The ones that got away

Put Duke’s Elliot Williams and Villanova’s Scottie Reynolds in the backcourt and North Carolina’s Ed Davis, Kentucky’s Patrick Patterson and Florida State’s Solomon Alabi up front.

Now that team could have won some games.

But if former Virginia coach Dave Leitao had landed just one of the aforementioned players — he was in hot pursuit of them all at one time or another — people would be singing a far different tune about his abilities as a recruiter.

“Every coach in America can have an ‘All-what-if team’ that would be as good as there is in the country,” said Leitao, back in January.

While that is certainly true, Leitao seemed to have more misses on the recruiting trail than his ACC counterparts — and that is one of the numerous reasons that he parted ways with the university on Monday.

Leitao was able to land ACC freshman of the year Sylven Landesberg, but he was never able to land that one really big fish. With a $130 million state-of-the-art arena as a backdrop, Leitao never got the one 5-star recruit that he so desperately needed to make noise in one of the most competitive conferences in the country.

Leitao’s greatest success — a share of the ACC regular-season championship in 2007 — was accomplished with a core of players that were recruited by predecessor Pete Gillen.

It was Leitao’s failure to recruit and develop his own top-tier talent that ultimately cost him.

An analysis of the recruits he landed bears this out.

Leitao’s first class, in 2006, featured Will Harris, Jamil Tucker, Solomon Tat and Jerome Meyinsse.

Tucker, who’s had the biggest impact of the quartet, has averaged just 5.3 points in his career.

Tat and Meyinsse have each averaged 1.7 points.

Harris averaged 3.3 points in his first two seasons before transferring to Albany.

Recruiting guru Bob Gibbons, when asked to assess the class as a whole, gave it a grade of “below average.”

In fairness, Leitao didn’t have much time to put that first class together. Most of the top players had a pretty good idea of where they were headed by the time Leitao had a chance to talk to them.

Leitao used his recruiting contacts from his previous job at DePaul to help lure Tucker, who had been spurned at the last second by Ohio State.

Tat, believe it or not, was a hot commodity on the AAU circuit coming out of high school in Georgia. The 6-foot-5 wing chose Virginia over Georgia.

But from the moment he arrived, it was clear that his defense was much further along than his offense. This season, Tat, due to his lack of shooting touch, was logging time at power forward.

“He can’t score. That’s his problem,” Gibbons said.

How did everybody miss the boat so badly?

“You see him as an athlete and feel like if he works hard to develop a shot that he should be [good],” Gibbons said.

Tat, of course, had a circuitous journey to Virginia. Because of visa problems, UVa had to help the Nigerian jump through numerous immigration hoops before he even arrived on grounds.

In the end, Tat got married and was able to stay in the country and play for Virginia.

Gibbons gave Leitao’s 2007 class a grade of “average.”

The group featured Sammy Zeglinski, Jeff Jones, Mike Scott and Mustapha Farrakhan.

“Zeglinski is a player who’s solid,” Gibbons said. “He’s not a quick, explosive, jet-like point guard, but he’s fundamentally sound and can shoot the ball.

“Scott, I thought would contribute more than he has because he really had a great year at Hargrave [Military Academy] and was highly sought after by Virginia Tech, Clemson, Wake Forest and a lot of schools.”

It seemed as if Leitao had a steal after Jones, the Philadelphia Catholic League’s all-time leading scorer, de-committed from Maryland. But Jones has had an inconsistent start to his career at Virginia.

Meanwhile, Gibbons viewed Farrakhan as a bit of a reach.

“I’ve never been sure that he’s quite up to ACC level,” he said. “I rated him as a mid-major type player.”

Leitao’s third recruiting class was clearly his best. It featured Landesberg, a 4-star recruit, and two promising big men in Assane Sene and John Brandenburg. Gibbons rated the 2008 group “above average,” ranking it fourth within the ACC.

“Landesberg certainly more than fulfilled his expectations,” Gibbons said. “Sene and Brandenburg are still developing. … I think next year they’ll show marked improvement and be very good ACC players.”

Although Leitao signed Tristan Spurlock and Jontel “Bub” Evans to letters of intent, it is not clear, due to Leitao’s departure, if they will still come to Virginia. Gibbons is “very high” on Spurlock, but sounded a little iffy on Evans.

“[Spurlock] can play guard or forward and is an outstanding defensive player,” Gibbons said. “I think he and Landesberg can team to be two of the better wing players in the conference.”

Evans is considered an excellent athlete who loves to play defense, “but a lot of people thought that maybe he was a better football prospect than a basketball [one],” Gibbons noted.

Overall, Gibbons believes Leitao wasn’t hurt by chasing the big fish — the Pattersons and Davises of the world. In fact, he believes Virginia’s runner-up status on several of the 5-star players helped the school’s profile.

Assistant coach Bill Courtney was responsible for procuring some of the program’s best talent — Landesberg, Sene and Spurlock.

But there is no doubt that when Leitao lost Rob Lanier, another great recruiter, to Florida after the 2007 season, things started heading south.

“The staff has to shoulder much of the responsibility for recruiting,” Gibbons said. “The head coach is just the closer.”