Shaver Has Quietly Made William & Mary a Contender
We need to recognize the job Tony Shaver has done at William & Mary. While this comes at a time that his team made a special run that came up short in the CAA Tournament, his work was worthy of being mention even before this weekend.
Before Shaver took the job back in 2003, it didn’t look like much of a job from the outside. His predecessor, Rick Boyages, left after three seasons to return to Ohio State as an assistant. Indeed, it was described by some as a bad job, and has long been seen as a place where it’s exceedingly difficult to win. To some degree, history backs this; this season was the school’s first winning one in a decade and the sixth time they have won 17 or more games, which has happened just twice since they joined the CAA.
Shaver left a job at Hampden-Sydney where he was a consistent winner. He averaged 21 wins per season in 17 years, advancing the team to the Division III Final Four twice and being the national runner-up in 1999. While his current school has topped 17 wins just six times, Shaver won less than 17 games just four times in his 21 seasons there, winning no fewer than 21 in his final seven years.
What would make him go for a job like this? He saw some potential and had a few simple desires, among them stability and the area where the school is located.
“I’ve been lucky to be in only a few places, but I’ve always been in great schools with great kids,” said the fifth-year head coach. “I think a great place to live for my family has always been important for me, but I also looked at William & Mary across the board, and they’re successful with a lot of sports. I didn’t see a reason we couldn’t be successful in basketball.”
The indications now are that his sense was accurate. William & Mary hasn’t arrived yet, but it looks like a program that could be on the verge. Shaver, who won the conference’s Coach of the Year award, knew it wouldn’t happen overnight, but his first recruiting class brought the team to this season’s accomplishments, and appropriately, they did so in a slow and steady fashion.
The accomplishments this season, including the CAA Tournament run, are several. It was their first winning season in a decade and their second ever with at least 10 CAA wins. Prior to this weekend, they had won a total of three games in the CAA Tournament, which they equaled this weekend, and Shaver has guided the program to four of its six tournament wins. And while they didn’t get the ultimate prize, which is a trip to the NCAA Tournament via a conference title, Shaver realizes that his team has still gained plenty from what they did. Just getting in the title game on ESPN can’t hurt.
“I do think a win would have done unbelievable things for our program, but quite honestly I think this weekend has done unbelievable things for our program,” said Shaver. “I don’t want a loss to a great team in George Mason to take that away. I hope we’ve created a little stir at William & Mary about basketball.”
While all of the accomplishments might not sound like much, it’s a step in the right direction. They still struggled for his first three seasons, winning a total of 23 games, but last season was where results started to show up. Even that was a bit unexpected, as their most talented player, Calvin Baker, transferred to Virginia after the 2005-06 season, which at the time looked like it might be a striking blow. But the Tribe won 15 games and went 8-10 in the CAA, showing a marked improvement from the prior season. Part of the reason for the success was the maturity of his players, but another contributor was that a change in style happened then.
Shaver played at North Carolina under Dean Smith in the 1970s. The style of play he knew as a player and coach was to play as fast as possible, with a lot of pressing and trapping. But he had a sense early on in his tenure that he might not win with that system and the personnel he had. So after he and his staff had talked about it and even began recruiting with an eye towards it, around Christmas during the 2006-07 season, they changed up to a style that bears more of a resemblance to the Princeton offense than to anything Dean Smith ever ran.
Looking at their personnel, it makes sense. Just about everyone on the team can make a three-pointer, which George Mason head coach Jim Larranaga told his team before the game as part of their defensive game plan. While Nathan Mann has been known as a shooter, he can handle and pass well. Sophomore David Schneider is the primary point guard but must be guarded from behind the arc. Graduating senior Laimis Kisielius is the perfect forward for this system, as he’s always been a fine passer and ball-handler and blossomed once this system was put in place because it more effectively utilized his skills and he improved his jumper.
When the change was first made, there were naturally a few bumps in the road since the change was made in mid-season. But Shaver doesn’t find that unusual because he feels the holdovers from then are still learning it and still have lapses with it. That was even evident on Monday night, when at times in the first half they weren’t very aggressive and fell into the trap of moving the ball around just to kill the clock instead of with the intent of getting a good shot from some offensive patience.
“I feel like it’s still something that’s developing, to be quite honest,” Shaver reflected. “We still go through spurts where we’re not doing what we need to do, so I think it’s something we’re just going to continue to develop.”
Now the challenge is different. The Tribe has an opportunity to make more strides after what they did this weekend for a variety of reasons. Being on ESPN is one benefit, but additionally, Shaver has undoubtedly made believers of anyone who thought they couldn’t win. His players surely believe more than they ever did, as do fans. And he’s been here before – he understands that there’s more work to be done.
“I think maintaining is often more difficult than building,” said Shaver.
Perhaps the neatest thing in all of this is that we’ve gotten to see a lighter side of Shaver that hasn’t been seen before. He doesn’t stand out in a conference whose coaches include personalities like Bruiser Flint or “name” coaches like Larranaga or Anthony Grant. A very unassuming type, one gets the sense that he does a great job of trying to win while also enjoying the experience, especially this weekend as he was often smiling. He’s always positive on the bench with his team, and that’s not a mirage as he always gives all the credit to his players. Many times the past couple of days, he spoke glowingly of his seniors and how they traded loyalty to one another through some tough times.
On a couple of occasions, you could tell he enjoyed the experience, and he’s found ways to really have fun with it. He kidded the media when asked if fatigue would be a factor on Monday since it would be their fourth game in four days, saying, “Fatigue will definitely be a factor for me, but probably not for these guys. They’re young, they’re energetic.” When asked if he was concerned about anything before the game, he had an even better one that came from a week earlier.
“I worried about one thing a little bit,” Shaver said. “One thing we did last week was practice cutting down the nets. In a foolish moment, the staff convinced me to sit on the rim out there for a minute, and I promised the team if we cut down the nets here I’d do it again. So I was a little worried about that, but I would have gladly done it.”
Shaver didn’t win the conference Coach of the Year award by accident, although his team didn’t finish the regular season strong. He won it during a season where there were several excellent coaching jobs and in a conference with solid coaches all over. This weekend, we got to see how deserving he was of it.
