University of Virginia Library

Stuart Pape

The ACC Tournament

Virginia's basketball team may
not have won the ACC Basketball
Tournament officially, but the
team and the fans who cheered
them on came out as the real
winners anyway. The talk of the
town was not UNC or USC but
U.Va.

The tournament started with
two rancid games on Thursday
afternoon. The first pitted UNC
against a determined but talent-less
Clemson team. Boredom reigned
throughout the Greensboro
Coliseum with most attention
directed to the officiating, which
was to be a focal point throughout
the three days, and in the area of
the scalpers outside.

Lefty Driesell didn't let the fans
down a bit as his Maryland team
came out to play USC with their
jerseys switched. As a result, a
player who looked distinctly like
"Bozo" played under the alias of
Sparky Still. About the only people
who looked confused by this switch
were some of the sports writers
who were sitting right in front of
us, and Lefty, who departed shortly
after the loss, professing to have no
interest in the outcome of the
remaining games.

Thursday Best

Thursday night was the best
night of the tournament with an
unbelievably gutsy N.C. State team
beating Duke and then of course,
Virginia besting Wake Forest on
another Parkhill shot with only a
few seconds left. One got the
distance impression that next to
Parkhill, who amazed those who
had not seen him before with his
coolness under pressure, the crowd
was flabbergasted at the enthusiasm
shown by the Virginia fans who
made more noise at times than the
other 13,000 fans were capable of.

the first half of the
Virginia—UNC game on Friday was
to many of us, the epitome of
"Carolina" officiating. It was not so
much the calls that were made as
those that were ignored. We seemed
to be taking the brunt of this but
were certainly guilty ourselves. At
one point, Frank Dewitt almost
sent Bill Chamberlain through the
floor with a fantastic shove, but no
foul.

Officials Jumped

As fans are wont to do, we
immediately jumped on the
officials with a barrage of
comments, come quite humorous
and perfectly acceptable; others
made the "bullshit" chants in
University Hall seem quite polite.
Sitting just to our left was the
infamous Norvell Neve, who was
the Acting Commissioner of the
ACC until last week. He has a lot to
do with the officials who are hired,
so he too was blessed with some of
our choicest comments.

Norvell, as we soon came to call
him, became quite upset by our
behavior and soon informed a
nearby policeman that we deserved
more of his attention. Fortunately
nothing developed there. At half
time, many of the students from
Virginia went over to discuss the
matter of the officiating with
Norvell. His response, even if we
were grossly incorrect about the
officiating, was really bush. He
informed us that we were merely
playing lousy, that our team stank,
and that the fans were bush, a
bunch of rotten kids and so forth.
Vice-President Williams came over
from his seat to tender a comment
on the officiating and he too was
similarly rebutted.

Norvell seems to have a habit of
this type of response to criticism.
After the Georgia Tech game this
year, one Virginia student who has
a fairly good knowledge of
basketball, wrote a three page letter
to the then commissioner
expressing his displeasure with the
officials. (Remember, we beat
Georgia Tech.) This fan's letter was
long but the response set a record
for brevity. Written on the reverse
side of a photocopy of the last page
of the fan's letter was a cryptic
reply: "I was there, you know
nothing about basketball. If I were
you I wouldn't show this letter to
anyone." Enough about Norvell.

The final game in the semifinal
round saw "All-American" John
Roche go one for ten in the first
half. In the second half, he wasn't
much better, finishing up with four
for twenty-two. Whenever he
touched the ball in that half the
crowd yelled "shoot, shoot" in
unison. No love lost for big bad
John and Co.

Outside the Coliseum the action
was picking up. One couldn't walk
for more than a few steps without
being accosted by a person
interested in purchasing a ticket.
The Greensboro papers claimed
that tickets for the finals were
going at $50 apiece, but we never
received any offers that high.

Super Players

There are plenty of good or
super basketball players around,
many playing in the ACC, but few
with real class. Barry Parkhill has
class and lots of it. After the
Virginia loss to UNC on Friday,
Barry came out with the rest of the
team to sit and watch the remaining
game. The team seats were in the
front of the Virginia student
section and there were many
students using the team seats.
Several of us offered to get up
when Barry came over, but he
refused to accept the seats,
preferring to kneel down until we
insisted.

We could not have been more
impressed. In contrast, was the
co-winner of the MVP award, USC's
chief complainer, John Roche.
(How he won the MVP award
escaped us . . . in the last two games
he shot eleven for forty-two from
the floor!). Roche has this season,
kicked a player who had fallen
down, thrown a ball at another, and
never failed to complain after every
foul called against him. But,
nothing summed up the complete
obnoxiousness of the South
Carolina team and coach than to
see Roche and teammate Tom
Riker standing in the middle of the
floor after their victory in the final
game with their middle fingers
raised. No, this wasn't a reference
to their being the number one
team, but a none too subtle
message to the crowd. Yes, John
and the same to you.

Va. Size Drinks

There were lots of other fun
things about the three days . . . the
Virginia parties at the Hilton where
Virginia size drinks were served
(Scotch on the rocks was two cubes
and four inches of liquor!) . . . the
pure pleasure in having tickets for
all of the games while hundreds
searched frantically for tickets . . .
the opportunity in a sense, to
represent the University, which the
fans did admirably . . . and the fact
that we were away from classes for
two days.

It was an experience not to be
forgotten soon, at least not until we
win the tournament next year.