Top Seed

Top Seed

Dave Leitao arrived in Charlottesville amid high hopes. College coaches usually do. Coaches also bear great burdens, especially in the Atlantic Coast Conference. Before their first team takes the court, their name is associated with a so-called era.

This week the Leitao era at the University of Virginia closed after four years, hardly a span equal to that of the Roman Empire. As is typical in these situations, the circumstances of the coach's departure seem somewhat murky. Although Leitao was named the ACC's coach of the year after his second season (in which the team won a first-round game in the NCAA tournament), the program did not appear to be making progress. Fans are an impatient lot. Next season likely would have been dominated by gossip about Leitao's future.

On Tuesday,

Times-Dispatch sports columnist Paul Woody offered an excellent analysis of basketball at Mr. Jefferson's University. We will leave the shouting to Dick Vitale.

College sports teach important lessons. Only a few seasons ago George Mason advanced to the Final Four. This year it lost a first-round game in a National Invitational Tournament hugely diminished since its glory days. The previous run lent the school modest exposure, but Mason's increased visibility rests less with sports than with its professional programs and its contributions to Northern Virginia's economy.

Although UVa appeared in two Final Fours during Terry Holland's days, it has not achieved the enduring glory seen at other schools, particularly at two conference competitors that will go unnamed here. Many alums and boosters would like to see championship banners decorating the school's arena; others root for the dear old home team while remembering that the University of Virginia was an acclaimed school before Ralph Sampson arrived on campus and remains an acclaimed school upon Leitao's apparent defenestration. Consider this: In recent years the University of Connecticut has enjoyed great triumphs on the basketball court. Regarding academic reputations, it is not in UVa's league.

UVa claims a top seed in the collegiate brackets that really count.