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Limbo. It’s a curious state. It struck Virginia on Thursday. 

We forget, in hindsight, the first moment. The moment right after Kihei Clark threw the ball. The moment before the camera panned. 

Everything, for a breath, was suspended. Ball in the air. Kihei stumbling backward. Thousands of eyeballs locked on a spinning orange ball.

A television only reveals part of the picture, a limited view. The cameraman, stationed behind his bulky equipment, dictates what you can and cannot see. And so, briefly, we waited. Waited for the cameraman to unveil fate. 

The television frame showed only a slice of the court. Outside the frame, left of it, there should have lurked a Virginia player, at midcourt, waiting to receive the pass. Surely he was there. Surely that’s why Kihei reared back and threw the ball—surely he had spotted a teammate.

The camera panned.

Disbelief. A sinking feeling, an appetizer of greater despair. 

A moment later, far worse. The net rippled, the Furman eruption echoed, the shock and the torment and the anger spilled out.

What a blunder. An aching, miserable blunder. A blunder made by the most experienced player in college basketball, a player who, as a freshman, burnished his NCAA Tournament resume until it gleamed. How? What? Why? NOOO.

It wasn’t so much the loss itself. The loss, alone, was digestible. Plenty of people had picked Furman. Virginia had faltered at the end of the season. A starter had been sidelined by injury. Questions lingered about Virginia’s shooting, its acumen, its shooting.

The brutal part of the loss was not the loss. It was the way the loss happened.

Virginia led 8-0. Virginia led 50-38. Virginia led 67-65 with 12 seconds left and the ball. Virginia lost.

It will forever be impossible to forget the way Kihei Clark’s career concluded. It ended, in one sense, with a whimper—a guy who won six NCAAT games as a first-year whisked off the dance floor in the first round as a fifth-year. But, really, it ended with a thud—a veteran making an incomprehensible play to crash out of the tournament. 

Time will heal this wound. The national title will constitute more of Kihei’s legacy than the first-round exit. 

But, still. Ouch. This was bad. 

The other debate flaring up in the bitter aftermath of Virginia’s early exit concerns Tony Bennett and Virginia’s ability to win in March. This is a stupid conversation.

It’s difficult to win in March. Actually, it’s almost impossible. Bennett did it. He won an NCAA Tournament. 

Critics point to Virginia’s recent history sans the title run. The Hoos have lost in the first round three times out of four. 

Whatever. It happens. Every coach can’t win in March until, suddenly, they can win in March. A few points here, a few points there, and this narrative dissolves. It’s stupid. Stop talking about it.

One of those sad first-round losses is, of course, more ignominious than the rest. We are speaking, of course, of the 1-16 loss, a disaster repeated on Friday by Purdue. Fairleigh Dickinson, America’s latest March darling, pestered Purdue until the flustered Boilermakers collapsed. An upset of epic proportions. 

The smallest team in the country lost its conference championship game and received the NEC’s autobid anyway. Then it drew a No. 16 seed and won its play-in game, only to stand opposite a literal goliath. Then it won. It toppled No. 1 seed Purdue. Preposterous.

Watching that game was, for the Virginia fan, a peculiar experience. 

There was the natural human urge to root for Fairleigh Dickinson. How could one not? Here were plucky little kids from Teaneck, NJ, scurrying around the basketball court against a looming foe. Only the bettors and the heartless could fail to adore FDU.

But then there were those television close-ups of despairing Purdue fans, their faces frozen in horror. And the Virginia fan knew. Knew the thoughts roiling behind that frozen facade. Knew how the shock warred with the grief, the anger. Knew that those Purdue fans teetered on a precipice leading to days of sorrow and irresolvable brooding.

The Virginia fan, watching those final moments, was transported back five years and one day, to a dungeon of misery. Then the Virginia fan rejoiced, no longer alone.

The year ended with a thud, but there is much hope in this program. Look at the present trajectory. Last year was not a rebuilding year. There was no rebuilding. It was just a down year.

This year was that rebuilding year, and in it Virginia won the ACC regular season, made the ACC Tournament final—damn near won it. The Hoos return a sparkling nucleus and will add a loaded recruiting class. A return to the pinnacle of college hoops seems a realistic possibility.

The joy comes in the morning.

Image – Virginia Athletics

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