This was a day for gallows humor. “It’s almost time for my dealer to give me a new car,” DeVoe went on. “Maybe, I’ll ask him for a van.”
Times could hardly have been tougher for DeVoe. Kentucky was coming to town that evening for what was always the biggest game of the season. The Tennessee team it would meet was reeling. In the four weeks since the Volunteers had beaten Auburn, raising their record to 10–4, they had lost five of seven games, dropping to 12–9. Even more damaging, they were only 5–7 in the Southeast Conference.
But even that didn’t begin to tell Tennessee’s tale of woe.
After the victory over Auburn, the Vols had played Florida. The game had been close for thirty-five minutes. But in the last five minutes, with Tennessee fouling, Florida pulled away. The final was 76–56. It was Tennessee’s worst home loss in twenty-six years.
A victory over Mississippi State soothed things briefly, but then came a loss at Alabama—and Alabama was clearly beatable.
Things quickly went from bad to worse. Two days after the Alabama game, starting guard Elvin Brown was arrested in a Knoxville record store for shoplifting. When DeVoe asked Brown what happened he admitted his guilt. DeVoe felt he had no choice. Brown was the team’s third-leading scorer and best defensive guard but he had admitted to shoplifting.
“I’m just not going to have guys on my team who do that sort of thing,” DeVoe said. “I told Elvin that. I told him that if he needed help, we would get him help and that I would try to keep him in school but that he couldn’t play on my basketball team. If it means losing games or losing my job, so be it. I just can’t coach any other way.”
In their first game without Brown, the Volunteers, led by Dyron Nix’s 28 points, pulled together and beat Georgia, 92–81. But then they lost at Mississippi and next, in their first national (cable) TV game of the year, they were pummeled, 90–62 at Vanderbilt. Three days later at LSU, also on ESPN, they were embarrassed again, this time 92–73.
DeVoe felt helpless and he could hear the wolves baying at his door. He was angry with himself, with his team, and with the situation. “No matter what I do, I can’t seem to get this group to care enough about winning,” he said. “When we lose, they don’t hurt the way you should after a loss. The other night, Anthony Richardson had six turnovers. He’s a senior. But he wasn’t really hurt by it. Mark Griffin shot zero-for-five and didn’t get a rebound in seventeen minutes—and he wasn’t that hurt.
“Do I yell at them, scream, go crazy? Sometimes I really think they get tired of my bitching, but it hurts the way they play. To go into Vanderbilt and LSU and get beaten up that way, especially on television, was just awful.”
DeVoe was exhausted when he got home Sunday after the LSU game. And discouraged. These were not easy times for him. The person he talked to most about his troubles was his wife, Ana. “After the LSU loss I said to Ana that, if truth be told, it would be a lot easier for Doug Dickey if he just made a change. That would give him a two-year honeymoon with a new coach. It might work out perfectly because there are five top juniors in this state next year and, for the first time since I’ve been here, none of them are from Memphis.
“A new coach can walk in here and if next year’s senior class doesn’t get it done, he can go out and recruit those kids with the new building as a lure and maybe be in Shangri-la in a couple of years. But I also told her that because Doug used to coach [football], I thought he understood coaching and that whatever happened he would be fair.”
That evening, DeVoe and his wife went to bed early. Not wanting to be awakened, DeVoe turned off the telephone. Shortly after 8 P.M., he heard a loud knocking on his door. He got out of bed, went downstairs, opened the door and found Dickey standing there. He let Dickey in and then went upstairs to tell Ana who it was before going to talk to his boss.
Ana DeVoe was terrified. “She was sure Doug had come over to say he was releasing me,” DeVoe said.
That thought had never really crossed DeVoe’s mind. Dickey had come over because he had tried to call and, getting a constant busy signal, figured DeVoe had taken the phone off the hook. He had missed the Vanderbilt—LSU trip and was leaving town the next morning so he wanted to stop by just to give DeVoe a pep talk. DeVoe appreciated it. But his wife’s frightened reaction triggered something in him.
“If she felt that way,” he said, “I wondered what in the world the players were thinking at this point.”
DeVoe had never directly addressed the issue of his job security with his team. He knew they were aware of the situation because it was impossible to be anywhere near Knoxville and not be aware of it. But he had never said anything to them because he thought doing so might make it a larger issue than it was. Now, however, he felt he had no choice.
“They had been asked about it all through preseason, then when we won nine of our first ten it faded for a while. But now it was back stronger than ever. It had become the thing to talk about in Knoxville.”
The following day DeVoe walked into his locker room and, instead of talking about the Kentucky game two days hence, he talked about himself. “It doesn’t matter what you’ve heard or what you’ve been told,” he told his team. “If you think I’m quitting or if you’re going to let up because you think you’re going to have a new coach next season, you’re mistaken.
“We still have one third of our conference season left. We’ve proven we can play good basketball. Kentucky may be a better team than we are. But on Wednesday, all we have to do is be better than them for forty minutes. That’s all. No matter how good they are, they can only put five guys on the court at once, just like us.”
Now it was six hours before the Kentucky game and DeVoe had no idea how his team would react to his talk. He only knew what a victory over Kentucky could mean. “In this town if you ask people in April what our record was during the season they won’t be able to tell you,” he said. “But if you ask them about the Kentucky game in Knoxville, they’ll know all about it. That’s the way it is. This is the biggest game of the year to people here.
“But I have no idea how we’ll react tonight. I knew before the season started that this was a swing team. Right now, it’s swung down.”
DeVoe shook his head. He was a baffled, confused man. Always, he had known success in coaching, but now he was fighting for his job. For the first time in his career, he found himself wondering exactly what the best thing was for him.
“You get to a point in a job where, if the people are really down on you, it might be best to leave, even if you think you’re doing the job,” he said. “I’ve thought about what I would do next year if I wasn’t here. Maybe I would take a step back, take a year off and try to get some perspective on things. I have a young family, I could spend some time with them, then start back in another year, refreshed.
“But when I think about that I wonder what would happen in a year. In this business you take a year off and maybe getting a job isn’t so easy. I don’t mean just any job. With my background, I can’t see myself coaching in a place where, realistically, you have no chance to win a national championship. I just couldn’t do it. Basketball has been the most important thing in my life for forty-one years now. I just can’t see myself coaching someplace where it isn’t as important to everyone else as it is to me.”
There were other frustrations. “I’ve always felt that Tennessee wanted a clean program and that’s the way I’ve run the program here. In the last ten years, Vanderbilt and Tennessee are the only two schools in the SEC that haven’t been under some kind of NCAA investigation at one point or another and I’m proud of that. I’ve never felt I could coach kids you made deals with, anyway.
“But is there a reward for that somewhere along the line? Maybe there is. Maybe running that kind of program will help me get another job if I lose this one. I don’t know. I had seven straight good seasons at Tennessee and then two bad ones. Does that make me a bad coach? Or is Tennessee just going through the down cycle that almost every program goe
s through sooner or later? The whole thing has really been an ordeal. I lie awake at night wondering how in the world I can be coaching a team that accepts losing the way this one does. We work hard in practice but we just don’t have a relentless drive to win. Whose fault is that? Mine? Maybe it is, I really don’t know.
“I told them Monday that they were too concerned about themselves individually. Dyron Nix has been a great player for us this year but he needs to be more verbal and get on the other kids so I don’t have to do it all the time. I really got on them, even though I didn’t want to have to. I just didn’t want them thinking that I had thrown in the towel. We’re taking on water fast here—but we haven’t sunk yet.”
He smiled the gallows humor smile. “Of course, by ten o’clock tonight we could be doing some serious bailing.”
By game time that evening, things had only gotten worse. A local TV station had reported that a deal had already been cut between DeVoe and the university. The newscaster said that DeVoe would resign at the end of the season and still be paid for the final year of his contract.
The report was wrong. DeVoe knew it and Doug Dickey knew it. But everyone else in Thompson—Boling Arena wondered—including the Tennessee players.
But one thing was correct: DeVoe’s instinct that Kentucky would bring out the best in his team—and in the fans. The place was close to full, and when the ever-reticent Doug Roth started the game with a driving lay-up, the fans went wild. Tennessee roared to a 13–4 lead, the last three points coming when Griffin, who comes from a tiny town six miles from the Kentucky border, nailed a three-pointer.
Suddenly, the nightmares of the last few weeks were forgotten. Everything was falling for the Vols. When Greg Bell hit two free throws with 4:14 left in the half, the lead was 39–26. Three baskets by UK’s superb point guard, Ed Davender, cut the halftime margin to 44–36.
Still, Tennessee had to feel good. It had kept Rex Chapman, The Boy King, in check and, for the first time in a while, was getting some solid outside shooting, most notably from Griffin, who had knocked in three three-pointers. And yet, DeVoe knew Kentucky would come back. At halftime he told his team that but also reminded them, “You’ve been better than them for twenty minutes, now just go and do it for another twenty.”
It would not be easy. Down 50–42, Kentucky ran off nine straight points. Freshman Eric Manuel hit a jumper. Senior Winston Bennett got inside for a three-point play. Manuel hit again and Rob Lock posted up with 12:30 left to put the Wildcats up 51–50. Tennessee was in trouble. Once again, the cheers were turning to boos.
But the Vols didn’t die this time. They stayed right with Kentucky, trading the lead back and forth until Nix scored three straight baskets, the last on a shattering dunk to make it 64–59 with 6:20 left. Kentucky came right back with an 8–0 run of its own. Tennessee went scoreless for more than three minutes. When Chapman, who would finish the night just five-of-fifteen, hit a turnaround jumper off the baseline, it was 67–64, Kentucky.
Now, Tennessee was surely finished. But no. Griffin hit one more three-pointer to tie it, then rebounded a Manuel miss and fed Nix. He was fouled and made both free throws for a 69–67 lead. Then came a flurry of turnovers. On the last of them, Roth was called for an intentional foul on Davender.
DeVoe was ready to tear his hair out after that call. By now, the crowd, which had been swaying back and forth with each basket, was almost limp from the intensity of the game. Tennessee had been just as good as Kentucky for thirty-nine minutes. But forty?
Davender made one free throw. Kentucky kept possession because of the intentional foul call and Lock scored to put UK up 70–69 with 1:15 to go. This time, Griffin’s three-pointer hit the back rim. But Nix rebounded and was fouled. He could only make one, but it tied the score at 70–70. There were forty-seven seconds left. Kentucky brought the ball upcourt and called time. Thirty-seven seconds to go.
At this juncture, DeVoe did what very few coaches have the guts to do. Rather than lay back on defense and let Kentucky take the last shot, he decided to attack. “If they back-door you, fine,” he said later. “But you don’t want to watch the last basket go in on you as the buzzer sounds.”
It makes sense, but few coaches are willing to chance it. DeVoe was. As Kentucky tried to set up on offense, Tennessee was trapping every pass. Finally, Manuel was trapped on the sideline. Clarence Swearengen slapped the ball loose. Manuel reached for it but it rolled off his hand and out of bounds. Tennessee ball. Ten seconds left. Time-out.
Now DeVoe wanted to spread the floor and let Swearengen use his quickness on Chapman. He had been effective all night, getting inside for 10 points and 8 assists. Swearengen caught the inbounds pass and went right, Chapman with him. He started a drive and as he did, Chapman slipped and fell down. Swearengen kept going. Now the defense had to come to him. When it did, Swearengen looked and saw Bell just behind him to his right. He fed the ball back to his teammate and as Manuel tried desperately to get to him, Bell, off balance, tossed up a ten-footer from the lane.
Swish. The buzzer went off before the ball was all the way through the net. It was over. Tennessee—72, Kentucky—70. Bell, lying on the ground, was being mauled by his teammates. Griffin, tears pouring down his cheeks, was pounding on him and so was everyone else. The arena was complete bedlam. DeVoe didn’t need to wave any white handkerchiefs on this night.
Games like this make college basketball. An undermanned team, fighting for something—pride, a coach, an injured teammate—whatever it may be, finds a way to beat a superior team and the victory produces memories that everyone in the arena will share for years to come.
DeVoe was thrilled, but realistic. “We still have to go on the road and find a way to win there,” he said when the celebration was finally over later that evening. He looked around at the huge arena, now dark and empty. “Either way, though, I’ll remember this one for a long time.”
He wasn’t alone.
February 20 … Chapel Hill/Raleigh, North Carolina
They weren’t really sure how to feel in the Deandome today. North Carolina had won a basketball game. That was hardly unusual. But the way the Tar Heels won was both unusual and unsettling.
They had been facing a team that was struggling. Maryland had talent, loads of it. But it was a team still searching for itself. Coach Bob Wade had yet to figure out which parts went where and because of that the Terrapins were not playing up to their vast potential. When they came into the Deandome and promptly fell behind 28–11, there was every reason to believe Carolina would go on and cruise to an easy victory.
But it didn’t happen. The Tar Heels couldn’t take care of the basketball and they couldn’t hold on to the lead. Maryland cut the lead to 30–25, thanks largely to the kind of mistakes Dean Smith-coached teams almost never make. J. R. Reid, Carolina’s superstar, turned the ball over seven times.
Before the game was over, Jeff Lebo, Carolina’s resident brain, had committed as stupid a foul as can be committed—he jumped into Maryland’s Steve Hood while Maryland was trailing by four points and out of time-outs. If Lebo had stayed away from Hood, even if his shot had gone in, the game would have ended without Carolina even having to inbound. As it was, Hood made the two free throws and, because Lebo had stopped the clock by fouling, the Tar Heels had to inbound the ball again and make two more free throws before their 74–73 victory was secure.
“I didn’t think Jeff fouled him,” Dean Smith said, avoiding the question of what in the world Lebo was doing anywhere near Hood. “Give Maryland credit for a great comeback.”
Wrong, Dean. If Wade had known what he was doing on the bench, Maryland would have won the game. Something was wrong at Carolina and no one, least of all Smith, really wanted to talk about it.
To make such a statement about a team that was 20–3 sounds ludicrous. But it was true. It had started in October with the murder/suicide of Scott Williams’s parents. Shortly after that, Smith started having trouble with nose bleeds. His doctor ordered hi
m to cut back from two packs of cigarettes a day to eight cigarettes a day, which he did, often lighting a cigarette, taking three or four drags and then putting it out delicately so he could relight it a few minutes later.
Then came the J. R. Reid, Steve Bucknall assault/spitting incident in the Raleigh nightclub. Smith’s initial comment on the incident was that Bucknall and Reid shouldn’t have been in Raleigh. “I told them that going over there once a year to play was plenty,” he said.
Two weeks after that incident, Smith, his wife, and his parents went to church at the Duke Chapel. When the service was over, Smith went to get his car, a brand-new Cadillac. As he was pulling out of his parking space, he was sideswiped by a Duke transit bus. Damage to the bus: about $20. Damage to Smith’s car: about $2,000. No one said anything to Smith about not going to Durham except to play.
Once the season began, the Tar Heels, as usual, won a lot of games. Playing without Reid, they upset Syracuse in the opener and moved to No. 1 in the polls. They were upset by Vanderbilt, so they dropped. But for the most part, they won. They did lose to Duke at home but they beat N.C. State on the road, then Maryland and Virginia.
They were in first place in the ACC after the Maryland victory but something wasn’t quite right with this team. Reid was such a big star, with his distinctive haircut, wide butt, and ability to take over a game, that it made Smith uncomfortable. This was a coach who had kept Michael Jordan from becoming bigger than his program, so he certainly didn’t want Reid doing it. What’s more, Smith was annoyed by Reid’s lack of improvement. As good as J.R. was, he still committed foolish turnovers (witness Maryland) and took bad shots. That had been okay a year ago, but not now.
There was more. Lebo wasn’t comfortable at point guard. The only senior, Ranzino Smith, was so limited that Smith had to take him out of the starting lineup, something he hated doing. His replacement was Kevin Madden, a redshirt sophomore who had been forced to sit out a year because of poor grades. The top recruit for next fall was Kenny Williams, an excellent player but a suspect student who had yet to meet Proposition 48 requirements. Why was Dean Smith—whose greatest strength was his clean, untarnished reputation—suddenly recruiting bad students?
A Season Inside Page 34