It’s cliche after an event has happened to look back and say something like “now that the dust has settled.” But in the case of this past weekend and the implosion of what remained of University Hall, that’s more apt than it is gimmick.

The eulogies have all been written at this point. For fans and media alike, there was an obvious sadness in watching the Clam come down. And it was every bit as strange as you think it was when I left the area on Saturday and headed for 64, to not see UHall peeking out over the trees.

For Jason Williford, the symmetry of “now” being when the building is finally taken down, nearly seven weeks after the school’s first national title, says a lot.

Looking back on it brought a smile to his face.

“Lot of good memories, lot of fun times in there,” Williford recounted minutes before the implosion. “One of the best memories, though, was probably prior to me actually coming, prior to me committing. It was watching Richard Morgan go off for 39 on Senior Day. I thought it was the coolest thing. They sub him out of the game and instead of going to the bench he runs up into the stands and hugs his mom and goes nuts. And I’m like, ‘Dang. I want to do that on my Senior Day!’ So that’s pretty cool.

“But it’s a bittersweet moment,” he added. “A lot of wins in there, and as you know we’ve also had a lotta wins in that new place.”

Bryant Stith won at UHall well before he was a Wahoo. After all, he won a pair of state championships there when he was a high school phenom at Brunswick. But despite being the school’s all-time leading scorer, in the final moments it stood his greatest memories of University Hall weren’t actually focused on him. His focus was on the present and future.

“It’s a bittersweet moment for me,” Stith said, “because, although you hate to see University Hall go because of all of the great memories that were created in that building, any time you close one chapter you have a chance to open a new one. What Coach Bennett and his staff have done with Virginia Basketball and the heights they’ve taken it to, it’s unbelievable. So, although I’m sad to see University Hall go, I’m very excited about the future of Virginia basketball.”

The very first time he remembers being in the building, though, was before he really garnered the attention of the coaches at Virginia.

“Well, my earliest memory of UHall was seeing UVa play against UNC, Ralph Sampson against Michael Jordan and Perkins and Worthy,” he recalled. “But to actually step foot on campus was going to an elite camp going into my ninth-grade year.

“The one thing that struck me about University Hall, and it was still my favorite place all four years while I was here, was going down the steps by the ticket office and just looking at that iconic picture of Ralph posting up Patrick Ewing,” Stith added. “That was my favorite spot in UHall. I used to sit there and I used to dream and think about the great memories that I wanted to be a part of because of that photo on that wall.”

For Dawn Staley, she admitted she can’t recall the very first time she stepped foot in the building. But she knows now that even then it was special.

“I don’t remember but I’m quite sure it had to happen during my official visit,” she said. “It was while I was a recruit, yes. I had never played in anything as big, so it was a place in which I thought we could fill it up. I don’t know if we filled it up to capacity but the amount of people that were in there, the lower bowl was full all the time. The atmosphere was just incredible, [and] that was not taking place probably in any other arena besides maybe a place like Tennessee. So, it was certainly a movement to support women’s basketball.”

In Williford’s case, his first time at University Hall was likely earlier because he, like Stith, got to attend camps there. His experience as a player and then eventually as a coach helps to shape the way he’ll remember it.

“For me, it was one of the nicest places I had been from a facilities standpoint,” he said. “Obviously, coming from Richmond the Coliseum was bigger but this was just unique because it was on campus and I watched a lot of games. Watching Ralph, watching Richard and those guys, watching Stith before me. You knew it was a great home court. The Pep Band at the time was crazy. But, pretty cool spot.

“There were some practices we would have in there,” Williford added. “For whatever reason, if something was going on in JPJ or in the summers, we’d go have workouts in there and we did camps, Tony Bennett’s Camps, in there. And one year, we actually had a scrimmage in there—I believe we scrimmaged Marquette—in UHall because JPJ wasn’t available. So that was a pretty cool scrimmage.”

“Growing up in the state,” Stith said, “I got a chance to watch Ralph Sampson play. I got a chance to see Jeff Lamp and Jeff Jones and Ricky Stokes and all those guys play. It’s just a fabulous feeling to be part of such a special group.”

Staley and Sampson, appropriately enough, were the chosen dignitaries on the stage when the moment came. She, of course, is the most-decorated player in UVa women’s basketball history. A three-time All-American and two-time national player of the year who led her team to a trio of Final Fours, Staley said that in the moments before arriving back on Grounds this weekend her mind went to all of the people the building represented.

In the minutes after its implosion, she couldn’t help but feel that.

“Driving here and thinking about what was going to take place versus actually being a part of seeing it—I just videotaped it to kind of go back in case I need to go back and watch it—there was a certain sadness that came over me,” she said, “because of what it means to me, the great memories of UHall, the people, the basketball, the sisterhood that was formed, the coaching staffs that we had all put their hearts on the line when it came to playing in that place.”

As the emotions flowed, the symmetry of it all wasn’t lost on Williford or Stith.

“It’s just kind of God’s timing,” Williford said with a smile. “It’s all in the good Lord’s hands. He’s got a way of working those moments and making it a little more meaningful. It probably should’ve come down years ago but with the new masterplan, there are such great things on the horizon and obviously with what we were able to do [this season], it kind of just makes it the right time.”

“This day takes on a different meaning,” Stith said earlier, “because when University Hall goes down, all you have to do is look across the street and see how bright the future is.”

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