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!
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Initial Selection Board
We are now less than 72 hours from Selection Sunday when we will learn who will be selected for the 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. Above is our initial Selection Board of teams that our own panel believes should qualify for the tournament. The 14 teams listed in blue have already won their automatic bids and are guaranteed entry into the tournament. There will be 18 other teams that eventually win their respective automatic bids in the other conference tournaments being played through the weekend.
You may have also noticed that we only have 20 teams listed in green – this is because the Selection Committee made a change to the selection process this year. Instead of a maximum of 36 first-ballot at-large teams (which would match the 36 at-large spots available) being selected, the maximum number of at-large teams selected on the first ballot was reduced to 24 teams. Each member of the Hoops HD Committee submitted two lists to our chairman Chad Sherwood – the first list contained up to 24 teams that were “locks” to make the tournament. The second list was teams listed Under Consideration; these were teams that would not be selected on the initial ballot but would be considered after the initial round of balloting.
Since our Committee has over 10 voting members; teams needed all but 3 votes (i.e. 9 out of 12, 10 out of 13, etc.) to be placed on the at-large board. There were 20 teams that received the prerequisite number of votes to make the field. There were 42 teams that received at least 4 votes for Under Consideration; this was a larger number compared to years past because of the smaller initial at-large field. There were 13 other teams that were automatically added to Under Consideration by virtue of winning the regular season titles in their respective conferences, but it is likely that they will be voted off the Selection Board when our committee begins our meetings tonight.
Our agenda for our first night of meetings will have two parts: the first will be to name our annual Centenary Award and Stallings Award winners as the worst team in Division 1 and worst major conference team, respectively. Both teams will remain on the Selection Board for the duration of the committee meetings. The second part will be to add up to 16 at-large spots to the Selection Board; for each round of voting, there will be a discussion of the teams Under Consideration and each committee member will rank their top eight teams in no particular order. After the votes are tallied, the top eight vote-getters will be ranked 1 through 8 by each individual panelist. The top four vote getters will be added to the At-Large board.
For each subsequent round of voting, there will be more discussion about the remaining Under Consideration teams and each panelist will once again name their top 8 teams to be added to the at-large pool. The top four teams plus the four carryover teams from the previous round of voting will then be ranked 1 through 8 by each individual panelist. The top four teams will also be added to the at-large board. (Should a team be forced to carry over twice, they will be added back to the Under Consideration board). Our goal will be to add 16 teams to the at-large board, but it is possible we may stop at 12 teams depending on how long the process takes.
Stay tuned later tonight/tomorrow morning to see which teams we add to our tournament field!