NCAA Southeast Regional Final at Lexington, Ky. : After Early Adversity, Virginia Reaches Top of Its Game at Perfect Time

Michigan isn’t the only team in the Southeast Regional final that has overcome adversity this season.

At one point in January, Virginia had lost five straight games and Coach Terry Holland was in the hospital, recuperating from surgery Jan. 2.

“Everyone was really down and out,” sophomore guard John Crotty said Friday at Rupp Arena, where the upstart Cavaliers, 22-10, will meet 10th-ranked Michigan, 27-7, today at 11 a.m., PST. “We’d had a rough stretch of games and it just seemed to be getting worse.”

It finally got better, Crotty said, on Jan. 15.

Holland, released from the University of Virginia Medical Center after his operation to correct a bowel obstruction, stopped at University Hall for a visit with his players, whose losing streak was expected to reach six games that day against North Carolina.

“He looked like he’d been through a war,” Crotty said of Holland, who broke down and cried as he spoke. “He was really haggard and his face was pale. But the look of determination on his face was very emotional.”

Inspired by Holland’s grit, Crotty said, the Cavaliers sprang to life, demolishing North Carolina, 106-83.

Holland, who missed six games, returned to the bench two weeks later and, in his second game back, the Cavaliers pounded North Carolina State, 91-71.

“We really started believing in ourselves,” Crotty said. “It was like, ‘Holy cow! We’re beating these people and we’re beating them really good, too!’ From then on, we just rode that momentum.”

They have ridden it to within a victory of the Final Four.

This is a team that was never ranked among the top 20, but has picked an opportune time to play its best basketball of the season. The Cavaliers have won 15 of 19 games, and in the tournament have made 54.9% of their shots, including 67.9% from three-point range, and 79.8% of their free throws.

“They’re kind of like us,” said Michigan’s interim coach, Steve Fisher, who has guided the Wolverines to three victories since the defection March 15 of former Coach Bill Frieder, who resigned after accepting a job at Arizona State.

“They’ve got a feeling like they’re at the top of their game. Sometimes when you have that feeling, you play maybe even a little bit better than you (think you) can.”

In the semifinals Thursday night, Virginia showcased its strengths in an 86-80 upset of top-seeded Oklahoma.

The Cavaliers are not a particularly good shooting team, despite their recent success, but they rebound well and defend relentlessly. They limited Stacey King, the Sooners’ All-American center, to only two points in building a 42-37 halftime lead. And they out-rebounded the Sooners, 38-26.

Their top players are Crotty, a cagey and combative point guard; Richard Morgan, a 6-foot-3 gunner who leads the team in scoring and outrageous shots, and 6-5 freshman forward Bryant Stith, rookie of the year in the Atlantic Coast Conference and the Cavaliers’ No. 2 scorer and rebounder.

In three tournament games:

--Crotty has 32 assists and only seven turnovers, including eight assists and three turnovers against Oklahoma. Crotty also has averaged 21 points a game, about eight points more than his season average, while making a staggering 71.9% of his shots.

--Morgan has averaged 30 points, about 10 points more than his season average, and has made 12 of 19 three-point shots, including five of eight Thursday night, when he scored 25 points and threw in two bombs during a 9-0 Cavalier run that wiped out a 72-69 Oklahoma lead.

--Stith has averaged almost 25 points, about nine points more than his season average, and has made 64% of his shots while missing only two of 29 free throws. He led the Cavaliers with 28 points against Oklahoma, making nine of 16 shots and 10 of 11 free throws.

“We’re making believers out of a lot of people,” Crotty said. “And we’re starting to believe in ourselves, too.”

The Cavaliers, indeed, have exceeded most expectations, although their success isn’t a complete surprise. They tied for second place in the ACC and were the fifth-seeded team in the Southeast Regional.

But Terry Gates, an analyst for the Cavaliers’ radio network and a former player who helped Holland and Virginia reach the Final Four in 1981, believed so strongly that Virginia’s season would end against Oklahoma that he booked a flight Friday for a vacation in Florida.

“He’s not too good as a travel agent,” Holland said.

Nor, as it turns out, as a barometer of heart.

“Adversity is a character builder and sometimes it can be a great advantage,” Holland said. “What we’ve gone through tends to bring you closer together and makes you function more like a team at a quicker rate.

“We have responded to that fusion process that is (brought about) by external pressure and really come together.”

And not a moment too soon.

Southeast Regional Notes

According to Michigan’s interim coach, Steve Fisher, Athletic Director Bo Schembechler called Friday to say that he couldn’t remember a Michigan team playing harder than the Wolverines had Thursday night in beating North Carolina, 92-87. No word from Schembechler, though, on whether Fisher would remain as coach after the season has ended. . . . Fisher, given a cake to commemorate his 44th birthday Friday at a press conference, asked two of his players, Rumeal Robinson and Sean Higgins, to help blow out the candles. Quipped Higgins, a reserve forward from Los Angeles: “You know how it is when you’re 44. You lose your wind.”

Fisher on Virginia’s Bryant Stith: “We thought (Indiana’s) Eric Anderson was one of the premier freshmen in the country, but this young man would not take a back seat to anyone.”

Michigan, which leads the nation in field-goal percentage at .571, has made 50% of its three-point attempts in the tournament, including 16 of 28 by Glen Rice, who made eight of 12 against North Carolina. . . . Virginia Coach Terry Holland, assessing Michigan: “They shoot the ball so well from three-point range, but they also have power around the basket. It’s a classic between-a-rock-and-a-hard-place: Do you defend the perimeter, or do you defend inside?”