University of Virginia Library

IV. AGONY

The call is for 9:30, and we make our way into the dining
room in time to indulge in another Quality Court breakfast.

Doughty and I join Andrew (not Andy ... Andrew) Boninti
and his roommate for this trip (the players alternate roommates
on road trip), Al Drummond,at a table for four.

I read aloud the pre-game article in the morning's St. Louis
Globe-Democrat, including a line about Virginia's "powerful
offense."

"Powerful?" Boninti jokes. "We don't know what we're doing
out there."

***

The team meeting in 251 has been moved up to 11:15 because
Gibson and Conner have to be at the tournament luncheon at 12.

Gibson begins the meeting by describing the 48-inch sandwich
he saw – and ordered – downtown last night. "It's the most
amazing thing you've ever seen."

Then Conner takes over, diagramming plays on the board and
talking about them. Gibson's comments are shorter – a brief

review of the game strategy and the plans for a victory party
afterward being chief among them.

"I guess we'll leave for the Arena around 7:20." Hobbo speaks
up. "Coach, I don't know about the other guys, but I'd rather go
earlier and watch the (consolation) game than sit around the
motel and wait."

Gibson concedes. "All right. 7:10." He then concludes by
saying, "A win here can help us a great deal. What's the slogan for
the trip?"

A few reply, "Win two for 72."

"What is it?"

Louder. "Win two for 72."

The players have been invited to the tournament luncheon, as
have all the teams, but none of them goes. None of them really
wants to. Gibson will explain to the to the tournament hosts that
"the team has a set routine the day of a game which can't be
altered." No one has been impressed by the way the tournament
has been run, and the only desire anyone really has is to win it
and then get the hell out of St. Louis.

It turns out that Virginia is the only team that doesn't show up.

It was the height of aloofness – and it was beautiful.

***

The afternoon passes much as did Wednesday. A few players
drive down to the Arch, but are back early to rest. The team meal
is at 4:30, and, after that, more time to kill.

The rest of us go downstairs to eat at about 5:30.

ACC referee Curtis Prins enters the dining room soon after,
and Sebo invites him to his and Doughty's table.

Boninti Gerard: Teaching Card Tricks To The Young

Prins pauses, then accepts, mumbling something, "If they
don't trust me by now..."

Wilheim shows us the gift each player has been given as a
remembrance of the tournament. Instead of a watch, which is
pretty much a standard gift at such tournaments, it's a small
medallion on a square block of wood.

Mrs. Gibson thinks its function might be as a coaster to put
under chair legs.

Conner thinks it should be taken up to the top of the Gateway
Arch and thrown across the Mississippi.

Hobgood has already shot his into a basket. A waste basket,
that is.

***

The woman Bill Gibson spends most of his off-court time with
is a rather attractive brunette, maybe in her early forties and
friendly as can be.

She sits alone in a row of seats near the portal which leads to
the locker rooms, watching Georgetown defeat Army for third
prize.

While we await the start of the big game, she provides me with
a deeper insight into the Hoot's character, particularly the strength
of his determination to succeed at Virginia. She recalls a time
several years ago when Gibson was offered the head coaching job
at N.C. State, but turned it down because he hadn't yet done
what he had set out to do with the Virginia program.

"I never questioned Bill's coaching ability. I knew he should
stay at Virginia, and time has proven me right."

What is it like being married to a basketball coach?

"It's hard to say. I've never known anything else. Bill and I are
great equalizers," she states, explaining how she keeps herself
busy as an anesthetist at University Hospital, so when her
husband's energy is spent at the end of the day, hers is too.

Does it bother her when fans used to verbally crucify Gibson?

"Bill always told me that people who pay their money to
come to a game have the right to say whatever they want." Then,
pointing to their daughter, Jane, a senior at Lane High who is
U.Va. all the way tonight with her orange fingernail polish, she
adds, "You should see what this child goes through at school. Bill
told us to never answer back, to be ladies at all times. We have,
and it's paid off."

At the end of our forty-five minute conversation, I tell Pat
Gibson that I'm confident the team will beat St. Louis.

"We'd better," she says smilingly, "or I won't go home with
the coach."

***

The tip off is a few minutes before nine, and the Billikens (a
cross between an imp and leprechaun) jump out to an early lead.
A burst of momentum by the Cavs to end the half, and it's all
tied up.

The second half has St. Louis in front most of the way,
especially late, when it counts. Another Cavalier comeback seems
to be in the making, but time is running out. A Virginia field goal
with seven seconds remaining trims the margin to one. Hobbo and
others frantically signal for time out, but the clock keeps ticking.
Finally, it is stopped with one second to go. After a desperation
Virginia huddle, St. Louis passes in-bounds, Hobbo intercepts and
shoots.

Swish.

Only the buzzer has already sounded.

***

The locker room is silent, with most of the players sitting on
the benches, looking thoroughly dejected and wondering where
five of the last six seconds of the game went.

For this, they sacrificed Christmas.

Someone wants Barry to go accept a trophy, and he does.

Gibson emerges from the locker room gloom to face the press
waiting outside the door, a ritual that is sometimes fun,
sometimes infuriating. Tonight it's just difficult.

"You're playing away from home. You can figure on losing a
couple (of seconds), but you shouldn't lose seven (a liberal
estimate)," he says, characteristically hiding any anger he may
be feeling.

"It's a tough way to lose, men. A tough way to lose. The way
the game ended up is about how close we are to putting the
whole thing together. We're just a hair away," he explains,
speaking slowly as the question-and-answer drags on and on,
often with lengthy silence between questions.

Gibson is asked how the team is taking the loss. "It doesn't
feel good. Like the coach, it doesn't feel good." He pauses, then
adds, with a degree of pride and confidence, "Those kids won't
let you down."

Inside, the players dress slowly.

I walk around the locker room, ill-at-ease, struggling to find an
appropriate word of consolation. Realizing there isn't one, I
finally sigh, to no one in particular, "What can you say?"

Boninti, nearby, sums it up. "It just ruins the whole trip, that's
all."

***

Most of the players gather at the foot of the empty stands by
the locker room portal in the half-lit auditorium, waiting to be
driven back to the motel.

Hobbo and the ever-effervescent Steve Sebo – the only one
there who isn't looking as if he'd just lost his best friend – discuss
the game's controversial ending, with Hobbo mildly perturbed that
something wasn't done to restore the lost seconds to the clock.

Curtis Prins, the game's ACC official, walks up drinking a
coke. "Bad ref, huh?" he says, gently mocking Hobbo. He goes on
to explain how he cannot put seconds back on the clock unless he
knows for a fact that the clock has been running when it isn't
supposed to be, and there was no way he could have known this
since the scoreboard at the Arena hangs directly above the court,
and is "the last place I would have looked" given the impossible
angle.

Sebo suggests that the only solution to this recurring problem
is to have an official timekeeper assigned to each game, in the
same way refs are.

Prins agrees with him. "I'd love it, Steve."

As for tonight, well, Chris Cramer mouths the sentiments of a
lot of people when, driving back to the motel, he concludes,
"Whoever wrote Meet Me In St. Louis was full of shit."