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| NCAA tournament: For Virginia’s senior class, bonds come due | NCAA tournament: For Virginia’s senior class, bonds come due |
| (about 2 hours later) | |
| RALEIGH, N.C. — For Anthony Gill, Malcolm Brogdon is always the hardest to crack. The other Virginia men’s basketball players are easier targets — Devon Hall, a mere redshirt sophomore? Doesn’t stand a chance. | RALEIGH, N.C. — For Anthony Gill, Malcolm Brogdon is always the hardest to crack. The other Virginia men’s basketball players are easier targets — Devon Hall, a mere redshirt sophomore? Doesn’t stand a chance. |
| Take the postgame scene earlier this month at Clemson. Hall made it about half of a sentence into an interview before he noticed Gill staring at him from a few feet away, Gill’s curls bouncing up and down as he nodded along with feigned solemnity. Hall stopped. “I’m sorry,” Hall said, shaking his head and smiling, “[Gill] just got me off track.” | Take the postgame scene earlier this month at Clemson. Hall made it about half of a sentence into an interview before he noticed Gill staring at him from a few feet away, Gill’s curls bouncing up and down as he nodded along with feigned solemnity. Hall stopped. “I’m sorry,” Hall said, shaking his head and smiling, “[Gill] just got me off track.” |
| Not so for Brogdon, Gill’s closest friend on the team and one of the Cavaliers’ team leaders (along with Gill). After the 64-57 win at Clemson on March 1, the two seniors were the only Virginia players left talking to the media. Brogdon just wanted to see his mom and go to bed. He answered yet another question as Gill made faces at Brogdon behind reporters’ backs. When Brogdon finished — without so much as a grin — he shouted, “Man, Anthony!” as Gill ran away. | Not so for Brogdon, Gill’s closest friend on the team and one of the Cavaliers’ team leaders (along with Gill). After the 64-57 win at Clemson on March 1, the two seniors were the only Virginia players left talking to the media. Brogdon just wanted to see his mom and go to bed. He answered yet another question as Gill made faces at Brogdon behind reporters’ backs. When Brogdon finished — without so much as a grin — he shouted, “Man, Anthony!” as Gill ran away. |
| [Feinstein: Cavaliers mirror Tony Bennett the coach, not the player] | [Feinstein: Cavaliers mirror Tony Bennett the coach, not the player] |
| “Sometimes I’m like, ‘AG, enough,’ ” Brogdon said, looking down before he began to smile. “He never stops, but I’m so used to it by now. It’s like background noise.” | |
| Brogdon and Gill, Virginia’s longtime odd couple, are the anchors of one of the most accomplished senior classes in the program’s history: the class that brought Coach Tony Bennett two top seeds in the NCAA tournament (including this year), two regular season ACC titles and an ACC tournament championship. The class, which also includes key pieces like Mike Tobey and Evan Nolte, is four wins away (it has 109 since the start of 2012-13) from finishing off the winningest four-season run in program history. | |
| The only thing missing from its résumé is a deep NCAA tournament run. The seniors have made it only as far as the Sweet 16 (in 2014) and have lost to Michigan State each of the past two seasons. The sobering reality for these Cavaliers: If form holds, the second-seeded Spartans and Cavaliers will meet again in the Midwest Region final in Chicago. | |
| [Hampton not afraid of top-seeded Virginia] | [Hampton not afraid of top-seeded Virginia] |
| “Of course, all of us feel that [pressure],” Tobey said. “With the seniors, there’s just an extra sense of urgency because it’s our last year here.” | “Of course, all of us feel that [pressure],” Tobey said. “With the seniors, there’s just an extra sense of urgency because it’s our last year here.” |
| Now, as Brogdon and Gill prepare to lead the Cavaliers (26-7) to the NCAA tournament one last time — starting first with No. 16 seed Hampton (21-10) on Thursday in Raleigh — the pair’s relationship is as fundamental to the Cavaliers’ success as their statistics. For Brogdon, the ACC player of the year, that’s a team-leading 18.7 points per game; for Gill, it’s 13.3 points and a team-best 6.1 rebounds. | Now, as Brogdon and Gill prepare to lead the Cavaliers (26-7) to the NCAA tournament one last time — starting first with No. 16 seed Hampton (21-10) on Thursday in Raleigh — the pair’s relationship is as fundamental to the Cavaliers’ success as their statistics. For Brogdon, the ACC player of the year, that’s a team-leading 18.7 points per game; for Gill, it’s 13.3 points and a team-best 6.1 rebounds. |
| “Experience and maturity and chemistry will be a big role for us at this point,” Brogdon said Monday. “That’s really what it comes down to in the postseason — if your lead guys can play together and they can do it at a high level and lead the team at a high level, we can be successful.” | |
| [Virginia falls short vs. UNC in ACC tournament final] | [Virginia falls short vs. UNC in ACC tournament final] |
| Brogdon and Gill first became friends when they were both on Virginia’s scout team during the 2012-13 season, when Brogdon was redshirting his second year because of a foot injury and Gill was sitting out a mandatory season after transferring from South Carolina. They forged a friendship in practice, frustrating Bennett and fellow teammates alike by routinely beating the first unit. | Brogdon and Gill first became friends when they were both on Virginia’s scout team during the 2012-13 season, when Brogdon was redshirting his second year because of a foot injury and Gill was sitting out a mandatory season after transferring from South Carolina. They forged a friendship in practice, frustrating Bennett and fellow teammates alike by routinely beating the first unit. |
| “Oh, yeah, that was the year the actual team couldn’t beat us,” Gill recalled. | “Oh, yeah, that was the year the actual team couldn’t beat us,” Gill recalled. |
| That was when Gill learned how to dissolve Brogdon into giggles. It was also when Gill and Brogdon discovered they, like the three other seniors in their class (including seldom-used reserve Caid Kirven), had reasons apart from basketball for coming to Charlottesville — be it shared faith with Bennett, a devout Christian, or the university’s academics. | That was when Gill learned how to dissolve Brogdon into giggles. It was also when Gill and Brogdon discovered they, like the three other seniors in their class (including seldom-used reserve Caid Kirven), had reasons apart from basketball for coming to Charlottesville — be it shared faith with Bennett, a devout Christian, or the university’s academics. |
| [Despite all his accolades, Malcolm Brogdon is still not satisfied] | [Despite all his accolades, Malcolm Brogdon is still not satisfied] |
| “We wanted to be a part of something that would grow them as basketball players but as men as well,” Gill said. “Everyone had the same idea in that way.” | |
| Those shared values also helped bond a group of players with dramatically different personalities, which, to Bennett, translated to the long-term success of the program. | Those shared values also helped bond a group of players with dramatically different personalities, which, to Bennett, translated to the long-term success of the program. |
| “It was essential. All of those guys, what they represented . . . you need the kind of guys that you can go through adversity with. We talked about that before,” Bennett said. “That you can lose with first before you win. | |
| “It sounds strange, but a lot of time when I watch players, I ask myself, ‘Can I lose with Malcolm Brogdon?’ I look up into the stands and see their parents and who’s watching them and say, ‘Are these the kind of people I can lose with, that I can go through hard times with and they’ll stick with it?’ . . . I think that’s significant in eventually building a program. All of those guys have had their shares of ups, but they’ve also had their downs. They just stayed true to that kind of commitment to what matters.” | “It sounds strange, but a lot of time when I watch players, I ask myself, ‘Can I lose with Malcolm Brogdon?’ I look up into the stands and see their parents and who’s watching them and say, ‘Are these the kind of people I can lose with, that I can go through hard times with and they’ll stick with it?’ . . . I think that’s significant in eventually building a program. All of those guys have had their shares of ups, but they’ve also had their downs. They just stayed true to that kind of commitment to what matters.” |
| Sometimes, what matters is simply when one makes the other crack up during an interview. | Sometimes, what matters is simply when one makes the other crack up during an interview. |
| “Malcolm and I, we’ve had four long years together . . .” Gill started Wednesday, before Brogdon shot him a look across the locker room. | |
| Gill didn’t finish his sentence. He was laughing too hard. | Gill didn’t finish his sentence. He was laughing too hard. |