Cramming at UVa.
It wasn't easy getting ready for what turned out to be their final game of the 2005-2006 season in 48 hours - or less, as it turned out.
"We found out late on Sunday night, and then we had to fly out of Dulles. So we had a two-hour bus trip, and then a flight from Dulles to San Francisco. We were able to round up most of our guys and get on the practice floor for a 10:30 workout - and we spent about an hour on the floor," said Rob Lanier, an assistant coach at the University of Virginia, talking about the walkup to the Cavaliers one-and-done appearance in the Postseason NIT earlier this month.
Virginia found out late on Selection Sunday that they were to play at Stanford the following Tuesday night - about 47 hours later, doing some quick math.
What that forced the team to do, Lanier told the "ACC Nation" radio show last week, "was to use our shootaround on game day as a little bit of a live practice session to kind of get their legs going a little bit and get the game prep going for Stanford in terms of what we were specifically going to see them do from a strategic standpoint."
The Cavs lost the game with the Cardinal by a 65-49 count - and were never really in the game after an early 6-0 run in the contest's opening minutes.
"The game itself, I don't know how tough it was to prepare for that particular opponent. This time of year, particularly if you have experience with the NIT, a lot of times it's a little bit of a blessing in disguise that you have only a little bit of prep time, so that you can really focus on your team," Lanier said.
"When you're coming off your conference tournament, and we play ours late in the conference-tournament season, you get into a one-game-a-day type of mindset, so the preparation part of it wasn't as difficult from that standpoint," Lanier said.
The hardest part of the experience: "the travel."
"It wore on all of us. No excuse - the way the game played out, we just didn't play very well. But it was a tough trip - and it was an even tougher trip coming home," Lanier said.
"We hadn't traveled commercial all year. Our guys are a little bit spoiled. Guys like myself who have been at the midmajor level, we've been on a lot of bus trips. I really felt like it was a good experience for our guys," Lanier said.
- Chris Graham