The Cavalier daily :: Friday, January 5, 1973 :: University of Virginia Library

At 11:30 the team players and coaches converge on Room
251, which is set up with rows of chairs and a blackboard, for the
team meeting. Usually this event is closed to the press for obvious
reasons, but Gibson makes an exception in our case.

He greets his pupils tongue-in-cheek. "Glad to see none of you
got into trouble last night. The police didn't call me."

Then it's down to business, namely the Georgetown scouting
report, of which each player has a copy.

Gibson asks each of the starting five – Drummond, Walker,
Gerard, Parkhill, Hobgood – how he's going to play his man, and
the first four give similar replies – box him out, keeping the ball
away from the inside where Georgetown's strength lies.

When Gibson gets to Hobbo, who is matched against the Hoyas'
6' - 6", 230 lb. Greg Brooks, he takes a deep breath. "Hobbo, you
got a problem. How're you going to handle this guy?"

The senior forward smiles sheepishly. "Intimidate him with
my strength."

A short laugh, a straight answer, a few comments from
Conner, and a couple of diagrams on the blackboard.

Gibson brings the session to a close. "When you win you have
fun. That's the idea, to have fun – only there are a few
roadblocks. You have fun by causing turnovers. To me a turnover
is the prettiest sight."

He stops, then proceeds in firmer, though still fatherly,
fashion.

"We haven't put it together as yet, but we're getting closer and
closer all the time. The talent's here – right in this room. It's just
a case of blending it together. Remember, team first, individual
second. I consider you the favorites in the tournament, but no
one's going to lay down and play dead for you. You have all day
to prepare yourselves, each in your own particular way, so take
advantage of the time."

He pauses, then asks the team what they thought of last
night's dinner at Musial's. The opinion is unanimous.

"You travel first class; you eat first class, but you also have to
play first class. Or do you want it second or third class? It is up to
you. Personally, I prefer first. You know what fourth class is?
That's riding freight cars."

It's also eating lunch at Burger Chef. Which is what
Georgetown did.

***

The half-hour meeting concluded, everyone goes his different
way. Some of the players return to their rooms to rest, others
walk the short distance to the St. Louis Zoo. Gibson takes a short
tour of the city, then returns to his room to relax and further
contemplate the game plan. Conner lights out for a high school
tournament across the river in Illinois to have a look at a couple
of prospects. Mrs. Gibson has already headed downtown with
Cramer and Sebo to explore the stores of St. Louis.

At 2:30 the team assembles in the motel dining room for its
pre-game meal – ten ounce rib-eye steak, baked potato,
green peas, and tea (usually on the road Gibson lets the team
order whatever they want at this meal, but the culinary impostors
in the kitchen here insist it be pre-ordered.)

By 3, the players are upstairs again, sleeping, watching TV,
relaxing, preparing. The only sign of activity is a brief piggy-back
ride given Bob McKeag by Stevie Morris.

With the opposition beginning to loom larger than statistics
would indicate, the tension begins to build. It is a time of waiting
– in the Hooter's opinion, the most difficult time of all.

The game is scheduled for 7. The tournament officials (if such
beings exist at all) have neither shown their faces nor shown the
teams any way to get to The Arena besides on foot.

At 5:30, we all meet in the motel office as Chip Conner's
rented car is used to transport players to the arena in shifts.

Conner's recruiting trip to Illinois has been fruitless, it turns
out. As Gibson explains, "The guy who can play, we can't take;
the guy who can't play, we can take." That's "The Virginia Way"
for you.

Sebo, Pinella, Doughty, and I decide to walk the three blocks.
En route, Sebo points out some of the problems inherent in
holiday tournaments, most notably the increasing difficulty in
getting people to come to them, particularly with so many
football bowl games springing up on television between Christmas
and New Year's.

Nevertheless, the eternally optimistic former Athletic Director
foresees the day when Virginia will host its own holiday
tournament. This is something not even Gibson can foresee,
Charlottesville not being in a position on the map to draw enough
of a crowd to make it feasible. After all, you need a centrally
located city large enough to attract a crowd of at least respectable
size. A city like St. Louis, right?

Sebo, who talks to just about everybody he sees, from janitors
to general managers, asks an Arena parking attendant how large a
throng is expected tonight?

"18,000" comes the sarcastic reply.

Undeterred, Sebo pursues the subject. "What? About 3,000?"

"3,000?" the man said. "We'll be lucky if there are 300."

For a while it looks as if he may be right. Twenty-five minutes
before game time there are a grand total of 131 people in the vast
sports palace. By the time St. Louis tips off against Army at 9,
though, it will have swelled to about 3,000.

Or about one quarter of what the attendance will be the
following night for the first round of the hockey part of the
tournament.

***

Hold it a minute. What's this about hockey?

Well, now's as good a time as any, I suppose.

You see, it's a combination tournament – basketball
Wednesday and Friday, hockey Thursday and Saturday. Fair
enough, on the surface. Only St. Louis we have learned by now is
a hockey city, and next year it's going to be an all-hockey
tournament. So we on the b-ball side of the tourney feel like
second-class citizens, unwelcome in the city we're invited to, left
to fend totally for ourselves, wondering whether, in fact, anyone
is running this tournament or not.

***

The victory over Georgetown is sealed early, although Gibson
says later he couldn't rest comfortably until the final two
minutes. Actually the evening's drama (or closest thing to it)
takes place just off the court before the game when Chris Cramer
discovers he has brought the wrong microphone from
Charlottesville, and there is some doubt as to whether he can
borrow one from a St. Louis station in time for his broadcast. (He
does.)

***

Gibson and Conner station themselves with pencil and paper in
some corner seats to watch and study Army and (especially) St.
Louis, while the players gather in a section of seats behind the St.
Louis basket.

It's a sloppy first half with the Cadets earning more than a few
jibes from the Cavaliers. Parkhill is particularly merciless in his
comments, all of which are justified by the action on the court.
"Look at that Army defense. Impenetrable. They've gotten
more rebounds off the floor than they've gotten out of the air."

Hobbo elaborates. "The military academies always play scrappy
hall, slapping you on the wrist, running into you, and all. They
know the game functionally. They just don't have the material."

The players leave at the half, as Barney Cooke drives them
back to the motel, from where some of them depart for

(Continued on page 3)