Defeat is an unavoidable part of life. Without defeat, there would be no such thing as victory. Without failure, there would be no such thing as success.
A little over a year ago, the Virginia Cavaliers men’s basketball team suffered the most humiliating defeat in the history of the NCAA tournament. After setting a record for most regular season victories in the ACC, the nation’s toughest conference, after winning that conference’s post-season tournament, UVa was the Number #1 overall seed in last year’s NCAA tournament. On March 16, 2018, they played a lowly #16 seed, little University of Maryland, Baltimore County. UMBC shocked the basketball world, humiliating the powerhouse Virginia squad by 20 points.
The aftermath was crushing for Virginia’s players and coach. Already the target of critics who disliked Virginia’s emphasis on defense rather than offense and team play rather than one-on-one heroics, the entire Virginia program was subjected to all the abuse that our new social media culture can bring to bear. There were death threats against the players. People called for Coach Tony Bennett to be fired. Broken-hearted college kids were hounded and ridiculed relentlessly on social media.
It didn’t end when a new season began. The Virginia players met “UMBC” banners wherever they played. Duke students started a GoFundMe to bring UMBC’s now-graduated point guard, who had given Virginia fits with his ball-handling and shooting skills, to sit on the front row at Cameron Indoor when Virginia visited conference rival Duke this year. At every press conference after every game, players and coaches were quizzed about the UMBC loss.
Virginia men’s basketball has had a history of heartbreak and near misses. They became my college basketball team when I was a law student there in 1976, and Wally Walker and Coach Terry Holland led perennial ACC doormat Virginia to victories over three teams ranked in the Top Ten, including UNC with Phil Ford, to win its first ACC tournament and championship. In the 1980s, Holland managed to recruit #1 prospect Ralph Sampson from nearby Harrisonburg, VA. Three-time Naismith Player of the Year Ralph and a strong supporting cast that included All-Americans and all-ACC standouts competed for three years with a UNC team that included Sam Perkins, Sam Worthy and some guy with #23 on his back. In Sampson’s freshman year, UVa won the NIT. His sophomore year, they reached the Final Four only to lose to UNC when Al Wood set an NCAA record with 39 points before the introduction of the 3-point shot. The NCAA run in Ralph’s sophomore year was cut short when star guard Othell Wilson was injured and out for the tournament.
The worst disappointment was 1983, Ralph’s senior year. Virginia had dominated their competition with a fast-break offense sparked by Sampson’s complete domination of the boards and superior ability to deliver outlet passes. The Wahoos defeated Duke and a young Mike Krzyzewski 109-66 in the opening round of the ACC tournament that year. In the finals of the ACC, UVa faced a North Carolina State team that was already in a win-or-go-home situation because their mediocre regular season was not worthy of an NCAA invite. The Wolfpack, coached by Jim Valvano, had to win the ACC tournament to gain an automatic bid to the Big Dance. Using Valvano’s clever exploitation of the rules of the time, which made all fouls after the 6th team foul a one-in-one, NC State overcame a deficit and beat Virginia by 3 points. No big deal, Virginia fans thought, but the NCAA in its infinite wisdom, placed NC State in #1 seed Virginia’s bracket out west. While UVa blew away its opponents in the NCAA opening rounds, NC State struggled to survive, especially against west coast team Pepperdine, but when it came time for the regional final and a trip to the Final Four, there was NC State standing in the way of Virginia’s triumphant return to the Final Four. NC State trailed the entire game until the last few minutes when their hack attack and a Virginia team too tight to make free throws sent Valvano’s team to the Final Four and an unforgettable championship game victory against Phi Slamma Jamma Houston. Virginia made it back to the Final Four the next year without Ralph, a testament to the overall quality of the 1983 team. This time, it was Virginia that faced Phi Slamma Jamma with Clyde Drexler and Akeem Olajuwon, but after a tough, defensive battle with calls and non-calls that upset UVa fans, Houston came out the victor in overtime.
Virginia continued to compete well in the 90s and reached the Elite 8 twice, but lost to great Arkansas and Seton Hall teams. Then came more than a decade in the wilderness with only two NCAA tournament appearances and one NCAA tournament victories. Virginia turned to young coach Tony Bennett whose success at Washington State had brought him national attention. Bennett has brought Virginia basketball to new heights in the ACC, winning the regular season title in 4 of the last 6 years in a conference where the competition includes former national champions Louisville, Syracuse, North Carolina State, North Carolina and Duke. But the NCAA has been a big problem for Bennett and the Cavaliers. Those four ACC regular season championships have been accompanied by only two trips to the NCAA Sweet 16, and one trip to the Elite 8 where they blew a 14-point lead in the last 8 minutes to lose to a Syracuse team they had beaten easily in the regular season. These failures gave fuel to Bennett’s and Virginia’s critics who lambasted their style of play as unwatchable. Now, the claim was that defense and team play couldn’t win the Big One.
All that history made the UMBC loss even most devastating, more humiliating, but Bennett and his young Cavaliers handled it all with extraordinary class, humility and honesty.
Today, a little more than a year after the UMBC loss, Virginia is the champion of NCAA men’s basketball. After an incredible run that saw them pull out victories after being behind in the last three games with less than 30 seconds to play in regulation, the ‘Hoos have turned humiliation into jubilation. Key to this was the way they handled that UMBC loss throughout this year.
They took responsibility for the loss.
After the UMBC loss, somebody had to face the press along with Bennett. Bennett went to sophomores Kyle Guy and Ty Jerome and told them he did not want Virginia’s seniors, Isaiah Wilkins and Devon Hall, to go through that experience, so it was Guy and Jerome that took those tough questions as they choked back tears. Even though Virginia was missing its most talented player, De’Andre Hunter, because of injury, no one mentioned that as an excuse. They didn’t blame the referees or anyone else. They owned the loss as their own responsibility.
They didn’t turn on each other.
It was hard to say who played worst in the UMBC debacle. There was plenty of blame to go around, but Virginia’s players drew closer rather than pointing the finger at each other. Even the players’ families were drawn together as they sought to support their heartbroken and embarrassed kids. Kyle Guy underwent an SBN interview where he revealed his problems with anxiety and depression and how he dealt with it after UMBC. Tony Bennett acknowledged that he would have to change his ways, the most obvious of which was to shed his tie on game days. De’Andre Hunter, captured in a photo painfully familiar to UVA fans as he held and consoled Guy in defeat, decided to stick at UVa another year rather than opting for the NBA.
They grew as people and baskeball players.
Bennett drew upon a Ted talk and told his players to use that defeat and see it as a key that could unlock the door to success. Easy enough to say, hard to carry out. But Virginia has done it. Again, they won the ACC regular season and entered the NCAA having lost only 3 games, two to Duke and one to Florida State in the ACC tournament. As a #1 seed again, they fell behind #16 seed Gardner-Webb by 14 points in the 1st half, but gathered themselves and eventually won by 15. Their wins against Purdue, Auburn and Texas Tech all had an almost miraculous element to them, and in each amazing victory, it seemed as if a different player was responsible.
What was different from the year before? Their trust in each other was far stronger. Their ability to keep their heads when things were going badly was greatly increased. Their ability to respond to the tactics thrown at them by opposing teams was far greater.
We can learn a lot from these Virginia Cavaliers, my favorite college basketball team through thick and thin since 1976, but most of all, we can learn how to handle defeat so that it leads to victory next time rather than allow failure to define and limit us.