Is it just me, or is the "Fire Pete Gillen" bandwagon filling up rather quickly these days? Between the team's laughable 2-7 conference record, their spiraling RPI rating and diminishing post-season hopes, Saturday afternoon's crowd was not the only group calling for ol' Pete's job.
But believe it or not, firing the head coach is not the answer. Nowadays, when firing the coach is a remedy as common as Advil, this is an instance where the man at the top absolutely should not lose his job over his team's poor play.
What are the two primary weaknesses of this team? Almost anyone you talk to will agree -- rebounding and offensive confusion. Surprisingly enough, neither of them can be traced back to something Gillen has done wrong.
Rebounding the basketball is about desire, pure and simple. The team that wants the ball more is usually the team that ends up with it. That being said, Gillen is not on the court. He can preach all day long about boxing out, but during the game, the players must execute. Do not expect the rebounding numbers to improve any time soon. As the losses continue to mount, the desire to rebound is certain to disappear even further.
In addition, Virginia was supposed to have another large body in the middle. Gillen and his staff recruited big-man Nick Vander Laan to fill that hole in the middle. Never a great scorer, Vander Laan was someone who could be counted on to throw himself around and grab some boards. Unfortunately, his services were unavailable this season as he chose to transfer to D-2 Concordia prior to his senior campaign, another issue Gillen had absolutely no control over.
The team's second Achilles' heel is its offensive confusion. At times, Virginia looks like a group of players who met just prior to tip-off. Yet the problem is not the lack of an offensive scheme. The problem is that there is no one to implement such a scheme.
Senior Todd Billet is a terrific asset to the team, but as Gillen himself will admit, Billet is more suited to be a shooting guard at the collegiate level. Terrible knee (Majestic Mapp) and off-the-court problems (Keith Jenifer) have left Virginia minus a vital cog in their offensive machine. Gillen had no way of knowing that two of his top recruits would fail to pan out due to uncontrollable circumstances. Therefore, he should not be held responsible for such circumstances.
Still, there are those that say Virginia needs a change at the head coaching position (to reenergize the team) and fan support (to fill seats at the future John Paul Jones Arena). The problem with this idea is that coaches do not fill arenas. Winning teams fill arenas.
Recent history has shown us that coaching moves do not necessarily affect win-loss records in a positive manner. Look at the newest coach in the ACC. First-year Carolina head coach Roy Williams inherited possibly the most talented starting five in the country and has proceeded to go 4-4 in his first eight conference games.
On top of all else, an argument could be made for Gillen's firing if there was evidence that he had thrown in the towel. But as Gillen so commonly says in his post-game comments, "We kept swinging out there. They may have got us down, but we kept swinging."
True to his words, Gillen has lined up one of his strongest recruiting classes ever for next season. Filling voids at both the point guard and center positions, it is obvious that Gillen has no intentions of leaving Virginia with years left on his contract.
If an 86-65 record and post-season tourney births in four of his first five years are not enough, Pete Gillen should be allowed to stay because this season just was not his fault.
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