Cavaliers' two ACC losses strikingly similar
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
January 9, 2005

The script was familiar for Virginia’s ACC road games and a too familiar reminder of just a recent setback.

Virginia’s 92-69 loss at Georgia Tech on Saturday night dropped the Cavs to just 10-39 in ACC road contests under Gillen. While road woes have been a near constant problem for the Virginia program, the manner in which it resembled Virginia’s 89-79 loss to Wake Forest last Sunday in U-Hall was particularly troubling.

In both contests, the Cavaliers trailed by just six at halftime and in both games, a case could certainly be made that they played well in those first halves. Yet, at the dawn of the second half, the Cavaliers quickly folded as the opponents built double-digit leads that only grew larger and larger by the final buzzer.

“We lost our composure in the second half and didn’t stick to the gameplan. We couldn’t execute our offense and couldn’t get a stop on defense,” said sophomore guard J.R. Reynolds, who scored a career-high 21 points against the Jackets.

With Georgia Tech holding a 44-38 halftime advantage, the game did not seem out of reach but quickly became that way. The Yellow Jackets opened the final 20 minutes with a 10-2 run and Virginia would then get no closer than 12 points the rest of the way. At one point, the lead swelled to as many as 32.

Wake Forest did just about the same thing to the Cavaliers as it widened its six-point halftime lead quickly at the beginning of the second half. In that situation, Virginia made at least an attempt to cut the deficit and did reduce it to nine but could get no closer. The Cavaliers did not do that this time around as the game no longer became “close” just a minute or two into the second half.

“That was something we were trying to avoid today, another episode like the Wake Forest game. I don’t know what happened. We did stick to our strategies,” forward Jason Clark said. “You have to stand toe-to-toe with a team like Georgia Tech. We did that in the first half but not in the second half.”

Virginia coach Pete Gillen claimed his team got “frustrated” in the second half and that its struggles on offense ultimately led to breakdowns on the defensive side of the court.

“We were outplayed and outhustled in the second half and we lost our focus. They [the Yellow Jackets] stayed together after the first half and then came out and took care of business and took care of us in the second half,” freshman point guard Sean Singletary said.

Singletary mentioned that it was now incumbent upon the Cavaliers to learn from these two second-half meltdowns and “come to practice Monday with a new attitude.”

The Cavaliers (9-3, 0-2 ACC) will need to do that with a home game with ACC newcomer Miami on Wednesday and then trips to Duke and Maryland looming after that. Given the quality of the ACC this season, a poor start in league competition may almost be unrecoverable.

Virginia played Saturday night without leading scorer Devin Smith for the third straight game. Smith originally sprained his right ankle Dec. 23 against Loyola Marymount. Smith’s absence has been obvious through the last three games as the 6-foot-5 senior swingman is the Cavs’ emotional leader as well.

“Devin has been doing a little more and hopefully he can play in the not to distant future. I don’t want to say when. … He’s still in a little too much pain,” Gillen said.

Cavs' Brooks staying
All-ACC linebacker wants to improve leadership as junior
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Jan 10, 2005

The NFL will have to wait at least another year to get Ahmad Brooks. The all-ACC linebacker said last night that he'll return to the University of Virginia for his junior season.
Click Here.

"It was kind of a hard decision, but I wanted to stay in school," Brooks said by phone from his family's home in Woodbridge. "I felt I needed to improve on a couple things before I entered the NFL."

The main thing, he said, "is leadership. I felt I needed to be more vocal on the squad. As far as playing linebacker . . . I don't feel like I've showed the world enough. I don't really feel I've lived up to the hype yet."

An inside linebacker in U.Va.'s 3-4 defense, the 6-4, 255-pound Brooks led the team in tackles in 2003 and '04. He was one of three finalists this season for the Butkus Award, given annually to the nation's top linebacker, and made The Associated Press' All-America second team.

Brooks, 20, graduated from Hylton High in 2002, so he's eligible for the upcoming NFL draft. He enrolled at U.Va. in January 2003 after spending a semester at Hargrave Military Academy.

Winning the Butkus Award would be nice, Brooks said, but that's not why he's coming back.

"I'm just thinking about winning the ACC championship and going where Virginia Tech was this year," he said, referring to the Bowl Championship Series. "That's my whole goal. If we do that, that'll be a lot better than winning the Butkus."

Virginia finished 8-4 after losing in overtime to Fresno State in last month's MPC Computers Bowl at Boise, Idaho.

"I feel like there's unfinished business," Brooks said.

His father, Perry Brooks, played for seven years in the NFL. Ahmad Brooks almost certainly would be a first-round pick if he entered this year's NFL draft, and it's "kind of tempting," he said.

"You know, first-rounders are getting paid so much these days," he said. "It's amazing how you could call into that category and be making millions of dollars."

But Brooks likes college.

"These are the best years I'm going to have in my life," he said. "I'm still in the learning process. I'm just trying to feed off what everybody's telling me."

Two other U.Va. underclassmen, outside linebacker Darryl Blackstock and offensive tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson, have said they plan to return for their senior seasons. All-America tight end Heath Miller, who has a season of eligibility left, has yet to announce where he'll play in 2005.

 

UNC receivers coach offered coordinator job at Stanford
Jan 10, 2005 : 12:23 am ET

North Carolina wide receivers coach Gunter Brewer has been offered the position of offensive coordinator at Stanford.

"I'm trying to mull some things over," Brewer, a UNC assistant the past five seasons, said Sunday night. "I have a lot to think about."

Brewer took a trip to Stanford over the weekend, meeting with new coach Walt Harris before taking in the Cardinal's basketball upset of Arizona and catching an overnight flight back to the East Coast. Brewer, married with two children, said family would play an important role in his consideration of the multiyear deal.

"It's a great opportunity, but there's more to it than just me," Brewer, 40, said. "If it was just me, it would be a no-brainer."

Brewer is not the only UNC assistant on the verge of leaving John Bunting's staff. Special-teams coach Jim Webster, 54, is about to be named the head coach at Division I-AA Tennessee State. Administrative approval is the only hold-up, according to Tennessee State officials.

-- Neil Amato

ACC pushes for trying out instant replay
By MIKE KNOBLER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 01/10/05

GRAPEVINE, Texas — Instant replay reviews could soon become the norm in Division I-A college football.

The Big Ten's instant replay experiment in 2004 was so successful that the ACC, the Big East and the Pacific-10 have asked to be allowed to try it this fall.

"What we've requested is to either do it on an experimental basis or ask them to push it forward for all of I-A," ACC commissioner John Swofford said.

A decision is expected in February.

The Big Ten replay reviews could be triggered only by an official in the press box, not by a coach on the field. In 57 games, there were 44 reviews, with the call on the field overturned 21 times.

Canes edge Pack
N.C. State becomes an unwilling footnote to ACC history when Miami holds off the Wolfpack to earn its first league victory
By CHIP ALEXANDER, Staff Writer

CORAL GABLES, FLA. -- N.C. State became a part of ACC history Sunday.

For the Wolfpack, an unwilling part.

The Pack lost to Miami 67-66 at the Convocation Center, giving the Hurricanes their first ACC basketball victory in their first home conference game. It was a close, tense, gritty game, like so many in the league, and the Canes survived.

The Wolfpack, playing its ACC opener, could have won. State, trailing by a point, had the ball for the last possession after Miami's Guillermo Diaz missed the front end of a one-and-one with 13.8 seconds to play.

The Pack pushed the ball down floor and Julius Hodge was driving from the left wing, with a step on Diaz, when a whistle blew. State coach Herb Sendek had ordered up a timeout with 7.5 seconds left.

"I made a quick assessment of where we were in transition," Sendek said. "It didn't seem like we had an advantage."

After the timeout, the Pack's Ilian Evtimov drove from the right of the key, then kicked the ball out to an open Cameron Bennerman in the right corner.

"By the time I got the ball, I felt I didn't have that much time," Bennerman said. "I kind of rushed the shot. My follow-through was off."

So was the shot -- off to the right. The ball glanced high off the side of the backboard and went out of bounds, giving Miami possession with just nine-tenths of a second showing.

Moments later, the Hurricanes (10-3, 1-1 ACC) were wildly celebrating a victory that will be long remembered.

"This was a great win for our program," Miami coach Frank Haith said. "We showed tremendous poise and didn't flinch."

For the third straight game, the Pack (10-4, 0-1) walked off the court a loser, the players' faces etched with frustration. As Evtimov put it later, "It's a terrible way to lose."

Hodge, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds, appeared both ailing and miffed after the game. The senior missed the West Virginia game with a sprained ankle, then suffered a lower-back injury in practice this past week and kept clutching his back Sunday.

Asked about the Pack's final timeout, Hodge didn't answer, staring straight ahead.

Asked about the back injury, he said, "I was playing hurt. I tried to tough it out."

But Hodge may have been mad at himself. He missed a baseline jumper with a minute left and State down 65-63. He also missed six of his 10 free throws in the game -- another miserable effort at the line for Hodge.

The Wolfpack, which had a week to prepare after a loss to West Virginia, played without guard Tony Bethel, out with a case of colitis. State opened with a big lineup, opened in a zone and never trailed in the first half.

State led 29-17 before Diaz finally scored his first basket -- a 3-pointer from the wing -- with 6:09 remaining in the half. But when Diaz, a quick, explosive guard who finished with 26 points, began to heat up, the Canes quickly caught up. A long 3-pointer by Diaz just before halftime forced a 34-34 tie.

State was 7-for-11 on 3-pointers in the opening half, knocking the Hurricanes out of their zone. But the Pack was repeatedly beaten on the boards, as Miami claimed 12 of its 17 offensive rebounds in the first half.

"Their rebounding really hurt us," Sendek said. "If you could point to any one thing as our undoing, it was rebounding."

The momentum swung back and forth in the second half. Diaz kept bombing away, but State's Evtimov (19 points), Andrew Brackman (16) and Engin Atsur (15) answered. Atsur forced consecutive Miami turnovers with hustle plays late in the game, and a pair of free throws by the sophomore guard gave State a 61-57 lead with 4:18 left.

But Diaz shook loose from Atsur for another 3. Miami center Anthony King converted a 3-point play and guard Robert Hite (19 points) got a fast-break score after a State turnover.

Evtimov and Hodge missed shots before Bennerman scored on a drive with 1:53 to play to pull State within 65-63. Then came another big whistle.

With the shot clock about to expire, Diaz forced up a shot over Atsur from the lane that was short. Referee Jamie Luckie hesitated before blowing the whistle for a foul on Atsur, indicating he hit Diaz's elbow on the shot.

"I don't think so," Atsur said. "The call came a little late. But that's not the reason we lost."

For the Pack, there were several reasons: poor rebounding that led to 21 second-chance points for Miami; poor offensive execution in the last four minutes; and the inability to make key defensive stops late.

A long 3-pointer by Atsur with 14.8 seconds left cut Miami's lead to a point. And Diaz's miss at the line gave the Pack its last chance.

The Wolfpack starters received commemorative coins Sunday before the game to mark NCSU's participation in ACC history. But the game is one the Pack will want to forget.

"It's a hard loss, a hard-fought loss," Sendek said. "Losing is never easy. We've just got to stick together and keep working.

"It's a long season. We're going through a difficult stretch right now and we'll have to rebound with tremendous togetherness."

Hoops proposals get further study
Bid to make 12th game on football schedules permanent advances
BY STEPHEN HAWKINS
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jan 10, 2005

GRAPEVINE, Texas - While most of the proposals from basketball coaches seeking more access to players and prospects will get further consideration from the NCAA, they are a long way from gaining final approval.

"The details are in place," NCAA Division I Vice President David Berst said yesterday. "Work has to be done in trust-gap issues. That is the impediment we need to overcome."

Berst said coaches still have to convince many administrators and faculty that the purpose of their proposals is to have more mentoring opportunities with players, and isn't just a way to gain more practice time.

"If this had been the final vote, I believe it would have failed," Berst said. "It runs to the lack of trust, and whether coaches are sincere in their claims."

The 44 proposals from the National Association of Basketball Coaches and the Womens Basketball Coaches Association were among 146 for various sports considered yesterday by the NCAA Division I Management Council.

The council gave initial approval to making permanent a 12th football game each season for Division I and I-AA teams, something that couldn't take effect before the 2006 season. There was little discussion of that issue.

Schools are now allowed 12th games only in seasons when there are 14 Saturdays between Labor Day weekend and the last weekend in November. The 2003 season qualified for additional games, but the next won't come until 2008.

All issues forwarded by the management council yesterday are subject to open comment over the next 60 days. The council meets again in April, when it reconsiders the proposals before deciding whether to forward them to the NCAA Board of Directors for final approval.

Since becoming NCAA president two years ago, Myles Brand had urged basketball coaches to get involved with trying to correct what they considered problems.

That led to the package of proposals from the NABC and WABC. Many of the ideas are designed to allow more access to players and signees, including the ability to work with players during the offseason and to observe voluntary, non-organized activities like pickup games.

The coaches also sought some recruiting changes.

"The backbone of what they wanted is still in place," said America East Conference commissioner Chris Monasch, the chairman of the Management Council.

Monasch said a "significant portion" of the council's daylong meeting was spent on the basketball proposals. He said some were initially turned down, but were revived and forwarded after further discussion.