Emergency Wrenball Post: In Shaver We Trusted

We've been over the numbers ad nauseam. The 2-18 record in CAA Tournament play between 1985 and 2003. The 11-45 mark the Tribe hoops squad put up over my first two years on campus. The run of 17 years with a single postseason victory. The 21 seasons between 1985 and 2007 with two winning seasons (one of those 14-13). The 100-38 loss at Duke in 1992.

We don't understand, either, Coach

And of late, the six consecutive seasons of double-digit conference victories. The double-digit overall victories in 12 of 13 years (by far the best such stretch in W&M basketball history). The four CAA Tournament finals. The six-point lead with 70 fucking seconds to play in the 2014 CAA championship game. The seven first-team All-CAA players. The best-shooting team in America in 2017-18, and one of the best of all-time. William & Mary's all-time leading scorer.

The first set of digits represents William & Mary basketball's history before Tony Shaver was hired from Hampden-Sydney in 2003, figuring he had one last, best shot to test his mettle at the Division I level. After a couple of years of scuffling, he scrapped his up-tempo system and adapted to the players he was able to recruit, and built an offense tailored to disciplined, smart athletes who could shoot, even if most of them couldn't jump out of the gym in the early years. Which led to the second group of numbers.

Stats are interesting, and you can build a story around them if you're so inclined. W&M Athletic Director Samantha Huge seems to have built a narrative that suits her vision around a single stat, or lack thereof. In firing the best coach ever to have worked the sidelines in Williamsburg, she noted that, "We are forever grateful to Tony for his commitment and service over 16 years to William & Mary. He is a teacher not just a coach and his impact on hundreds of young men will be felt by them for years to come." Nothing to quibble with there.

Huge went on to say, "However, we have high expectations for our men's basketball program, including participating in the NCAA Tournament, and we will not shy away from setting the bar high.  Now is the time to begin a new chapter in William & Mary basketball." The 0-fer the Shaver put up when it comes to NCAA Tournament bids is the Scarlet Number that Samantha Huge couldn't overlook.

At the mid-major level, every conference tournament is a crapshoot, a lot like the Major League Baseball playoffs. Four, five, six teams in each league have hope entering the postseason. Look at Saint Mary's this year. Or Bradley. Or Northern Kentucky. All we can ever ask as alumni of a school like William & Mary is to have hope.

Before Tony Shaver, we had none. Since our first miracle CAA Tournament run in 2008, we've had it in spades, and three other times, we were one game away from history. After the 2008 CAA Finals loss to George Mason, we wrote this:

"But as we noted in this space just yesterday, the loss does nothing to diminish the joy this unlikely group of kids brought to W&M’s generally subdued alumni. For the briefest of moments we were allowed to pretend we belonged, to plan trips to the Boise or Sacramento or Tacoma subregionals, to shout ourselves hoarse watching a game that actually mattered, and to dream. Generations of us had never even allowed ourselves to dream. When we talk about this team, that’s the thing we’ll remember – not that they finally fell short, but that they let us dream, hope, and care. And at some level, that’s the magic of college basketball, that an obscure school from a mid-major conference can make otherwise mature (it’s in the eye of the beholder, people) adults let loose the bonds of logic and rationality and really, deeply believe in the most unlikely outcomes."

When we talk about Tony Shaver, we won't talk about the 226-258 record or the eight losing seasons. The thing we'll remember is not that he lost more than he won, but that he let us dream, hope, and care. And that's a hell of a thing.

In Shaver We Trust.