Conference tournaments are about basketball but also so much more: the fans, parents, bands, cheerleaders, etc. The ACC Tournament tips off this week in Washington, DC, and we could not be more excited to be there in person! HoopsHD will be covering all the angles so you can look forward to an abundance of articles in the week ahead. Jon Teitel continues our coverage with an interview of Virginia basketball parents Randy and Tara Groves about their son Jake.
Your son Jake is from Spokane: what made him choose Eastern Washington to start his college career? His brother Tanner was already there, which helped. When Jake graduated from high school he was only 6’6″ but grew 3″ in college. He had a relationship with EWU coach Shantay Legans through Tanner: Shantay told Jake that he would be a really good player, and Jake wanted to play with his brother, so it just made sense.
In 2020 the Eagles entered the Big Sky tourney with a regular season title and a 23-8 record: what was your reaction when you learned that the postseason was being canceled due to COVID? About half of our crew drove to Boise for that tourney, we were in the lobby of the arena waiting in line ready to go in and watch them warm up…and someone came out and said that it was canceled, it was a little rough and super-unfortunate but we made the best of it.
The following year in his only NCAA tourney appearance (so far!) Jake scored 23 PTS before fouling out and his brother Tanner scored 35 PTS in a 9-PT loss to Kansas in the COVID “bubble”: where does that game rank among the career highlights of the Groves family (despite the loss)? Let’s back up: 1 of the all-time highs was our win over Montana State in the Big Sky tourney title game. Tanner was named tourney MVP and Jake made the all-tourney team so that was a very proud moment for us. The Kansas game was great: it is hard not to be excited when your kids play so well…but it was also a loss so it was a bittersweet thing. We wish that we could have gotten another game out of it, but it was still great to see them shine vs. the Jayhawks and show that they could play at a pretty high level.
After that loss both of your sons transferred to Oklahoma as a package deal: how close are the 2 of them? They are very close but it was not a “package deal”: they were willing to split up but that is just the way it worked out. We were pretty convinced that Tanner was going to end up at Virginia because Coach Tony Bennett had recruited him, but since he had not graduated yet he would have lost a lot of college credits so it was not worth it. We started looking at other options and Oklahoma wanted both of our boys: 1 of their high school friends was a manager for Coach Porter Moser at Loyola Chicago (before he was hired at Oklahoma) so there was a little connection there that drove that.
During his 2 years at Eastern Washington he made the Big Sky All-Academic Team multiple times, and during his 2 years at Oklahoma he made the College Sports Communicators Academic All-District Team: as a high school teacher (Tara) and a dean of students (Randy), how much of an influence were you 2 on his ability to balance his work on the court with his work in the classroom? That has always been important, not just to us but to our sons as well. We both have a lot of educators in our families so all of those pieces have always been important.
After earning a degree in sports business he decided to transfer to Virginia for his final year, where he will get a master’s in educational psychology: what is his post-graduation plan? He would like to continue playing basketball at the highest level, even if it is overseas.
He only made 2-15 3PM as a freshman but is shooting 48.3 3P% this year: how has he been able to improve so much from then until now? In high school he was a great 3-PT shooter (Randy has been his coach since he was a child), so the 1 thing that Coach Legans knew about Jake was that he could shoot the 3. When he got to EWU he changed his shot from a pocket shooter to an over-his-head shooter, but Oklahoma changed him back to a pocket shooter. The coaches at Oklahoma/UVA have all done an incredible job of working with him.
UVA has played a tough schedule this year including Florida/Wisconsin/Texas A&M/Memphis as well as several ACC schools who will make the NCAA tourney: which opponent impressed you the most? Tara went to Cameron Indoor Stadium this year, which was on her bucket list, and we have been all over. Anybody in the ACC can beat anybody else on any given night so if you do not show up then things will not go your way, which I have been impressed with. UNC/Duke are really good teams with great athletes, but I was also impressed with Florida State because they are so young/long: I think they could surprise a lot of people. We are so impressed with the UVA program/staff/culture: it is not lost on us how lucky we are to have Jake playing for that community. What they told us on his recruiting trip has been 100% on point with exactly how it has gone. Some of it is on them following throuhg with an incredible amount of integrity, and he has also earned what he has been given: it is a great group of human beings to be around on a daily basis.
Tara was an NAIA All-American basketball player who is in her school’s Hall of Fame, Randy played college basketball, your son Tanner is playing pro basketball overseas, and your youngest son Dylynn received a scholarship offer from Portland when he was 12 years old: who is the best athlete in the family? There is only 1 kid playing pro ball in Germany at the moment so I guess we have to go with him…but we might have 1 or 2 right on his heels! They all have such different games and it is so fun to watch them. Tanner was primarily a 5 in college but is a 4 in the pros. Jake is more of a shooter…and Dylynn is a combination of both of them.
Any predictions for tonight’s game vs. BC, and how wild would it be if the Hoos end up facing Oklahoma in the NCAA tourney?! I predict that Virginia will beat BC: it is a pretty good matchup for us. I think it will be a ton of fun but we are obviously on the side of UVA. It would be fun to face the Sooners: we know some players who are still there so we want to support them…but hopefully not against Virginia!