Pete Gillen needs a hug. And he needs one badly. Following Tuesday night's embarrassing loss at the hands of a 3-7 Clemson squad, Gillen was almost at a loss for words in his postgame press conference. His team is in a tailspin that likely won't stop in the near future, and you want to know what the worst part of it is? It's really not his fault.
Watching the Cavaliers for the past three games should give you an indication that every player seems to have his own agenda on the basketball court. Whether throwing lazy passes to the interior (pick your player) or working on an outside jumper for NBA scouts in attendance, the current version of Virginia basketball isn't a team, but a collection of players thrown out on the floor.
This is not to say that several players on the team don't care. That's not it at all. Sophomore guard Jermaine Harper leaves his all on the floor while Todd Billet has suffered bumps and bruises while going all out. And, after last night, he has the stitches in his forehead to prove it. Are their players on the team that don't care as much about the team as they should? Maybe, maybe not, but there is something wrong when you lose to a Clemson team at home that has only won one game on the road all season. The pieces of that puzzle just don't fit together.
Gillen has assembled a motley crew of players that seemingly don't fit well together -- in any combination. Gillen has thrown together a new starting lineup 14 different times this season. If you don't count the walk-ons that rarely play, he has just about run out of viable options to try and mold.
After the wins over Maryland and N.C. State only a week and a half ago, it appeared as though Gillen would be able to get by with the slow, not-as-athletic lineup that he was running out there. Strong defense and better perimeter shooting was going to be par for the course. So what happened? North Carolina's Matt Doherty exploited the Cavaliers' achilles heel. How do you attack Virginia dead on and shut them down quickly? Just ask Pete Gillen.
"People have been attacking our point guard since the North Carolina game," Gillen said. "Our normal point guard, Keith Jenifer, went out and shot himself in the foot. Other teams are attacking us with quickness and we are having a tough time dealing with it. We just have to come together and regroup."
Unfortunately for Gillen and his Cavaliers, it is probably too late. While the 6-foot Billet gives everything he has at the point guard position, he has a tough time getting the ball into the big men, causing several turnovers a game. Billet is a two-guard plain and simple, and the Cavaliers need his scoring badly. Tuesday night he shot 1-9 from the field, largely because he is not comfortable trying to score out of the point guard slot.
On the other side of the court, senior Ed Scott tore everybody up, scoring 32 points while leaving Pete Gillen's mouth watering for a point guard of the same makeup.
So what is left for the Cavaliers? They face a myriad of problems that the current players probably won't be able to fix. An admittedly unathletic Clemson team grabbed twenty offense rebounds Tuesday night. So what happens when Travis Watson departs next season? Uh-oh.
As it stands, the NCAA tournament is almost out of the question. If you can't beat Clemson on your home floor, fans shouldn't expect much else the rest of the season, which leaves Virginia out of the big dance for the fourth time in five years. Who knows if the Cavaliers will win one game in the postseason. They haven't done it in seven years. So who is the fall guy in all of this. That's right, it's unfortunately Gillen -- the guy that is so easy to cheer for. Yeah, this guy needs a hug.
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