For AU's Jones, Little Pleasure In Growing Pains

There is a look that coaches get in their eyes sometimes, one that is easy to recognize, because there isn't even a hint of subtlety to it. It is a combination of exhaustion, confusion and frustration. It doesn't look a lot different, in all likelihood, than the look one sees when someone has been repeatedly banging his head against a wall. The Look comes when it occurs to a coach that no matter how much he pleads, cajoles, coddles or screams, there may not be any answers and a long winter may become a bit longer before it is over.

Jeff Jones had The Look on Monday night when he walked out of his locker room. Thirty minutes earlier, he had walked off the court after watching Yale soundly beat his American University team by a 71-59 score that was deceiving because AU made a late run that made the final score deceptively close. At one stage, Jones had watched helplessly while Yale reeled off a 27-6 run, turning a brief AU lead into a 17-point deficit.

"It seems like every night we have one of those stretches," Jones said, collapsing in a chair in the narrow hallway that leads from the court at Bender Arena to the home locker room. "We dig a hole and it's just too deep to get out. It isn't as if they aren't playing as hard as they possibly can -- they are." He forced a smile. "I knew we had some questions coming into this season, but to be honest, I thought we'd be better than this. This has been tough. Really, really tough."

Jones has very little experience with losing. He is in his 14th season as a head coach and has had three losing records. As a player at Virginia, he was the starting point guard on a Final Four team and spent his last three seasons feeding Ralph Sampson. As a U-Va. assistant, he went back to the Final Four, then reached the final eight after succeeding Terry Holland as the head coach at the age of 29. Even at American, a school that has never reached the NCAA tournament, he has had consistent success: four straight winning seasons, three straight appearances in the championship game of the Patriot League tournament.

Now this.

Jones's only senior is a walk-on, and five freshmen are being asked to play significant minutes. "I knew there would be some growing pains," he said. "But not this kind of pain."

In hindsight, he says now, he overscheduled, beginning the season with six straight road games -- including a trip to Washington, a school that was a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament last March. By the time the Eagles got to play a game at Bender Arena, they were 0-6, including a brutal 75-35 loss to George Mason in the BB&T Classic.

"Mason's very good," Jones said. "But we came in there kind of reeling and they knocked us on our heels before we knew what was happening. That was a long night."

There have been rays since then -- three straight victories when they finally got to play at home -- and a road victory at St. Francis (Pa.). But playing in a league that has been bolstered by scholarships since AU's arrival five years ago, Jones and his team clearly face a daunting task over the next few weeks.

"Right now this isn't about the league improving," Jones said. "We've just started league play. This is about us. We're struggling right now. This is absolutely no fun. I know how hard it is for everyone else -- the players and the coaches -- and I know it's my job to find a way out of this. I run the gamut almost every day from anger to sympathy and back. That's why I lie awake in bed at night, trying to figure out what the best thing to do is. I know the kids are trying. I know they're good kids. But knowing that doesn't make it any easier for me -- or for them.

"The one thing I absolutely cannot let happen is to reach a point where we stop trying to fight our way through this. We cannot become resigned. We cannot accept the notion that we're not any good. We have to band together, stick together and keep believing that we can get better -- because we can."

On Wednesday, when Patriot League favorite Bucknell came to town, the Eagles played better before losing, 58-50. That result was hardly comforting to Jones. When you have won 225 games, moral victories have little meaning.

"A friend of mine pointed out to me the other day how spoiled I was when I started at Virginia," he said. "I was 29, coaching in the ACC and we were good. It was almost too easy, and I didn't really appreciate it the way I would now. Of course the funny thing is, I'm a much better coach now than I was then. I understand the business better, I understand kids better, I've seen more, done more. I enjoy coaching more now -- not the losing part -- but coaching. I think I can honestly say the most excited and wired I've ever been for a game was that first Patriot League final we played in here [a 58-54 loss to Holy Cross] because I really did appreciate the work that had gone into getting there."

Right now, AU is a long way from another Patriot League final. Finishing in the top half of the league this season would be a major accomplishment, especially after beginning league play with back-to-back losses at home. Today, the Eagles play at Colgate, a trip that brings back memories for Jones: a buzzer-beating shot from half court two years ago that won the game for the Raiders, which was followed by a six-hour bus trip home in the snow and a flooded basement waiting for him when he arrived at his house.

In a sense though, those were the good old days. AU was fighting for first place in the conference and was in every game it played. Now, Jones isn't sure what he's going to see. The problem is that, even at 45 and carrying a few extra pounds since his playing days at Virginia, Jones might still be good enough to help this team. Coaches can't do that. Which is why, sometimes, they get The Look.

Jones will fight through it. He has his annual winter cough, but unlike when things got tough at Virginia, he hasn't had any stomach problems. He's convinced things will get better. He just doesn't know when.

"When we get back to the Patriot League championship game again, after going through all this, it will be that much sweeter," he said. He forced a smile. "Of course at the moment, I'm not thinking about that. I'm thinking about our next win. Right now, that will be sweet."