"Abandon every hope, ye who enter here." That inscription, compliments of Dante's Inferno, should be inscribed above every entrance to University Hall.
In recent years, the life of a Virginia basketball fan has become a tortured existence. The spring before I entered as a first year, the Cavaliers earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament. You read that right -- Virginia was in March Madness itself, not just the NIT. A first-round upset loss that year seemed irrelevant. After all, coach Pete Gillen had this program moving forward and had even brought in a talented freshman. Early that following season, Virginia ascended to No. 4 in the country before a horrific late season collapse, epitomized by blowing a nine-point lead in the last 3:22 of a home game against Maryland.
Now, four years later, the program has yet to recover. Wahoo Nation has yet to return to the Tournament, has witnessed six players transfer elsewhere and has suffered through a 20-36 ACC record.
A 1-7 mark in this year's conference standings and a defeat at the hands of archrival Virginia Tech is humbling enough, but Saturday's loss to North Carolina was an utter embarrassment. It was sufficiently humiliating to the players that it prompted this admission from Gary Forbes: "I've never lost like that in my life, not even in a video game."
Virginia fans have tried to accept mediocrity, but even that seems too much to hope for anymore. I won't even blame fair weather fans for abandoning this team. There's been decidedly little fair weather of late. Sure, there have been flashes of brilliance -- last year's season-ending run and this year's upset of Arizona -- but the play of Virginia basketball has greatly resembled the weather the past two days here in Charlottesville. Through the window you see sunshine and hope for a nice day, but then you step outside and realize it's still quite cold.
Our hopes as fans keep getting crushed. Derrick Byars was supposed to be the slashing, scoring threat we needed, but he fizzled quickly and has since transferred. Then it was the highly-touted Gary Forbes who has settled in nicely as a serviceable bench player but is far from the star we hoped he'd become. Now I worry that Sean Singletary will be sucked in too.
In my four years, I have yet to see significant improvement from any player. Talent development has been entirely stagnant. It might be easy to look at Elton Brown's numbers from first year (7.6 points per game) and compare them to this year's numbers (15.2 ppg) and see a marked increase. But when you consider that he has also increased his minutes per game from 14.6 to 31.9, it's not such a dramatic change. His points per minute of playing time have actually decreased. It's not hard to score more when you play more. That's an especially discouraging statistic when you consider that Brown has become one of the focal points of this offense. But, to Brown's credit, at least he's the only member of his four-player class to still be on the active roster.
This is Gillen's seventh year at the helm of the Virginia basketball program. The Cavaliers have had just one 20-win season and only two winning seasons in league play. I know that the ACC is the toughest conference in all of college hoops. I know that traditional powers Duke, UNC, Wake Forest and Maryland all reside in our conference. I know that competing with those programs is a challenge.
But I also know this is an athletic department whose mission statement pledges a commitment to building "nationally competitive and successful teams" and "developing students with strong values of leadership, sportsmanship, equity, citizenship, physical fitness, teamwork, and a commitment to excellence." These are qualities that have been sorely lacking in U-Hall the last few years. Athletic Director Craig Littlepage at least seems to recognize his responsibility to uphold those promised standards, especially after having burdened the University's donor base for the funds to erect a $130 million arena.
"I think there's been a general desire to make sure that when we move into the new arena that we are on an upswing," Littlepage said. "I think it would not be a stretch to say that we haven't gotten to the point where we want to be, and it's part of my job to make sure that we are poised and on an upward movement going into the new arena."
This program needs a change to attain that upward swing. I opposed the masses at the end of last season, believing that Virginia's late season run warranted another chance for Gillen. Sparing a remarkable second half turnaround, Virginia basketball ought to begin thinking about finding a new coach. I know that it will be expensive to buy out the remainder of Gillen's onerous contract, but that cost is minor when compared to the major investment of the new arena.
I still don't believe making a change in-season does anyone any good. I'm not sure any of our assistant coaches are up to the challenge of serving as interim head coach, and Littlepage should take ample time to evaluate all possible candidates at the end of the season.
The athletic department has touted that the University's beautiful new arena will be the best in college basketball. But if the attraction of No. 3 North Carolina wasn't enough for Cavalier fans to sell out the 8,457-seat U-Hall, we'll need a much better on-court product to excite the fan base and fill the expanse of the 15,000-seat John Paul Jones Arena.
"We will be there," Littlepage said. "I guarantee that. That's part of my job."
It's a bold, yet necessary, promise from the athletic director. Virginia fans will need to hold him to it.
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