Few references to the Virginia-American men's basketball game tonight will include the names of Jason Williford, Kieran Donohue and Greg Lyons.

Those three members of the American staff are UVa graduates, as is the Eagles' head coach, Jeff Jones.

"To be honest with you, playing this game was not something that was my idea," said Jones, who was the point guard for the Virginia team that played in the 1981 Final Four and later served as the Cavaliers' head coach from 1990-98.

"If Jason and Kieran hadn't come up with the idea and pushed the idea pretty hard, I can't say that we would be playing even now. They just had a number of rational reasons and not just sentimental ones"

In eight seasons, Jones' teams made five NCAA Tournament appearances and won an NIT championship, but he was fired in 1998 after his final team went 11-19.

He will become the first former UVa basketball coach to bring another team to Charlottesville, and the circumstances had to be just right.

Jones did not return to Virginia for the ceremonial final game at University Hall last March and says he would not have returned if he didn't have a prior relationship with the Cavaliers' second-year head coach, Dave Leitao.

"It's time," Jones said. "It makes sense. We'll get a nice paycheck and we don't have to take an airplane ride, so we get to keep most of the money."

Jones said he is aware of teams this season which have gone on the road for paydays of anywhere from $30,000 to $90,000. The check that American will receive is somewhere in the middle.

Some of Jones' friends were opposed to the idea.

"The first thing that Dennis [Wolff] said when he heard it was, 'What the hell were you thinking?'" Jones said.

Wolff, the head coach at Boston University, was an assistant coach during Jones' first four seasons at Virginia and remains one of his closest confidants.

"We were on a pretty damn good roll," said Jones, who was 105-57 in his first five seasons at UVa. "Then, all of a sudden, the wheels came off. We treaded water for a while, but that last year was a very difficult time."

In addition to the won-lost record, Jones' final teams were plagued by off-court problems, most notably the arrest of post recruit Melvin Whitaker before he played a game for the Cavaliers.

Still, Virginia averaged more than 18 victories per year during the Jones era, compared to fewer than 17 wins per year in the six full seasons since his departure. UVa has made one NCAA appearance during that time and has not won an NCAA game during the post-Jones era.

Chances are, he will be received warmly tonight. It's not anything that he dreads.

"Dread would be a strong word," he said. "Who the heck knows what the reception will be?"

Jones has seen the outside of UVa's new 15,219-seat John Paul Jones Arena during trips to Charlottesville to see his children, but he has never been inside the building."

"I'm sure it will be a bittersweet experience for him as he looks around the new arena and thinks about what might have been," said ex-player Curtis Staples, who will be in attendance for tonight's game.

Staples, who set the NCAA 3-point record while a member of Jones' final team, had hoped there could be some sort of reconciliation.

"We talk," said Staples, something of a keeper of the Cavalier flame, "but I'd like to sit down and see how he really feels about coming back.

"It wasn't until he was gone that people realized how good they had it. I'm not sure I appreciated how good a coach he was until I was done playing."

Jones, 46, said he considers himself a member of the UVa men's basketball family.

When asked if he always felt that way, he pauses.

"The answer is, 'Yes, I always did,'" he said. "Time has passed. Feelings that may have been there at one time ... you kind of learn to accept things and move on."

The crowd for tonight's 7:30 tipoff is certain to include at least two of his children, daughter Madison and son Jeff Jr., both students at St. Anne's-Belfield in Charlottesville.

Another daughter, Meg, is a freshman at Wake Forest.

Once the youngest coach in Division I-A when he was named to succeed Terry Holland in 1990, Jones, then 29, is settling into middle age.

His younger daughter plays field hockey and lacrosse at STAB, where she is junior-class president, and his son, a 5-foot-10 seventh-grader, is a basketball and baseball player who could grow to 6-6 or 6-7.

Jeff Jones Jr. is not to be confused with another Jeff Jones, a 6-foot-4 shooting guard from Philadelphia who signed a letter-of-intent with the Cavaliers in November..

"A number of people have mentioned that to me," the original Jeff Jones said. "Most of it is along the lines of, 'Now that we've got another Jeff Jones, wouldn't it be great to get another Ralph Sampson.'"