Virginia: Raising a Glass to the Outgoing Fourth Years

The Virginia basketball brand has become nationally significant again over the last half decade, emblematic of hard work, effort, and efficiency on both ends of the court. We’ve won at least 20 games for five straight seasons and at least 29 for the last three, making four NCAA appearances in five seasons after a rough stretch where we finished .500 or worse in four of the seven seasons before that and made just two brief forays into the NCAA Tournament between 2001 and 2011.

This team has lived in the top-10 over the last two seasons after having appearances there feel like holidays over the previous decade. It’s become easy to take it for granted now that expectations are higher, and that’s fine, but it’s important to appreciate the ascent to consistent excellence before getting bored with it.

Tony Bennett’s rebuild of Virginia has seen two phases so far: the build, where the five pillars of his philosophy were installed (led by Jontel Evans, who played all four years of his career under CTB and exemplified the endless effort but limited talent of those early teams) and the ascension, where the young men who graduate this May join Joe Harris, Akil Mitchell, Darion Atkins, and Justin Anderson (and London Perrantes, who they leave behind) as the principal architects of something special. If and when Kyle Guy, Austin Nichols or those who come after them make a run at phase three — planting a V-Sabre flag in the summit — the aforementioned players will be remembered as the ones who laid the groundwork to get them there.

Over their tenure, this group — Malcolm Brogdon, Anthony Gill, Evan Nolte, Mike Tobey, and Caid Kirven — has seen four NCAA Tournament appearances (including a Sweet Sixteen and our first Elite Eight since 1995), an ACC Tournament championship (and two appearances in the championship game), two ACC regular season titles, and 134 wins (this is giving all of them credit for all five of Malcolm’s seasons). They’ve made individual challenges to the record books and each impressed in their own way: Malcolm is ninth all-time at Virginia in scoring and free throws made, and seventh in three-pointers made. Gill — in three seasons — is 33rd in points, and Mike Tobey is ninth all-time in blocks. Malcolm was a first-team AP All American and ACC Player and Defensive Player of the Year this season and leaves Virginia in the discussion among the best players to ever put on the uniform. Caid played in 43 games but never appeared in a loss, and for the haters, Evan shot 38% on threes (19-50) in his career in the month of March when the stakes were highest.

Tossing aside the numbers, these guys made Virginia basketball fun to root for again. I always throw a fair amount of myself into rooting for this program, but there have been a lot of players over the last 20 years who were either not good at basketball or not good guys, and this particular class comported themselves with pride and humility on and off the floor and were almost always fun to be a fan of. They were the total package, and I always thought they had a chance, regardless of the situation, opponent, or environment.  I spend a lot of time watching, reading about, and writing about this program, and not once — not even then — was I embarrassed to be a fan of these young men. That’s saying something, given that even the best of college kids — even your humble narrator once played catch with a juice glass on a sand volleyball court and hid from policemen on horseback under a random person’s front porch in Ocean City, Maryland — can show questionable judgement. This class was tight-knit, funny, and showed the kind of camaraderie that made me really miss playing team sports.

They’ve given me some lifelong memories. I was lucky enough to be working for someone working for the ACC at the 2014 ACC Tournament and was doubly lucky that my boss acknowledged how important that championship game was to me, took over my post as time ran out, and let me out onto the floor to take in the celebration. I won’t soon forget standing 10 feet from the team while they were handed the trophy and cut down the nets, or the big hug I shared with Ted Jeffries, who I had talked to a handful of times during the week.

When my son was not even two during the summer of ’14, he’d ask to watch basketball with me, unaware that it was out of season. My go-to was the ACC Tourney final, and we probably watched it — cheering for Virginia — 10 times that summer. He attended games regularly during 2014-2015, and he made it all the way through the Senior Day win over Virginia Tech (having a blast the whole way).

This era of Virginia hoops helped me keep in touch with one of my best friends. Adulthood makes friendships tough to maintain from a distance, but reactionary texts with Will about hoops proceeded to take left turns into life, fatherhood, and pretty much everything. Chest-bumping him into the aisle after (I think) that big London Perrantes three in the ACC regular season title-winning win over Syracuse in 2014 will be a joke of ours forever.

The players: 

Malcolm Brogdon has been playing basketball at Virginia since before my wife was pregnant with our son, which feels like an eternity. He’s been so steady and so consistent for so long that it’s hard to imagine Virginia basketball without him. There’s this sanctified example of what a student-athlete should be, and Malcolm is the living and breathing embodiment of it: he’s immensely gifted in the classroom and on the court, smart, ambitious, and humble, and respects the game, his teammates, and his opponents.

He burst onto the scene as our sixth man as a freshman, giving us glimpses of his potential (16 points and five boards against Michigan, 14 points and lockdown defense on Terrell Stoglin against Maryland) before being shut down with a foot injury. The injury would wipe out his entire 2012-2013 season, but he used it to develop his upper body and his jump shot, and things were on when he returned. It’s hard to put together a list of five memorable performances like I did for Joe or Akil — after all, he was remarkably consistent, scoring in double figures in 92 of 108 games over his last three seasons — but here ‘goes:

1.) February 18th, 2012: Virginia 71, Maryland 44.
Terrell Stoglin was tearing up the ACC as a waterbug type, scoring almost 22 points per game. Malcolm took the assignment for much of the meaningful part of this one and helped hold Stoglin to 4-17 shooting (and an 0-8 mark on twos) and added 14 points on six shots in a dominant win. This would be his last meaningful outing of the season, as his foot would soon start acting up.

2.) February 2nd, 2014: Virginia 48, Pittsburgh 45.
16 of our 48 points and this:

3.) March 16th, 2014: Virginia 72, Duke 63
Akil made headlines for his defense on Jabari Parker and Joe Harris is lodged in peoples’ memories for that big late three, but Malc played workmanlike defense on Rodney Hood (4-12) and led us in scoring (23), powering us through a handful of dicey stretches with midrange jumpers and dives to the rim en route to our first ACC Championship in almost 30 years.

4.) March 13th, 2015: North Carolina 71, Virginia 67
We lost, but that’s incidental, as this was the first sighting of the Malcolm Brogdon that we saw with more frequency this year — the one with the will to put the team on his back. Brogdon scored 22 second half points, making eight straight baskets down the stretch to rally us to within a point.

5.) February 27th, 2016: Virginia 79, North Carolina 74
This was a showdown between Player of the Year finalists, and Malcolm (26 points) won it decisively, setting the tone early by scoring 17 of our first 29, amping the team and crowd to a level that wouldn’t let us lose.

Anthony Gill was a big get. Committing to us over Ohio State, he wowed me first by putting on a credible Mike Scott impression — handling the ball, popping jumpers, being mobile — at the 2012 scrimmage for season ticket holders. In the year between that scrimmage and his first appearance in a game, the coaching staff refined him, turning him from a big with perimeter tendencies to a guy who played as though drawn to the rim by a magnet. In his first year, he took almost as many free throws (153) as shot attempts (189), providing a bruising presence down low and an offensive alternative to Akil Mitchell on the front line. In three years at Virginia, he shot 70%, 70.8%, and 69.7% at the rim, averaged 8.6, 11.6, and 13.8 points per game, and grabbed 8.6%, 15.5%, and 10.6% of available offensive boards. All in all, he scored in double digits in 55 of 71 games over his last two seasons, providing a steady stream of effort around the rim.

My favorite thing about AG was his spirit. His sense of humor and ceaseless positivity gave this team a jolt of nonconformity and energy that it needed sometimes when the monotone steadiness of the coach and best player got to be too much. Here are five AG performances to remember:

1.) November 29th, 2013: Virginia 76, SMU 73
The first sighting of AG, the unstoppable force: he scored 12 of his 19 points in a brief second half stretch, serving as one of our only reliable sources of offense in a narrow win over a good SMU team in Corpus Christi.

2.) March 16th, 2014: Virginia 72, Duke 63
AG was too much for Duke around the rim in the ACC Tourney final, grabbing three offensive rebounds and attempting 17 free throws. His line (12 points, seven rebounds, 1-6 from the floor, 10-17 from the line) wasn’t awesome, but his effort and intensity were a big part in our controlling the interior and getting to cut down the nets.

3.) December 30th, 2014: Virginia 83, Davidson 72
Davidson gave us a fight (they lead 36-31 at the half), but AG (25 points, 13 boards) ended up being way too much for the Wildcats’ overmatched interior. I feel like either this game or the next one on the list saw the widest selection of his offensive repertoire.

4.) December 8th, 2015: Virginia 70, West Virginia 54
20 points, 12 boards, and a handful of monster dunks in a dominant run that put away a good West Virginia team in Madison Square Garden. He was just too fast, too quick, too strong, and too good for the Mountaineer defenders.

5.) December 19th, 2015: Virginia 86, Villanova 75
22 points on nine shots and seven rebounds (three offensive) in a great win over the eventual national champs. Daniel Ochefu didn’t want any.

Mike Tobey had it tough. Seven footers with his skills are rare birds, and every year, people eagerly anticipated his first appearance with the hope that this would be the season he “put it all together” and started crushing all comers. He never became Ralph Sampson (or even Jamal Sampson), but he did slowly and steadily improve over his four seasons and was better than his haters gave him credit for.

The issues standing between Mike Tobey and world domination were twofold: first, Mike Tobey is not mean. Some guys have a passion for competition raging inside of them. MT doesn’t. Second, Tobey is a lumbering (admit it) seven footer in a basketball landscape that is quickly trending toward smaller lineups full of perimeter players. He wasn’t so much a poor defender as he was unplayable physically against schedules full of 6’8” forwards with decent handles and passable three point shots. Despite all this, he gave us a lot: he blocked five percent of opposing shots for his career, grabbed 21.6% and then 23.2% of defensive rebounds after Akil Mitchell graduated and left him some to grab, and despite an infuriating habit of bringing the ball down around the basket, he shot over 62% at the goal in three of his four seasons, capped off by a 75% mark this past season. Let’s not be mistaken: I know Tobey never fulfilled his potential, but I also think time will be kind to him as a key component of some very good teams.

1.) January 29th, 2013: Virginia 58, NC State 55
This was the NC State of C.J. Leslie and Richard Howell, and I remember this being one of the more physical games that I can remember seeing at JPJ. Tobey played 20 minutes and hung steady, scoring 13 points, grabbing seven boards, and hanging with the bigger, stronger Wolfpack.

2.) March 1st, 2014: Virginia 75, Syracuse 56
11 points and eight rebounds (five offensive) in the win that secured the ACC regular season.

3.) December 21st, 2014: Virginia 76, Harvard 27
I thought he was going to score 50 in this one. Tobey scored all 15 of his points in the first half and ended the game with 10 boards as well, finishing with a double double in a ridiculous rout of a Harvard team that most expected to at least be competitive.

4.) March 5th, 2016: Virginia 68, Louisville 46
The game of his life: MT scored 15 and added 20 (!!!) rebounds in a Senior Day demolition of Louisville in front of an ecstatic crowd. It was straight out of Disney’s made-for-TV production studio.

5.) March 25th, 2016: Virginia 84, Iowa State 71
A career-high 18 points and seven boards (four offensive) in the last win of the era. Tobey carved up Iowa State’s bigs in just 20 minutes on the court.

After Evan started his Virginia career by making 42% of his first 90 three point tries, I thought he was going to go down in Cavalier lore as the next great bomber. Circumstance changed his plans — Malcolm’s return from injury and Justin’s maturation into a Transformer dented his minutes, and he never found his rhythm again — and he’ll end up most memorable for me as a consummate teammate: always positive, always ready, and always sound. His shooting fell off a cliff after that start — he shot 54 of 180 over his last three-plus seasons (29.3%) — but he made his mark instead as someone who knew the offense and defense cold, made the extra pass, and found ways to contribute. He had a knack for popping up in March after being left for dead by the fanbase: he scored 14 points in the first two games of the 2014 NCAAs after scoring nine total in his previous eight appearances, he hit three threes against FSU in the 2015 ACC Tournament, and he made half of his 14 three point tries in March of 2016.

1.) January 6th, 2012: Virginia 61, UNC 52
We were tied at 40 when the freshman Nolte drained consecutive threes to give us a lead (46-40) that we wouldn’t relinquish.

2.) November 29, 2013: Virginia 76, SMU 73
Evan hit 3-3 threes (including a big one to more than double our lead with just over a minute left) and scored 11 points.

3.) March 21st, 2014: Virginia 70, Coastal Carolina 59
Evan had played just six minutes in the ACC Tournament and hadn’t made more than one basket in a month a half, so his eight points on 3-4 shooting were a welcome spark in what was an otherwise lackadaisical NCAA Tournament win.

4.) March 12, 2015: Virginia 58, FSU 44
Evan made three of four threes and scored 11 points, the last time he’d go for double digits in a Virginia uniform. It was the best game of his revival as Justin Anderson’s stand-in.

5.) February 3rd, 2016: Virginia 61, Boston College 47
And the crowd goes wild…

I don’t know much about Caid Kirven beyond him living on The Lawn, being an excellent student, and lasting four years as a walk-on, which doesn’t seem to happen all that often in the college hoops landscape. Kirven held down the post for the Green Machine for four years, inspired a fan club, and appeared beloved by his coaches and teammates. That’s good enough for me. In addition — perhaps speaking to our success over this period — Kirven appeared in 43 games over four season, and didn’t once appear in a loss. That’s right: Caid Kirven’s career record was 43-0. Maybe he should have played more.

I’ll let Tony Bennett take it from here (from the Daily Progress):

“He just has a great voice, this goodness about him,” Bennett said. “He enjoys life. He’s kind of fun-loving and just so likable. He works so hard. He will do whatever you ask him to make the team better. He’ll stand down or he’ll do tough things — banging our guys around. He’ll play defense for two straight hours and never take one shot. If it helps the team, he’ll do it. And he’s always encouraging.”

Brogdon said Kirven embodies “servanthood,” one of the pillars of the program.

“He never asks for anything,” Brogdon said. “He just comes in and works.

“Usually, he defends the bigs in post-move drills, but then when the guards practice their finishing at the other end, Caid runs down to the other end of the court and puts on the gloves that makes his arms longer and he jumps and just tries to block every shot. Then he goes and plays offense against us.”