Ditching a hopeless cause
Commentary by Aaron McFarling
The Roanoke Times

COLLEGE PARK, Md. - Dear Pete,

Look. I'm not sure how to tell you this gently, so I'll just spill it. I'm outta here. I can't take this any more. It's a matter of priorities. I've got too much other stuff to do rather than hang around your Virginia men's basketball team. All those "American Idol" contestants need me. And pitchers and catchers report in about a month. That's 30 teams I've got to mingle with, at least until mid-April.

You almost had me back, Coach. You were up seven points at Maryland in the second half Wednesday night, and I started to creep down toward the floor, just a little bit curious.

But then I stopped and watched a little more. All those turnovers! All those blocked shots! And the 23 percent shooting in the half!

Then you lost the game, your fifth in the conference without a win.

That's when you lost me for good.

Trust me, Pete. I know what you're going through. I've been abandoned before. A lot of UVa fans were reaching out to me earlier this season, and I clung to them through your win against 10th-ranked Arizona and your rout of Richmond. But I'm a fickle emotion. When Miami came into your building and won by 11, well, I knew we had problems.

I don't hear from UVa hoops fans much anymore, and I fear that's bad news for your job. See, the university's building a new arena. Administrators need donor money to do that, and I can help them get it. And you know what? If they replaced you with a new coach, I'd have no choice but to come back. It's kinda what I do.

I'll be honest with you, Pete. I've stuck with you longer than I would most guys. I like you. You've got energy. You're passionate. You had a pretty good track record. And I truly believe you're a good man, the type who could make me laugh at a party or would jump-start my car if I got stranded on I-66.

But I can't change who I am. Some say I float. Others say I spring eternal. I'm not sure about that, but I do know this: Without performance, I fade.

I think we can both agree the performance has been lacking. You've lost all five of your ACC games by double-digits. Meanwhile, as I hung out with you, the team down in Blacksburg picked up two conference wins. Florida State upset Wake Forest. Heck, Miami won three league games.

I wasn't going to tell you this, but I stopped by your news conference Wednesday night. You looked pretty frazzled, even more than usual. Somebody asked you about center Elton Brown.

"He's tough to guard," you said. "He had a good game tonight..."

Then somebody pointed out that he shot 4-of-18 from the floor.

You looked surprised.

"Yeah, that's not good," you said. "I didn't know he shot that poorly. He's got to shoot better than that. I didn't realize it was that bad, to be honest with you."

It's that bad, Pete. All of it. Sorry.

Here's what I'll do before I go: I'll put you in touch a buddy of mine: Luck. I think you could use him. I mean, sheesh, losing a co-captain to academics right before the Maryland game? You deserve better when your neck's on the line.

And whatever happens to you, I hope you and Luck can stay tight.

Well, I've got to run. There's a woman in Illinois who wants to name her daughter after me, so I'd better not be late.

When I get back, I think I'll probably stop by Cassell Coliseum. I didn't figure I'd have much use for that place this year, but I heard there was a lot of noise there Wednesday night when Virginia Tech upset N.C. State. Noise, I like.

Don't feel bad. It's not personal. And you're not the only one. After all, the Los Angeles Clippers haven't seen me in years.

Formerly yours,

Hope

Lowry decommits from UVa
The Roanoke Times
Staff report

Matt Lowry, a Springfield, Pa., offensive lineman who committed to Virginia on April 20, has become the third UVa recruit to decommit in the past month.

Lowry (6-feet-6, 300) committed to Penn State after receiving a scholarship offer from the Nittany Lions this week. Lowry has said that Penn State was his dream school.

Earlier, Salem, N.J., linebacker Lamont Robinson committed to Oklahoma after decommitting to UVa. Linebacker Darryl Gresham from William Fleming reopened his recruiting after a July commitment to UVa and now is considering UVa, Florida and Virginia Tech.

Injury slowed Miller in stretch
Virginia's departing Mackey Award winner is recovering from abdominal surgery.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

CHARLOTTESVILLE - All-America tight end Heath Miller, held without a reception following halftime in the MPC Computers Bowl, had some insight to offer Tuesday.

In his first meeting with the media since making himself available for the NFL Draft, Miller said he underwent surgery earlier this month to repair damaged abdominal muscles. Miller said he played with the injury, commonly known as a "sports hernia," during the latter stages of the 2004 season.

"It kind of gradually got worse as the season went on," Miller said. "I'm still not healthy. I'll be able to start working out the first of February."

Miller has signed with agents Tom Condon and Ken Kramer and plans to spend part of the winter at a Bradenton, Fla., training facility operated by the International Management Group. He has made arrangements to take three of the four courses he will need to graduate and "hopefully, I can make it four out of four," he said.

Mel Kiper, draft analyst for ESPN, listed Miller as the No.4 pick on his draft board that appeared Tuesday on ESPN.com. In an interview with ESPN Radio, Kiper cited Detroit as a possible destination for Miller, who was little help when asked about the Lions' draft position.

"I have no clue, to be honest with you," said Miller, a 6-foot-5, 254-pounder from Swords Creek in Russell County.

Detroit picks 10th but may have the greatest need for a tight end, according to Kiper.

Miller was one of two UVa players with remaining eligibility to apply for the NFL Draft. The other, outside linebacker Darryl Blackstock, said he was advised by an NFL panel that he would be a second-round pick.

"I didn't go that route," Miller said. "I feel like, in coach [Al] Groh, we have an even better source. I was confident in what he was telling me. He said he felt like I was ready to go to the next level and be a good player. That was reassuring to me."

Miller, winner of the John Mackey Award as the nation's premier tight end, said he has not made any major purchases based on his future earning potential.

"I'm not sure, right now, that I can see myself in the Green Room," said Miller, referring to the waiting room for prospective first-round draft picks. "I'm not sure that many people would have predicted I would be in this position."

ACC finalizes schedule
By Doug Doughty
981-3129
The Roanoke Times

On those occasions when it has not closed its regular-season football with Virginia, Virginia Tech has played Miami in recent years.

In 2005, the Hokies will not finish the season with UVa; nor will they finish with Miami.

The Cavaliers will.

On the final Saturday of the regular season, the Cavaliers will visit the Hurricanes and the Hokies will play host to North Carolina.

"It's more related to what the networks wanted," said ACC assistant commissioner and principal schedule-maker Mike Finn. "ESPN and ABC make a couple requests of us every year.

"It was a matter of one wanting Virginia-Miami at the end and one really needing Virginia-Virginia Tech on the 19th [of November]."

The 2005 ACC football schedule, released Thursday, has the Hokies playing Thursday night games in back-to-back weeks for the first time ever.

Tech will go to Maryland on Oct.20 before entertaining Boston College the following week.

The Hokies, who won the ACC football championship in their first season as members, will take part in the first game between conference teams when they visit North Carolina State on Sept.3. The Wolfpack was the lone conference team to beat Tech this past season. Tech goes to Duke in the second week before returning to Blacksburg for its home opener Sept. 17 against Georgia Tech. Only Miami has as many as two conference games to open the season.

After three straight conference games, Tech has three non-conference opponents (Ohio, West Virginia and Marshall).

Virginia will open the season at home against Western Michigan before visiting Syracuse. UVa's ACC opener is Sept. 17 against Duke in Charlottesville.

Schedules for all ACC teams can be found at www.theacc.com.

Young players benefit from loss of Clark
Commentators debate Amaker
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

In the short term, there’s no way that the loss of Jason Clark will help the Virginia men’s basketball team. Clark is the No. 5 shot-blocker in school history, the top post defender on a team without another legitimate post defender and a player who generally played with intelligence, selflessness and toughness.

For the long term, however, Clark’s departure could have its benefits.

That’s probably not going to help seventh-year coach Pete Gillen, whose prospects for a return in 2005-2006 seems bleaker by the moment.

After learning that Clark was academically ineligible and with sophomore Donte Minter unavailable as the result of a broken finger on his left (shooting) hand, Gillen had little choice other than to play 6-foot-10, 205-pound sophomore Jason Cain and 6-11, 210-pound freshman Tunji Soroye.

In the game notes provided to the media before the game, Cain and Soroye were not even listed among the Cavaliers’ “key reserves,” implying that they were not among UVa’s top nine players, but they played 16 and six minutes, respectively, in an 82-68 loss at Maryland.

Cain had played in only seven of UVa’s first 14 games, for a total of 24 minutes. Soroye had played in nine games, for a total of 26 minutes.

Clark’s eligibility would have expired after this season, regardless of his academic circumstances. Fellow post player Elton Brown is another senior. Somebody is going to have to play in the post for the Cavaliers next season.

Candidates currently include Minter, Cain, Soroye and recruits Laurynas Mikalauskas and Sam Warren. Warren, by the way, went 1-for-7 from the field and had three points and three rebounds in his most recent game for Cherry Creek (Colo.) High School.

Warren is averaging 7.5 points and 5.7 rebounds and would seem to be a redshirt candidate for a coach who subscribes to that process. Several UVa beat reporters felt that Cain could have been redshirted this year or last year, but increased playing time following Clark’s departure could prevent this from being a wasted year.

Cain had seven points and four rebounds in 16 minutes -- numbers comparable to Clark’s averages of 6.7 points and 5.2 rebounds in more than 26 minutes per game -- and might have scored in double figures had he not missed the first three of four free throws.

Soroye seemed to give the Cavaliers a spark defensively when he entered the game but has not attempted a field goal in 18 minutes spread over his last five games. I would have sworn he had at least one blocked shot, although he didn’t get credit for any, just as I thought the Maryland stat crew might have short-changed the Terrapins by giving them only 11 blocks.

Much was made of Gary Forbes’ performance Sunday, when he had 17 points and 10 rebounds at Duke, and he started Wednesday at the Comcast Center. However, Forbes was only 2-for-8 in the second half against Duke and missed all five of his shots from the field at Maryland.

Forbes did contribute six rebounds, for which he is to be commended, but the combined 22 minutes for Cain and Soroye was not in vain. The way he was used early in the season, when he didn’t get off the bench in four straight games during one stretch, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see Cain transfer.

I’m still not sure that he will be a player, but I can’t say he won’t.

READERS MUST WONDER if I’d have any material for a column if I didn’t listen to ESPN Radio, but I’d like to recount a segment from the noon hour Thursday.

Host Colin Cowherd was complaining about the kid-gloves treatment that commentators give to college basketball coaches, at which point he was challenged by a phone call from Doug Gottlieb.

When asked about coaches who aren’t getting the job done, Gottlieb mentioned Missouri’s Quin Snyder and Indiana’s Mike Davis. In nearly the same breath, he also brought up -- get this! -- Tommy Amaker.

That’s the same Tommy Amaker, Michigan coach and former Duke aide Tommy Amaker, who gets touted all the time as a successor to Gillen.

“Do you think Amaker would take it?”

I must have heard that 100 times.

Much of that stems from the perception that Virginia’s next men’s basketball coach will be black. UVa has never had a black head coach in any sport, so the theory goes, so it can’t pass up that opportunity.

Hey, if you can get the next Paul Hewitt, go for it! I just think Virginia has to be careful. This is not an easy job. The only statement Virginia needs to make is that it needs to play NCAA Tournament-caliber basketball. To reduce the field of candidates in any respect would be a mistake.

(To be fair to Amaker, he is 12-6 this year, with a 3-1 Big Ten record after a 62-53 loss Wednesday night at Indiana. Amaker is 83-48 in four seasons at Michigan but is still looking for his first NCAA trip with the Wolverines after going once in four seasons at Seton Hall.).

RECENT DEVELOPMENTS with Virginia’s football recruiting class would tend to reinforce the outside skepticism that accompanied UVa’s late-summer, early fall recruiting rush, but I still don’t think the Cavaliers made a mistake in their early evaluations and offers.

All-America linebacker Lamont Robinson committed to Oklahoma after decommitting to Virginia, and now Philadelphia offensive lineman Matt Lowry has joined Roanoke linebacker Darryl Gresham in looking at other schools.

Lowry admitted that Penn State has always been his dream school and now that the Nittany Lions have expressed interest, he can’t turn his back. So, what’s a Virginia to do, not take his summer commitment?

For every Lowry who gets cold feet, there are four or five others who wouldn’t re-open their recruiting after an early commitment. What’s funny is, for all the early hand-wringing over an absence of scholarship, now the Cavaliers have some much-needed wriggle room.

Hokies-Cavs won't end regular season
BY DAVID TEEL
247-4636
Published January 21, 2005

Virginia Tech and Virginia will not play their traditional regular-season football finale this year due to a request from ABC television.

The ACC schedule released Thursday has the Hokies and Cavaliers colliding Nov. 19.

Virginia Tech, the reigning ACC champion, concludes the regular season Nov. 26 at home against North Carolina, while Virginia travels to Miami.

ABC requested Virginia-Miami for Thanksgiving weekend anticipating strong national appeal, according to Mike Finn, an ACC assistant commissioner.

"It's not that Virginia-Virginia Tech isn't a big game," Finn said. "Virginia-Virginia Tech, Virginia-Florida State, Virginia Tech-Miami: All those games are going to get strong national (television) attention. It's always difficult to predict (a season), but ABC asked for Virginia-Miami."

ABC and its sister network, ESPN, pay the ACC approximately $38 million annually for football rights under a seven-year agreement signed in May.

Virginia Tech and Virginia have met in the regular-season finale 11 of the last 15 seasons.

Other schedule highlights:

Virginia Tech opens with two road games, North Carolina State and Duke, for the first time since 1996. The school requested a late home opener to make sure renovations to Lane Stadium are completed.

Virginia's non-conference opponents are Western Michigan, Syracuse and Temple; Virginia Tech faces Ohio, West Virginia and Marshall - on successive Saturdays.

Virginia Tech plays consecutive Thursday-night games, televised by ESPN, against Maryland and Boston College.

For the second consecutive season, Florida State and Miami meet Labor Day evening - the ACC's version of Monday Night Football - on ABC.

Conference newcomer Boston College makes its ACC debut Sept. 17 at home against Florida State.

U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch
Jan 21, 2005

TOUGH TIMES: In 1983-84, Virginia's basketball team advanced to the Final Four before losing to Houston in the semifinals. A season later, then-coach Terry Holland's Cavaliers lost their first six ACC games.

That's the last time Virginia started 0-6 in ACC play, but it'll happen this season unless seventh-year coach Pete Gillen's club wins tomorrow night at University Hall. The last-place Cavaliers (0-5, 9-6), off to their worst start in conference play since 1998-99, entertain Clemson (1-4, 10-7) at 7:30 p.m.

"We're not too far away, but once again you've got to win games," Gillen said late Wednesday after his team squandered a seven-point second-half lead and lost 82-68 at Maryland. "So we've got to bounce back."

Bouncing back wouldn't be easy under any circumstances, but the loss of 6-8 senior Jason Clark will make doing so more difficult for Virginia. U.Va. announced before Wednesday's game that Clark, a starter, would miss the rest of the season for academic reasons.

"That's frustrating," Gillen said. "It's just one of those things. You got to deal with it. It's unfortunate."

Sophomore guard J.R. Reynolds said: "It's going to hurt a lot because we miss his toughness and rebounding ability."

REJECTION NOTICES: Senior center Elton Brown has had 17 shots blocked in the past four games, all U.Va. losses. Maryland stuffed Brown seven times Wednesday night.

Brown finished with 18 points, an effort his coach initially praised in postgame comments to reporters. But when told that Brown had shot 4 of 18 from the floor, Gillen backtracked.

"No, that's not good," Gillen said. "He's got to shoot better than that. I didn't realize it was that bad, to be honest with you. I just saw [the 18 points in the box score]."

AMBITIOUS PLAN: Once U.Va. moves into the 15,000-seat John Paul Jones Arena for the 2006-07 season, only three ACC schools will have larger venues for basketball: North Carolina (Dean E. Smith Center, 21,572 capacity), N.C. State (RBC Center, 19,722) and Maryland (Comcast Center, 17,100).

U.Va. is averaging 7,517 fans at 8,392-seat University Hall this season. The John Paul Jones Arena will have a "sophisticated curtaining system," Athletic Director Craig Littlepage told reporters Tuesday, that will allow U.Va. to block off sections of seats for events.

Littlepage added, however, that the school doesn't plan to use the curtains for basketball games.

Several years ago, Littlepage recalled, when U.Va. officials were considering the addition of northeast and northwest wings to Scott Stadium, they questioned whether fans would fill them at football games. They decided to add the extra seats, few of which have sat empty during games.

"So we will build this 15,000-seat arena with the idea that we're going to be filling it for basketball," Littlepage said. "We're going to have the type of team that people want to see in this new facility."

ON THE MEND: After last month's MPC Computers Bowl, football coach Al Groh alluded to a health problem with which his All-America tight end, Heath Miller, was dealing.

Groh didn't disclose any details then, but Miller revealed Tuesday that he played in 2004 with a "sports hernia" that affected muscles in his lower abs. Miller, who's passing up his final season of eligibility at U.Va. to enter the NFL draft, had surgery to repair the problem early this month and said he'll be able to begin working out again the first of next month.

Miller, a consensus first-team All-American and winner of the Mackey Award as the nation's top tight end, is expected to be a first- or second-round draft pick in April.

His decision to leave U.Va., he said, wasn't an easy one.

"One of the things that made me really want to come back," Miller told reporters, "was just the relationships that I had on this team and the progress that we've made and the progress that this organization is going to make. I really felt tied to it. So it was difficult kind of step out of that and begin a new phase."

BIG, BAD BARON: Laurynas Mikalauskas, a 6-8, 250-pound senior from Lithuania, is averaging 22.3 points and 11.8 rebounds for state power Blue Ridge (9-2), a boarding school in Greene County. Mikalauskas, who signed with Virginia in November, is shooting 64 percent from the floor.

Another Baron, junior Stephen Kendall, committed to U.Va. last summer. Kendall, a 6-4 shooting guard, can't sign a binding letter of intent until November. He's averaging 13.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.8 assists and two steals. - Jeff White
 

Good UVa seats will be too pricey
Andy Bitter / Lynchburg News & Advance
January 21, 2005

So let me get this straight: If John Q. Virginia Fan wants a couple of men’s basketball tickets in the lower level to a game in the new John Paul Jones Arena in the fall of 2006, all he has to do is make an arena donation that is roughly the price equivalent of a brand new SUV.

Actually, no. He’ll have to do that and drop another $2,200-plus as an annual gift and pay the price of the tickets and pay for parking just to cheer on the ’Hoos in their fancy new digs.

So it’s like buying a brand new SUV with a really kickin’ set of rims. Some chrome 22s, I suppose.

Let’s hope you haven’t cashed in the money from your change jar recently.

The University of Virginia unveiled its seating plan for the new basketball arena on Tuesday and it probably left some CEOs salivating. They’re the only ones who will be able to afford what UVa considers the collegiate version of the Personal Seat License.

This is not to say funding the construction of the new John Paul Jones Arena was a bad idea.

The 40-year-old University Hall is like a dinosaur with four limbs stuck in a tar pit. It looks as though it was modeled on how a person in 1960 envisioned the future, which is to say the whole arena is symmetrical and kind of looks like a spaceship. UVa could probably lease U-Hall to Epcot Center and it would fit right in.

The diagrams of the new arena are unbelievable. The stadium appears to have everything a basketball fan would want. Wide concourses, ample concession areas, comfortable seats, clear sightlines and a scoreboard that probably has enough room to list each player’s favorite TV show.

It’s just that Virginia might be pricing out a lot of its loyal fans.

I get the feeling the new arena will be like Shangri-La to the average Wahoo backer, a utopian paradise that may as well be a myth. The arena will seat 15,000, but if you ever want to get a close-up look of the Cavaliers, you might as well start auctioning off your organs.

Not a student and want to sit in the lower level? Be prepared to cough up a minimum of $10,000 as an arena donation and another $2,200 per year for the scholarship fund. And that doesn’t even get you in the door.

How about courtside seats? Who among us doesn’t have half a million dollars sitting around?

“It’s a step up from what people are used to seeing in University Hall,” executive director of the Virginia Athletics Foundation Dirk Katstra said Tuesday. “Although when we implemented that seating plan back in the early ’90s, that was perceived as fairly aggressive at that point.”

School officials estimated 4,000 to 5,000 tickets - of the upper deck variety - will be available to the general public on a game-by-game basis. Keep in mind, the general public’s place on the pecking order comes somewhere after the filthy rich, the stinking rich and the very well-off.

The seating chart was modeled largely after that of Maryland’s Comcast Center and N.C. State’s RBC Center. That’s great for fund-raising and is no doubt the primary concern for a school that, in adherence to Virginia law, must pay for the nearly $130 million arena with private funds (an unenviable task if ever there was one).

But it would be a stretch to say UVa had stadium atmosphere and the common fan in mind.

The Comcast Center and RBC Center play like antiseptic versions of their predecessors. At least in those two stadiums the student seating wraps around the court. Under the proposed seating plan at the John Paul Jones Arena, the 1,500 students in the lower level would occupy one of the end zones and the space behind the benches. The other 2,200 or so would be high in the rafters with the game-by-gamers.

The other 6,200 seats in the lower level are reserved for the big spenders, which is unfortunate. The Virginia brass should remember the best fans aren’t always the ones with the deepest pockets.

It would be nice to let them in the doors every now and then too.