) at the end of games. He does not know how to substitute in end of game situations. He makes questionable decisions (fouling when up by three) that have come back to haunt us.
5. In 1999-2000, we became the first ACC team to have a winning conference record and NOT get an at large bid to the NCAA tournament. Some blame our weak out of conference schedule. Whatever the case, not getting a bid took the wind totally out of our sails, and we lost in the NIT in triple overtime to Georgetown.
In 2000-2001 we had a slightly better record and, in my opinion, got shafted by the NCAA committe again. First off, they put us as a 5 seed when I felt we deserved at least a 4. Secondly, they put us against 12 seed Gonzaga, who even then were OBVIOUSLY a MUCH better team than their seeding indicated. We lost by a point when Roger Mason could not hit the game winning shot.
01-02 was the most talented team of the Gillen era. However, it had a glaring weakness: no point guard. Donald Hand was gone and some foolishly rejoyced. The lineup got shifted, and suddenly we weren't smaller and quicker than everyone anymore. Mason had been tabbed for point guard but it was not his position. Our third bad break: Mapp's injury two years before. If he had not been injured he would have been a junior point guard in the starting lineup instead of trying to go big with JC Mathis. We struggled all year without a floor leader, ending up in the NIT again.
But those were just "bad breaks". At present, it is clear that Pete does not have the attention or respect of his team. There is no way, NO WAY this team should lose at home by 40+ points. I watched a replay of the 94 team recently. While only marginally more talented, they show hustle, toughness, and defense that are at least three levels higher than this year's team.
That would have been a lot harder to say two years ago, even though it was true. But by now it is obvious to the most casual observer.
And that is the reason Pete will be gone at the end of the year. The loss at home to Miami caused even his die hard defenders to accept the inevitable. Only winning out, possibly even through the ACC tournament would save his job now, and that's simply not going to happen.
