Part 1: The Cavalier Curse
The first week of the NCAA basketball tournament is my favorite time of the year. I’ve always been addicted to the possibility of a Cinderella story and this year I found myself in a precarious position. I’d just watched the University of Virginia win the ACC tournament in Brooklyn and enjoy what was arguably the best regular season in the school’s history along with a number one ranking for the home stretch of the season.
I’d managed to resist the temptation of wishing for a Final Four appearance or even a championship for my alma mater for the entire season. As a Virginia fan, I knew better. My team’s modus operandi involved squeezing the life out of the opposition with a boa constrictor-like defense and a methodical offense predicated on screens and passing to drain the shot clock. Michigan, Kansas, and Villanova all had talented teams that could adjust their tempo--accelerating or de-accelerating--to match their opponent's style. We only had one gear and in a tournament that could be a liability. Those teams emerged as the first three of my Final Four teams. I then violated all of my rules of bracket selection and went with my heart--penciling Virginia into the championship position of my office pool. I even went as far as to wear a Virginia sweatshirt to work. I'm now convinced these behaviors helped disturb the universe.
On Tuesday of that week, I learned the Cavaliers would be without DeAndre Hunter, a redshirt freshman who had become an “X” factor for the team. Amidst a collection of players who fit Coach Tony Bennet’s system of defense and ball control, Hunter took games over with his athleticism. He single-handedly silenced 27,000 Syracuse fans in early February with a 15-point outburst that defined the margin of victory.
When I received the news of Hunter’s broken hand, I immediately thought of the Cavalier Curse. I served as an usher during seven-foot four center Ralph Sampson’s illustrious tenure at UVA and remembered in 1984 when guard Othell Wilson injured his foot, dashing all hope of a national championship that year. My namesake, Dean Smith tortured the Cavaliers as well back then--shortening games with his four corners offense. When I attended UVA, Coach Holland's dog shared my name. (How I was named and my basketball lineage will be the subject of another basketball post). I've learned to cultivate as much irony as possible in life.
Back to the curse. In 1990, the Virginia football team incurred a costly personnel infraction with their number one ranking on the line against Georgia Tech and had a touchdown nullified for too many men on the field. The touchdown would have allowed them to win by four points instead of losing by three. Also, one of their top receivers had fallen down a stairwell in a construction site the night before to end his career.
There had already been enough mishaps over the years. Surely, this year was going to be different.
Top seed Virginia faced the 16thseed UMBC in the first round. I cringed. The games makers were definitely messing with my mind.
Unlike most of the nation, I knew the University of Maryland Baltimore County Retrievers basketball program well. I’d been a ball boy along with my brother for its early basketball teams and had spent several hundred hours in its gym. My father Snuffy Smith was an assistant coach for the UMBC Retrievers in the late 1970s. He recruited scrappy local players that would earn the school their first ever appearance in an NCAA tournament. Dad coached under Billy Jones—the first African American player to start in the ACC for Maryland.
Division II basketball in Baltimore during those days was blood sport and neighborhood bragging rights were often at stake. The Baltimore area produced tremendous basketball talent and the rivalries and personalities were every bit as interesting as Lefty Driesell’s Terrapin squad in College Park. Marvin “The Human Eraser” Webster dominated for Morgan State, Brian “Gumby” Matthews played like NBA star Bobby Dandridge for Towson State and Ronald Smith roamed the middle for the University of Baltimore and often arrived at the gym in a long mink coat. Riding the team bus and sitting at the end of the bench, my brother and I were mesmerized by these characters.
This year’s UMBC team was coached by Ryan Odom, son of Dave Odom who coached at Virginia during my undergraduate days in Charlottesville. Leading Wake Forest to seven straight NCAA appearances, Dave was a cerebral tactician who undoubtedly had shared thoughts with his son about how to dismantle the top seed and number one ranked team in the tournament. Ryan's pedigree was enough to cause alarm.
Tied 21-21 at the half, UMBC spread the floor in the second and quickly established a 12-point lead. Unheralded point guard K.J. Maura penetrated the Virginia defense and dished to his teammates Joe Sherburne and Jarius Lyles. They hit their shots--each one stabbing the bull and dulling its senses. Panic set in on the Virginia sideline. For the first time in the history of the tournament, a number one seed lost to a sixteenth. Virginia had finished the season 31-2--but records meant nothing. Everybody in the big dance starts 0-0.
Writing in the Southern Reviewin 1991, John T. Irwin described a Cavalier as someone “equally adept at penning a witty sonnet or making a dashing cavalry charge.” Unfortunately, Virginia struggled with finding any kind of form let alone a sonnet against the Retrievers. They missed shots, defensive assignments, and failed to mount any kind of cavalry charge. UMBC obliterated Bennet’s impenetrable “pack-line” defensive fortress. The Retrievers trounced the Cavaliers by twenty points in the most embarrassing loss in tournament history.
"You guys and dad were on the ground floor of the program," my stepmother texted me.
It was bittersweet.
So much for the utility of being a soldier and a poet—only the University of Virginia could play its best season ever and suffer one of the worst losses in any sport. It may have been Thomas Jefferson who started the curse with this quote:
Games played with the ball and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind.
The Loyola Ramblers now fill the hole in my bracket. I did get my Cinderella story after all. To add even more irony, I played basketball for the Loyola Ramblers in high school outside Chicago.
Love your byline and your post. Bet you also post well on the baseline. Thanks from another aging hoopster.
Posted by: Catherine Woodard | April 02, 2018 at 04:59 PM