It’s Sunday, December 29th and I’ve just arrived at John Paul Jones Arena to cover Virginia’s final basketball game of the calendar year. As I walk through the security entrance and make my way toward the media room, I pass under a national championship banner that I still can’t believe actually hangs here. In roughly 14 and a half hours, I’ll be on my way to the airport to hop on a plane and eventually watch the Cavaliers play in the Orange Bowl with the chance to win their 10th game of the season for only the second time in school history. If someone had told me 365 days ago that I’d walk under that banner before leaving for Miami the next morning, I don’t think I would have believed them. There’s no way to think of 2019 as anything other than an incredible ride. It truly was the Year of the Wahoo.

It’s the evening of Saturday, January 19th. The No. 2-ranked Cavaliers have suffered their first loss of the season in a 72-70 defeat in Durham. They would fall just twice the rest of the way, first at home to the Blue Devils three weeks from now and then to Florida State in the semifinals of the ACC Tournament in Charlotte. They responded to that first loss with four wins before falling by 10 to the hot-shooting Devils in JPJ. But UVa hit the road the next day and beat a Top-10 Carolina team in the Dean Dome 48 hours later. And of course, the Hoos responded to their third and final loss by rolling to the program’s first NCAA title.

It’s 2:51 p.m. on Sunday, December 22nd. I’m sitting inside John Paul Jones Arena and I’ve just watched the hype video that plays before the Wahoos take the floor prior to the national anthem. Watching clips from late March in Louisville and early April in Minneapolis, it still astounds me that’s a thing that happened, and a thing I got to cover in person. Those clips include a one-in-a-million pass from Kihei Clark to Mamadi Diakite, spurring a play that (again) to this day I still can’t believe no matter how many times I see It. Every home game, these clips and the banners that hang remind me of one of the most exhilarating, most incredible times of my entire life. It began with a nail bitter in Columbia and then, after a win over Oklahoma, included me driving through the night to get back to Charlottesville for a spring football practice. That’s not something I’d advise future me of doing again. But everything else? It’s irreplaceable. And remains somewhat indescribable.

It’s just after 10 a.m. on Saturday, May 25th, and I’m listening as the countdown draws to its end and then a series of concussive blasts bellow throughout this part of Charlottesville. Moments later, another round of blasts would be heard as University Hall finally comes down. The closing of this chapter feels like a rebirth, not only given what had happened a few weeks prior but also the plan that Virginia Sports has in place for how to use this particular area going forward. Before the school year ends, the department will have added two more national championships and vie for another. The future, even from this vantage point watching a piece of Cavalier history come toppling down, is bright.

It’s about 15 minutes before midnight on the east coast on Monday, April 8th. UVa has just beaten Texas Tech 85-77 in overtime to win the school’s first national championship in the sport. It took a late 3-pointer by De’Andre Hunter to help these Cardiac Cavs stay alive, a late block by Braxton Key to help secure the extra session, and then another 3-pointer by Hunter to push the Wahoos ahead for good. Some 20 minutes later, they’ll be standing on a podium, confetti surrounding them and national title lids on their heads, as they watch “One Shining Moment” in unison. In the back of the group, Tony Bennett will rest his arms behind him on the railing, taking it all in. Several months later, when the school finally raises the banner that forever recognizes this night, he’ll pull a ticket to this game out of his jacket pocket along with a ticket from the UMBC loss the previous year. “If you use it right,” he’ll once again offer, “it can take you to a place you could never have gone otherwise.” It was a magical ride and of all the moments that stand out, from “The Play” to three Kyle Guy free throws to beat Auburn in the Final Four, this one persists: Watching the team begin to let the enormity of the situation sink in.

By the time I leave the arena after 2 a.m. back home, a graphic will display outside U.S. Bank America that says “CHAMPIONS” underneath a V-sabre logo. Surreal doesn’t cut it.

It’s 3:40 p.m. in Scott Stadium on Saturday, November 29th, and UVa has just beaten Virginia Tech 39-30 to break a 15-year losing streak and punch its ticket to the ACC Championship Game for the first time. In winning the Coastal Division, the Hoos may have made good on a prediction that came from assembled ACC media members in the summer but it was by no means ordained. Not in this division and not after All-American cornerback Bryce Hall went down in Miami earlier in the season. It was the biggest injury to a secondary that had to deal with far too many of them, especially the shoulder injury that took Brenton Nelson off the field for the last few games. Not having him at Nickel back was especially challenging for the Hoos. And yet somehow, Bronco Mendenhall and Co. still managed to get it done. On this day, as it has been often these past two years, it was Bryce Perkins and the offense that proved to be the difference, at least until a barrage of pressure in the backfield by Virginia’s defensive front thwarted Tech’s comeback attempt. David A. Harrison III Field has rarely (if ever) been as loud as it was when Hendon Hooker was sacked by Mandy Alonso and fumbled in the end zone, as Eli Hanback recovered for a TD. It signaled the end of a streak but so much more to fans, alums, and observers alike. Regardless of what happened in Charlotte and eventually in Hard Rock Stadium in the Orange Bowl—where the Cavaliers put up one of the most gritty, spirited efforts of Mendenhall's tenure—the Wahoos had finally broken through and the sense of growing momentum for the program permeated. Perkins would go out breaking Shawn Moore’s school-record for total offense. It’s safe to say he and the other seniors whose Virginia careers are now behind them have put the program back on the map.

It’s 11 p.m. on Saturday, December 7th. I’m standing on the sidelines at Bank of America Stadium as the ACC Championship Game has just gone final. Clemson has rolled to a win that everyone expected. I’m focused on the Wahoo fans who remained in Charlotte, though. The scene of an unexpected 28-0 win over South Carolina to cap the previous season, this was not the place the Cavaliers would shock the world. But it was a step on a ladder and an important one. You can’t win conference titles until you play in title games and you can’t play in the Orange Bowl until you get here, and UVa finally making it here and there is far more significant than the score or stats of this specific matchup or the one that was still to come.

It’s 5:15 p.m. on the afternoon of April 9th and I’ve just published perhaps the best thing I’ll ever write. Ever the one for hooks, I revisited the UMBC loss and (finally) used the audio that I recorded that night. No piece I’ve ever published on this website had as much in it as this one, connecting one of the roughest nights with easily the most incredible. The journey of 2018 and into 2019 for this program was a slog peppered with external questions and pressure, but it eventually turned magical.

“Fans will never forget their pursuit,” I wrote that day. “After years and years of seeing their teams get close without being able to take home the hardware, these last few weeks will live forever. Players will never forget their bond and their achievement. After years of work and a year of answering questions for which only results could truly provide an answer, these last few weeks are a validation that goes beyond the hardwood.

Joy came in the morning.

And for once, it did not leave.”

Good luck, 2020, because 2019 had one helluva run.

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