Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 12, 1993 TAG: 9303120036
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Jack Bogaczyk
DATELINE: CHARLOTTE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
CAVS PLUS DEACONS EQUALS UGLY
The opening quarterfinal of the 40th ACC Tournament could be a sight for sore eyes.For today's luncheon special at the Charlotte Coliseum, don't expect Virginia and Wake Forest to serve up a feast.
Watching them play in recent years has been like chewing on basketball leather, and there's no indication the buddy system will produce something different this time.
It's part of Terry Holland's UVa coaching legacy. After all, these excruciating matchups began with Holland's last game at University Hall, a 51-50 Deacons win that truly was a wake.
"That's been the worst one," Wake coach Dave Odom said.
So, although Holland will have to live with that, it doesn't mean he has to keep reviewing it.
"I try to avoid those games if I can," said Holland, now the Davidson athletic director who left Charlotte on Thursday for a weekend with the NCAA Basketball Committee, selecting the 64-team field. "There are too many allegiances there. I don't even watch them on TV if I can help it."
For seven years, Odom and Holland's successor, Jeff Jones, shared a University Hall office as Holland's assistants. Needless to say, they became close.
Now, their teams look into the mirror and see each other.
"The styles are so similar, it's almost like we're just knocking heads," said UVa assistant Tom Perrin, who arrived on Holland's staff the same year as Odom and ex-point guard Jones.
Dan Bonner, the UVa forward-turned-telecast analyst, thought about this event while driving from Winston-Salem to his Shenandoah Valley home after calling Wake Forest's 58-56 tooth-grinder over the Cavaliers on Feb. 27.
"I never root for one team or another," Bonner said, beginning to laugh. "I have to admit though, considering what my assignments might be for the ACC Tournament, I was hoping Virginia and Wake Forest would play anybody but each other."
Bonner said there's little doubt that, in this case, familiarity breeds bad basketball.
"Two assistant coaches are often closer than an assistant and a head coach," Bonner said. "These two guys know each other so well, and now each has been a head coach in the same league for a few years.
"Each may know what's in some of those dark corners of the other's mind. I don't mean anything sinister by that, but Dave and Jeff each know how the other prepares.
"Now, it's filtered down to the players. They are convinced it's going to be one of these games where both struggle. They know it's going to happen, so it does."
The Deacons won twice by a deuce over UVa this regular season, contests in which the Cavaliers shot a combined 36 percent. Odom has a 4-3 edge on Jones in three seasons, the seven games decided by an average of just under five points.
It isn't just on the scoreboard that these teams have been close, however.
"There are some similarities in terms of how the game is approached," said Jones, who admittedly doesn't enjoy battling wits with Odom. "Then, there are some strong resemblances, too. We've shared a lot."
Perrin said strategy doesn't decide a Wake Forest-UVa game. Effort and execution does.
"So often, it's simply who's left standing at the end," said Odom, whose fourth Deacons team survived five missed Virginia shots to win the last meeting. "The talent is similar and so are the philosophies.
"If you look at blocked shots and team steals, Wake and Virginia are always near the bottom in the ACC. That tells you something about the philosophy defensively. We absolutely never give up an easy basket, if at all possible.
"We don't gamble or extend our defenses that far, so getting to the basket on us - and I say `us' in the [team] plural - is very difficult. We don't give up many layups. Neither presses that much.
"Both, because we don't have dominant rebounders, we rebound with five people, which puts a lot of people around the backboards. So, when you got two teams doing that, you've got 10 guys jammed inside of 6 feet.
"We both give up things grudgingly."
Both coaches would like to think that because the NCAA pressure is off - Wake Forest is 11th in this week's Ratings Percentage Index, two spots ahead of Virginia, and both will be in the 64-team field - that perhaps this game won't flow like mud.
"It will probably be your typical Wake Forest-Virginia game," Holland said. "In spite of that fact, both of them will be in the NCAA if they've got any friends at all on the selection committee."
The Deacons' coach doesn't see either team muddying the picture.
"In order for it to be different, we'd have to force-feed it," Odom said. "If we let nature take its course, it probably will not be a pretty sight.
"It probably will be a quagmire."