At first glance, UVA senior forward Darion Atkins was throwing his teammates under the bus, telling reporters after the Cavs’ 60-54 upset loss to Michigan State on Sunday, among other things, that he felt like his teammates “were just playing like some pussies,” and that he was “alone out there at times.”
Atkins had 10 points and 14 rebounds in the loss, despite foul trouble that limited his minutes down the stretch, so maybe he had reason to say some of what he was saying.
(Dare any of us on the outside suggest that the Cavs were playing like pussies. Guy grabs 14 boards against Michigan State, he can say that.)
First thought upon seeing the ESPN news blurb about Atkins’ comments a couple of hours after the game: damn, so that’s how he goes out.
Atkins had patiently, OK, not always patiently, but he tried to be patient, anyway, he waited his turn for three years, getting 12 starts as a sophomore in 2012-2013 and then three starts in 2013-2014, when he averaged only 10.4 minutes per game.
There was talk late last season that Atkins was unhappy with his playing time, to the point that it wouldn’t have been a surprise to see him taking his talents elsewhere for his final year of eligibility. The talk didn’t surprise me at all considering what I saw myself in the locker room between the second and third rounds of the 2014 NCAA Tournament.
During the open media locker room session on the Saturday after Virginia’s opening win over Coastal Carolina, Atkins spent the bulk of the session lying face down on a trainer’s table, not exactly ignoring requests from reporters who wanted to interview him, but you ever tried to interview a guy who seems to be taking a nap?
Atkins only played three minutes in Virginia’s 61-59 loss to Michigan State in the 2014 Big Dance, an afterthought even when Anthony Gill went down with a sprained ankle in the second half, and his replacement, Mike Tobey, was continually being beaten by the Spartans’ bigs.
But Atkins stuck it out, and it’s hard to imagine Virginia spending 11 weeks ranked #2 or #2 in the Associated Press poll, winning the ACC regular season for a second consecutive year and being a trendy Final Four pick without Atkins doing what he did this year.
He essentially replaced the production of last year’s defensive stopper, Akil Mitchell, winning ACC defensive player of the year honors in the process, while actually serving as a slight upgrade on Mitchell in the counting stats (7.6 points per game, 6.0 rebounds per game, 51.1 percent field goal shooting for Atkins in 2014-2015, vs. Mitchell’s 6.8 points per game, 7.0 rebounds per game and 56.1 percent field goal shooting in 2013-2014).
His final game in JPJ was a nice way to go out for a guy who had to fight for his minutes on the floor. Atkins scored 16 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field in Virginia’s 69-57 win over Virginia Tech on Feb. 28, punctuating the performance with a pair of rim-rattling dunks, one of which earned him a technical foul that he famously welcomed in talking with reporters after the game.
Atkins was a favorite in the postgame with reporters because he could own up to being OK with getting a T for swinging on the rim on a dunk against an in-state rival, or tell reporters on the eve of the Michigan State game that it was going to be a “dick-swinging contest” with the rugged Cavs and Sparty on the court at the same time.
Which is more than a little refreshing to hear when you’re a reporter used to coachspeak and playerspeak that seems to have been filtered through some sort of training that scrubs anything resembling bulletin-board material from guys’ minds before they start taking questions.
Atkins was a go-to guy for what the guys were really thinking, which is why he had so many great quotes that ended up in the media, and a ton of others that didn’t, but should’ve.
(Go to my YouTube channel. I tried to get Darion after every game. Didn’t always have time to transcribe every word, but … they’re worth a watch.)
I didn’t have a problem with what he said after the MSU game. In context with what else he said that afternoon, about how the guys in that room are his brothers, how proud he was to go to war with them, and then considering that he had just played his final college game, far sooner than any of us had expected, yeah, he’d earned the right to think out loud and say what he was thinking.
What I still feel bad about is that people who don’t know how Darion Atkins is wired will assume he’s a typical me-first, spoiled athlete spouting off at the mouth in an effort to distance himself from his teammates at just about the absolute worst time.
Couldn’t be further from the truth with Atkins. The guy you saw on the court playing shutdown defense, grabbing rebounds and knocking down open jumpers and backing guys into the lane for jump hooks was the ultimate glue guy for the Cavs this year, and the shame is that we didn’t get to see more of him those first three years.
Assuming the return of Justin Anderson for 2015-2016, Virginia could very well start next season as #1 or #2 in the preseason polls. How far the Cavs can go in March will depend on how successful Tony Bennett is in finding somebody who doesn’t back down in a dick-swinging contest.
– Column by Chris Graham
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