In writing last week, I was not quite sold on DePaul coach Dave Leitao to replace departed Pete Gillen. Perhaps my interest still lay with Marc Iavaroni, perhaps I was still holding off the pipe dream of Tubby Smith. Whatever the case, I had scratched the surface of Leitao but not really looked in depth at the likely next coach.
Over the last week, however, I delved into Dave Leitao, reading as much as I could about him. The more I read, the more impressed with Leitao I became.
With The Daily Progress reporting Tuesday that Tubby Smith had said "no," Leitao immediately moves atop Virginia's list.
ESPN's Andy Katz cited a source close to the DePaul staff who said Leitao was the top candidate and would accept if there was enough support for the program and the compensation was high enough. Perhaps it is time to learn how to pronounce it: LAY-Toe.
Given the wide array of inaccuracies in the press last week, I'm not quite sure I believe anything I hear. Last week, numerous outlets did incorrectly report South Carolina coach Dave Odom would take the job, and The Daily Progress erroneously reported that Leitao was in Charlottesville Thursday. Add that to rumors of a supposed stealth "big name" and nothing makes sense.
With all of these mystery "sources" saying conflicting things, either Athletic Director Craig Littlepage is a very confused man or there is far too much misinformation to guess reality.
As poorly conducted as this search has been and as much criticism as it has gotten nationally, if Virginia ends it with Leitao leading the program, it cannot be called a failure.
I am not saying that Leitao comes without question marks, but rather, that Virginia, a program that has only 15 NCAA tournament appearances in its century of existence, managed to attract one of the nation's up-and-coming coaches despite little success of late. If Littlepage hires Leitao, who would be the first African-American head coach at Virginia for any sport, it will be a fantastic hire on his merits.
As I've said in this space, Leitao has an impeccable pedigree. The fact that Hall of Fame Coach Jim Calhoun hired him not once but twice speaks volumes of Calhoun's opinion. He was the associate head coach when Connecticut won a national championship.
At DePaul, the 43-year-old immediately turned around a struggling program. This was a program that had a winning record just twice in the previous seven years. The two years before Leitao inherited the squad, DePaul won a combined 21 games. Leitao, however, won 16 his first year en route to the NIT and then 22 his second year, earning an NCAA bid.
Leitao may not have made the NCAA tournament this season, but he also saw his top incoming recruit go pro. He somehow convinced the nation's No. 10 recruit, Dorrell Wright, to commit to DePaul even though he was from California. Unfortunately for DePaul, Wright went pro and ended up being selected 19th overall. While a top-tier school like Duke can survive such defections, mid-majors like DePaul have significantly less margin for error.
Still, he has shown an amazing ability to recruit. His first class ranked in the top 25 in the nation as he snared top-100 players from Florida, Maryland and New York. Then came a class that still finished in the top 30 even with Wright not counting.
This year, Leitao went into Michigan and Texas to snare two of the nation's top-50 recruits. By comparison, Virginia has not gotten two top-50 players or three top-100 players since the fabled Mapp-Watson-Mason-Rogers class.
Let's remember that this was at DePaul, a Catholic University in the middle of Chicago with little tradition, no football and an off-campus arena.
Arm Leitao with the nation's most beautiful campus, the tradition and pageantry of the ACC and a state-of-the-art new arena, and it's almost scary to think what he may be able to do. I'd imagine recruiting will certainly pick up, even though the Cavaliers only have one scholarship available for 2006-2007.
What else can Leitao bring? Discipline, development and defense come to mind. In his first season at DePaul, he placed three players on the Conference Academic Honor Roll, the most in a decade. He put two on that list his second season, including the school's first College Sports Information Directors Association (CoSIDA) Academic All-District player in 12 years.
His players improved too at DePaul; I cannot recall one Virginia player getting noticeably better in his four years of coaching from Gillen. Leitao placed one player on C-USA first team and another on third team. Virginia has not had a first team All-ACC player since Bryant Stith in 1992 and did not have a single player on any team each of the last three seasons.
Leitao's teams also play defense, as his first team kept opponents under 65 points per game, something unheard of with old coach Pete Gillen.
No one is going to be upset if Virginia somehow were to land Tubby Smith, but I'm now convinced that Leitao will be a great fit in Charlottesville as well. I just hope Mr. Littlepage and Mr. Casteen are of the same opinion.
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