Thursday, March 14, 2019

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.

33 comments:

  1. Wouldn’t that 0 be a Scarlet Number?

    ReplyDelete
  2. that's why we crowdsource our editing. that's a much better phrasing. i'll shall change posthaste.

    ReplyDelete
  3. With that statement, AD Huge has effectively implemented a high-bar performance metric not only for the next coach but also herself.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Reading the tea leaves, it feels like Huge is going to go for an assistant from a power conference team that has a history of going to the NCAA’s. Welcome to Rick Boyages, Volume II.

    ReplyDelete
  5. that's exactly what i think and fear

    ReplyDelete
  6. A great name for a Yo La Tengo tribute band would be Tu La Tienes.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Rick Boyages, aka Bon....where is he now?
    And I hope JMU gives Shaver a look. That would be sweet.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I had to google Rick Boyages. I assumed it was a movie reference.

    ReplyDelete
  9. apparently Rick is a member of the New England Basketball Hall of Fame

    ReplyDelete
  10. I wanted to name my puppy Rick, in honor of a weird guy my wife and always see once a year at a friend’s holiday party. She overrules me. Great dog name.

    ReplyDelete
  11. tell her you want to name it after rik from 'the young ones'. different spelling. should work out.

    ReplyDelete
  12. ali krieger and mark's girl ashlyn harris announced their engagement recently. which is awesome. how long until two male teammates in a major team sport go public with a romantic relationship? i say it'll be more than a decade.

    ReplyDelete
  13. dog names should be two syllables, preferably trochee, for calling purposes. a three syllable anapest is also possible.

    "rick" is an awful dog name (you'd have to do that weird making a one syllable word into a two syllable word when you called him . . . "Riiiii-- iiiiick!" that's not tenable)

    ReplyDelete
  14. Anapest? Is that what you order before the main course at an Italian restaurant? Or the capital of Hungary?

    If your dog's name has just one syllable you don't use fancy SAT words to call it, you just yell the name in one short burst. Like "Duke!" or "Spot!" or "Rick!"

    ReplyDelete
  15. Dave's former dog's name was Sirius, which is neither a trochee nor an anapest. So he should stop advising people to do things he doesn't do.

    Plus, he named the dog that because of his addiction to satellite radio. So stupid.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I thought he couldn't spell serious.

    ReplyDelete
  17. nah, he’s a huge yahoo serious fan

    ReplyDelete
  18. Young Einstein was a great flick

    ReplyDelete
  19. sirius is a dactyl, which is also fine. Seeee-re-us. You can yell that.

    I was just at the dog park and this guys had a dog named Neil, who he was constantly chastising. it was pathetic.

    Neeee-- uuhhhlll, Neeee-- uuhhhlll, Neeee-- uuhhhlll . . . what a mess.

    Rick would be similar. Our new dog Lola, has an ideal name for calling.

    ReplyDelete
  20. did you meet her in a kennel club down in North Soho?

    ReplyDelete
  21. A buddy has a dog named Lola. It has a malformed vagina.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Are you sure “Neil” was the dog’s name and not a command to the dog?

    ReplyDelete
  23. Steve Wojchiechowski looks a bit like Bob Newby.

    ReplyDelete
  24. rosario dawson and cory booker are 'dating', apparently. she's the james harden of campaign relationships.

    ReplyDelete
  25. I'm still really angry with Tribe athletics.
    Not sure I have the bandwidth right now to add a "Fire Huge" campaign when I'm committed to the "Fire Ernie" campaign
    I'll add it to my list for this summer

    ReplyDelete
  26. Is that a “beard” reference?

    ReplyDelete
  27. Holy crap, Zion is back. Full-on beast mode in the first 10 minutes of the game: 15 pts, 7-7 from the field, and all kinds of ferocious dunks.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Dawson and Booker are old news. And don’t say anything bad about Rosario Dawson. If I were president I’d declare a national emergency mandating that she appear in more movies.

    ReplyDelete
  29. didn't say anything bad, z. just pointing out an interesting fact. and zion is, in fact, plaid.

    ReplyDelete
  30. Isaiah Thomas is doing color w/ Harlan!? That’s a disgrace to us and Harlan.

    And that first sentence sounds kinda racist, but isn’t meant to be.

    ReplyDelete
  31. Watching Dirk is like watching Andre the Giant in Wrestlemania III.

    ReplyDelete
  32. Because he’s wearing a one-strap singlet?

    ReplyDelete
  33. Zion was must see last night because he was coming back. And then he blew all expectations away. I’ve tried to maintain some level of perspective on him but it’s getting harder. I was audibly wowed by him in just the first twenty minutes. He’s a transformational athlete within his sport.

    UNC-Duke tonight is the game of the year.

    ReplyDelete