My Virginia Cavaliers are Final Four-bound — and this time history feels so good
Susan Miller USA TODAY
Published 7:38 AM EDT Apr 1, 2019
This is the column I was going to write last year. This is the column I never had a chance to write last year.
My alma mater, the University of Virginia, is going to the Final Four for the first time in 35 years after a thrilling OT win in the Elite Eight against Purdue’s hardy Boilermakers. UVA was finally able to shake off a loss 12 months earlier to the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, a devastating defeat that carried a wrenching, ugly asterisk: The first time in history a No. 1 seed has gone down to a No. 16.
Redemption sure can feel sweet.
I attended UVA in the early 1980s. In the pre-George Welsh era, football was so miserable that we raised our Wahoo cups to first downs, whooped it up with the pep band at halftime and reassured ourselves that postgame Lawn parties were even better after a loss.
Basketball, though, was our happy place as the heroics of Jeff Lamp, Jeff Jones, Ricky Stokes and others thundered through University Hall. It was made even more riveting by the arrival of Ralph Sampson, our 7-foot-4 center who showed what a dominating force in the ACC could be.
Sampson was a rock star on campus, constantly trailed by TV cameras and journalists. He made the cover of Sports Illustrated multiple times. It seemed like some network correspondent was always on our doorstep.
For the students, our Ralph was an approachable and kind soul. I sat next to Sampson in a class called Linear Programming, and my No. 1 recollection to this day has nothing to do with math: It was all about the gentle giant who lent me a pencil or offered a friendly smile.
Sampson took Virginia to great heights through his time at UVA, even though we never got that national championship.
The Sampson-era Cavaliers had their own UMBC moment in 1982 when the Chaminade Silverswords of Honololu knocked off top-ranked Virginia in a game that would be painfully labeled for decades “college basketball’s biggest upset.”
Through the years, UVA sports has had many turns in the sun from soccer to lacrosse to baseball and beyond. Even football found winning ways, with UVA earning 20 bowl bids. (For three glorious, pinch-me weeks in 1990 our football team was ranked No. 1 in the country.)
For many alums, though, men’s hoops remains our sweet spot. We revel in the more than 20 NCAA tournament appearances, the nine ACC championships, 10 Sweet 16s, seven Elite Eights.
Yet the Final Four? UVA made it just twice before Saturday — and the last time that happened shoulder pads were big, a gallon of gas was about $1, Ronald Reagan was in the White House, “Cheers” was king.
Coach Tony Bennett for the past 10 years has built a steady powerhouse at Virginia with his class-act coaching, attention to team goals and the suffocating pack-line defense. We watched a program, often called “boring,” that turned midlevel recruits into ACC stars and catapulted some, such as Justin Anderson, Joe Harris and Malcolm Brogdon, into the NBA.
But even though Bennett is beloved, our hoops hopes have been punctured by the likes of Syracuse, Michigan State — and UMBC.
A year ago I did write a column — one about the exhilaration and agony that can be sports — when my Washington Capitals were on the cusp of a Stanley Cup in June. In the column, I referenced my heartbreak when UVA lost in the first round to UMBC. My editor added this: “the first time that has ever happened.”
It was three months later, and I still felt the sting of those seven words.
When UVA got off to a discombobulated start in the first half of our first-round game against No. 16 Gardner-Webb a week ago, the ghosts in the paint of Chaminade and UMBC bounced in every alum’s head.
It was not meant to be. Virginia stormed back for a victory, then vanquished Oklahoma, survived a late night with Oregon.
And then came Saturday night over Purdue.
Yes, we yearn for a national championship. But for now Wahoos everywhere are in hoops heaven. We made history again — a magical, delicious kind of history this time.
Follow USA TODAY's Susan Miller on Twitter @susmiller.
Published 7:38 AM EDT Apr 1, 2019
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