What's next for UVa basketball?

When the Dave Leitao Experiment finally exploded on Monday, it should go down in Virginia history as a great lesson learned. You get what you pay for.

Four years ago, on the verge of opening one of the grandest arenas in the nation, UVa didn’t fulfill its commitment to excellence with its basketball program. Its coaching search started in the Big Boys Department and ended up in the Bargain Basement.

Instead of hitting a home run and bringing in a Hall of Famer in Tubby Smith, then at Kentucky, the UVa search committee whiffed when it settled for an unproven Dave Leitao. Clearly, the school didn’t do its homework.

Instead it chose the cheap route.

After four more years of

mediocrity — at best — Virginia has a second chance to go back and do it the right way.

Sure, it will be expensive. But it’s like our better halves often remind us when they’re in pursuit of that one ensemble to die for: “It’s investment shopping, dear. This outfit will stand the test of time.”

So should Virginia’s next basketball coach. Here’s John Casteen’s and Craig Littlepage’s chance to knock one out of the park for the good of the University.

Yes, it’s going to cost big bucks. But it’s an investment. Another mediocre hire will end up costing UVa basketball more than just money. It will cost empty seats at that great arena. It will cost them the loss of faith by the fan base. It will make a statement to the rest of the ACC that basketball just doesn’t matter in Charlottesville.

According to our sources, here’s the five guys on Virginia’s wish list: Minnesota’s Tubby Smith; Oklahoma’s Jeff Capel III; Virginia Commonwealth’s Anthony Grant; Villanova’s Jay Wright; and Michigan’s John Beilein.

While several of those guys would be nice hires, there’s only one name on the list that can go jaw-to-jaw with Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and North Carolina’s Roy Williams.

Tubby Smith.

He’s the only one with a national championship ring. He’s the only one who has proven himself over a lengthy period of time at several places.

He’s the only one who could bring instant credibility to the Virginia basketball program, could walk into any recruit in the country’s living room and make them believe that Cavalier basketball was back.

“That would be the best of all worlds,” said one major contributor.

“Tubby puts the school at a different level,” said another who wished to remain anonymous.

Let’s examine the profiles of those five gentlemen.

Capel is the son of Jeff Capel Jr., the former head coach at Old Dominion.

Young Jeff played guard for Krzyzewski at Duke, went on to become a successful head coach at VCU and had folks campaigning for him to get a shot at the UVa job when the Cavaliers hired Leitao.

Some felt he wasn’t seasoned enough at the time, but he has compiled a 66-31 record at Oklahoma in the past three years and has built a strong Sooners program after Kelvin Sampson left the place a mess.

Anthony Grant came out of Billy Donovan’s national championship program at Florida where he served as an assistant coach. He took up where Capel left off at VCU and has compiled a

76-24 record in three years with the Rams, including two NCAA Tournament bids.

Wright has been a strong force at ‘Nova where he has been head coach since 2001. He has steadily built the Wildcats’ program during that span and is considered a solid coach.

Beilein’s name also surfaced during UVa’s last coaching search, but the timing didn’t appear correct. Beilein built winners at Richmond and West Virginia before taking over at Michigan two years ago.

Again, all those candidates are nice. But they’re no Tubby Smith.

Smith, who will be 58 in June, started his coaching career at VCU as an assistant but worked his way up the ranks and has been a winner everywhere he’s been: Tulsa, Georgia, Kentucky, and now Minnesota.

Not only is he one of the most respected and classiest coaches in the nation, he’s one of the winningest. His 407-159 (.719) record before this season was the 12th-best among active Division I coaches.

He has never had a losing season and is one of only nine coaches to ever take three schools to an NCAA Sweet 16.

Smith is in the midst of a 16th straight, 20-plus win season, the longest active streak in the nation and the third-longest in NCAA history.

We could go on with myriad impressive numbers, but you get the picture. Virginia can’t do any better than Tubby Smith unless they go after Krzyzewski or Williams, and they aren’t budging for all the money in the world.

The best part of this whole thing is that a strong source told this columnist more than a month ago that if there was a coaching change at Virginia, then Tubby was very interested.

Sure, he won’t come cheap. Tubby is a certain Hall of Famer and those kinds of coaches command the market price.

In Tubby’s case, he signed a seven-year, $13 million-plus contract two years ago to become the Big Ten’s highest paid coach. He’s making $1.15 million in annual supplemental income plus an initial base salary of $600,000 per year with the Gophers.

Of course, he has incentive clauses and perks like any other coach. He also has a buyout, which would have been $3 million if he had left UM prior to April 30, 2008. However, that amount decreases over time.

Certainly, some of the heavy hitters that have expressed great dismay over the state of UVa basketball over the past two seasons, or for that matter, over the last 15 or so seasons, would

contribute significantly to the cause to bring in a Hall of Fame coach that would resuscitate Wahoo basketball.

According to several sources, some of the program’s most influential donors over the past decade have been extremely concerned over the state of the program. One confirmed major contributor was preparing to pull his pledges because of the erosion of Virginia basketball.

Apparently the UVa athletic department was divided on whether or not to end the Leitao regime. Athletics director Craig Littlepage was allegedly the last holdout until he saw the light.

After some back channel exploration to feel out potential candidates and receiving positive responses, Littlepage was convinced the time for a change was right.

The time to make perhaps the biggest hire in the history of Virginia athletics is upon Littlepage, his staff, Casteen and the UVa Board of Visitors.

The future of Cavalier basketball is at stake. UVa can’t afford to make another mistake.

Swing for the fences. It’s the only right thing to do.