Same problems still linger for Gillen's Cavaliers
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
January 21, 2005

It was hard to imagine that after falling to 0-4 in the ACC that the Cavaliers could avoid 0-5.

Yet, Virginia held a seven-point lead early in the second half Wednesday at Maryland. Of course, that only slightly diverted the expected.

Maryland’s spurt came and as has been the case in each and every ACC game this season, the Cavaliers were helpless and hapless to stop it and fell 82-68. The 0-5 ACC start is the worst since Gillen’s initial season in 1998-99. More troubling is the fact that Virginia has lost those five games by an average of 16.2 points a contest and each by at least 11 points.

Turnovers, missed shots and poor defense are now the defining nature of this Virginia team. Those items have moved past the realm of mere on-court miscues in certain situations. It’s what the Cavaliers do. That’s the only logical explanation when something happens five times in a row.

Whether it’s conditioning or mental toughness or what have you, the Cavaliers obviously have some problem in the second half. The most casual observer could see that.

Five times, the Cavaliers have been trailing slightly or leading and each has ballooned into a lopsided loss. It seems to disappear on the Cavaliers in an instant. They make a bad pass, take a bad shot, don’t get back defensively and, well …. “It’s bing, bang, boom,” like Gillen said after Wednesday’s loss.

An 0-5 start is what it is but when you are 0-5 and each game has followed the exact same pattern, that raises red flags.

“We just fell apart in the second half. In previous games, we have done the same thing. We started off strong in the first half but were flat in the second. As a team we just didn’t stick with it,” freshman point guard Sean Singletary said.

Added sophomore guard J.R. Reynolds: “We killed ourselves in the second half because we made too many turnovers. I thought we were making back-to-back turnovers. That will kill you on the road.”

Adding to the perplexing nature of this particular second-half meltdown is that seven-point advantage early in the second half. It would be logical to expect that at some point a team would overcome its particular Achilles’ heel. Instead, the Cavaliers played as if resigned to their fate once again.

Virginia shot just 22.6 percent in the second half and committed nine second-half turnovers. The Cavaliers also aided the Maryland defensive effort with a plethora of ill-advised shots that more often than not were blocked by the Terps with minimal effort.

Maryland blocked 11 shots against the Cavaliers and opponents have now totaled 45 blocks against the Cavaliers in the last four games. Seven of those blocks were made on senior center Elton Brown, who scored 18 points despite shooting just 4 of 18 from the floor.

“We’re getting the ball inside and Elton is a terrific player but not a high-walker. They are doubling him and that happens. They’re blocking his shots in the post. These are athletic teams and they’ve made some good plays,” Gillen said. “We have to go inside and find different ways of getting him the ball. … Elton still has to shoot better than that.”

Gillen added that he felt that his team ran out of gas Wednesday night at Maryland. One wonders if the gas has also run out on the Cavaliers’ season.

Virginia to kick off with WMU
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
January 21, 2005

The Atlantic Coast Conference announced its 2005 football schedule on Thursday, with Virginia and Virginia Tech set to face challenging schedules as the conference opens divisional play for the first time in its history.

Both UVa and Tech will host six home games, but for the first time since 2001 the two will not play against each other in the final week of November. Instead, the Cavaliers will host the Hokies on Nov. 19.

Virginia’s final regular season game will be the following weekend at Miami, Nov. 26, in the Cavs’ first ever visit to the Orange Bowl. The Hokies will host North Carolina on Nov. 26.

The ACC’s first championship game will be held Dec. 3 in Jacksonville, Fla., pitting the winners of the Atlantic and Coastal divisions against one another for the title.

Virginia will face seven teams that played in bowl games last season, including four versus teams that finished ranked in the Associated Press poll.

The Cavaliers, who finished 23rd in the poll, open the season at home against Western Michigan on Sept. 3, finishing up the three-game series against the Broncos. UVa defeated Western 59-16 in 2003 in Kalamazoo.

After a bye week, Virginia travels to Syracuse for the first time since 1977. The game at the Carrier Dome will be Sept. 17.

The next weekend opens ACC play as the Cavs host Duke to close out the month, then opens October with two road games, at Maryland on Oct. 1, and at Boston College on Oct. 8.

This will be Virginia’s first trip to Boston in 42 years as coach Tom O’Brien’s Eagles open ACC play. BC finished

No. 21 in the AP poll and defeated North Carolina in the Continental Tire Bowl. The Eagles replace Clemson on Virginia’s schedule.

UVa hasn’t won at Maryland since 1999.

Florida State visits Charlottesville on Oct. 15 before the Wahoos go to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina the following week.

After a second bye week on Oct. 29, the Cavs open a three-game home stand, hosting Temple (Nov. 5), Georgia Tech (Nov. 12) and defending ACC Champion Virginia Tech

(Nov. 19), before closing out the season with a trip to Miami.

All of Virginia’s 11 games are scheduled for Saturdays this fall.

Starting times of the games will be announced at a later date.

Meanwhile, the Hokies open the season with their first two games on the road: at N.C. State on Sept. 3, and at Duke the following weekend.

Tech returns to Blacksburg to host Georgia Tech on Sept. 17, then Ohio University on Sept. 24, before traveling to rival West Virginia on Oct. 1, followed by a home game against Marshall on Oct. 8.

After a bye week, the Hokies play back-to-back Thursday night games on Oct. 20 at Maryland, before hosting Boston College on Oct. 27.

Virginia Tech hosts Miami on Nov. 5, and after a second bye week, travels to Virginia on Nov. 19 before closing the season at home against UNC.

The ACC opens play on Thursday, Sept. 1, when Wake Forest hosts Vanderbilt. Florida State will host Miami in another Monday night Labor Day game televised nationally by ABC Sports.

Only two schools in the12-team league are set to face Virginia Tech, FSU and Miami. Both Duke and UVa will battle all three. Florida State plays only Miami and Virginia Tech plays only Miami.

All of the other eight schools play two of the three in this rotation.

Here’s a look at each school’s nonconference opponents:

Boston College: BYU, Army, Ball State; Clemson: Texas A&M, Temple, South Carolina; Duke: ECU, VMI, Navy; Florida State: The Citadel, Syracuse, Florida; Georgia Tech: Auburn, UConn, Georgia; Maryland: Navy, West Virginia, Temple; Miami: Colorado, South Florida, Temple.

North Carolina: Wisconsin, Utah, Louisville; N.C. State: Temple, Eastern Kentucky, Southern Mississippi; Virginia: Western Michigan, Syracuse, Temple; Virginia Tech: Ohio U., West Virginia, Marshall; Wake Forest: Vanderbilt, Nebraska, East Carolina.

SATs on Gresham's mind heading into stretch run
Nolen sneaks in UVa visit before busy week
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

After trying to lay out the Darryl Gresham situation to the participants at Friday’s “roundtable,” I was struck with a novel idea.

You know, you could talk to Darryl Gresham.

I don’t have a lot of cellphone numbers for prospects around the state, but I do have Gresham’s, complete with a 404 area code (from his former hometown in Atlanta) and a taped message from the hip-hop performer who calls himself Incredulous.

The message had barely started when Gresham picked up. Although I could hear voices in the background, he said he wasn’t at school. School was called off Friday in Roanoke and many surrounding areas. (Why, with barely any accumulation, I don’t know, but I don’t need to get started on that.)

In any case, I wanted to check on Internet reports that Gresham would be taking an official visit to Virginia Tech this weekend. Not true, he said.

Gresham still may take a visit to Tech next weekend, but he will be taking the SATs this weekend, maybe in Atlanta, I was told by somebody else after I got off the phone with Gresham. He said he did well academically in the first semester and was hoping to do well enough on the SATs that he won’t have to take them again.

Gresham, a 6-foot-4, 238-pound linebacker from William Fleming in Roanoke, told me that he will not make any announcement until signing day (Feb. 2) at his school. After making an oral commitment to UVa in early July, he talked to other schools throughout the fall and unofficially decommitted after a visit to Florida on Jan. 8.

Gresham has taken official visits to UVa (in early December) and Florida. Tennessee would like to bring him to campus, as would Tech, and Virginia has invited him to its home basketball game next Saturday with North Carolina. Gresham, who rejoined the Fleming basketball team earlier this month, said there also is a chance he might not go anywhere next weekend.

A source at Virginia Tech indicated that the Hokies are serious in their pursuit of Greshasm and are proceeding as if he will take an official visit next weekend. Virginia and Florida loom as the teams to beat unless Tech or Tennessee can get him on campus n next weekend. Tennessee would appear to be a longshot under any circumstances because the other Southeastern Conference school that Gresham is considering, Florida, is his father’s alma mater.

HAMPTON HIGH SCHOOL football coach Mike Smith confirmed Friday that All-Group AAA wide receiver Todd Nolen had gone to Virginia on Thursday on “one of those emergency visits.

Nolen, once considered a Virginia lean, visited North Carolina officially last week and has visits upcoming with Penn State this weekend and Virginia Tech next weekend.

“My boy, Cav, was just here,” said Smith, referring to Tech assistant coach Jim Cavanaugh.

(Who would have thought, during a seven-year period when Smith and Cavanaugh rarely spoke, that they would ever see themselves as each other’s “boy?”)

Tech head coach Frank Beamer also has made a recent stop at Hampton, but almost all of Virginia’s recruiting of the Crabber program is handled by recruiting coordinator Mike London while Smith and UVa head coach Al Groh maintain an unspoken feud.

Smith knows it would be the ultimate slap to direct Nolen to Blacksburg, “but, as the Bible teaches you, I’m turning the other cheek,” he said, reading from a desk-top Bible as he conducted an interview.

“If I had told Todd not to go to Charlottesville [for a visit], he never would have gone. I never told him not to go.”

Nolen’s host in Charlottesville was ex-Hampton quarterback Marques Hagans, a Smith favorite who has been gone from the Crabbers’ program for five years.

“These kids know about Marques Hagans,” Smith said. “If Marques has been put in charge of showing him around, I don’t know [but] I would imagine that would be some type of factor. Hopefully, Todd is going to look at everything and end up making his own evaluation.”

RICHMOND HAS RECEIVED oral commitments from a pair of hometown products who were rated No. 49 and 64 players on The Roanoke Times’ list of the state’s top 100 prospects, linebacker Josh Vaughn from Hermitage High School and tight end Will Bischoff from Douglas Freeman. Bischoff is the son of one-time UVa wide receiver Bob Bischoff, who had team-high 35 receptions for the Cavaliers in 1969.

ODDS ‘N’ ENDS: James Madison has taken an oral commitment from Harrisonburg High School wide receiver Patrick Ward, a first-team All-Group AA pick who was rated the No. 71 prospect on The Roanoke Times list. Ward also had scholarship baseball picks… Another prospect for the state-runnerup Blue Streaks, offensive lineman Wes Lokey, has a visit scheduled to JMU but is very high on VMI after a visit to Lexington. Lokey, rated 46th by The Roanoke Times, would be a major catch for the Keydets. … First-team All-Group AAA punter Brent Bowden from Westfield, rated the No. 72 prospect in Virginia, will take an official visit to Virginia Tech next weekend. Bowden has a grade-point average in the 3.8-3.9 range and scored 1,220 on the SAT, although he forget to take his calculator to the test.

Toothless Tigers out for revenge
Clemson hopes to reverse offensive woes, recent struggles against Virginia
By JON SOLOMON
Staff Writer

CLEMSON — With Clemson struggling to find optimism lately, Olu Babalola focuses on one task: Defeat Virginia.

That was the message former player Chris Hobbs gave Babalola at the team’s banquet last season after the Cavaliers defeated Clemson three times.

“That’s the only thing that’s been keeping me happy after a loss like (Wednesday’s),” Babalola said. “I’ve just been focused on this game. We owe them.”

Barring a postseason matchup, tonight’s game in Charlottesville, Va., is Clemson’s only chance for redemption. Players and coaches believe the Tigers gave away all three losses to Virginia in 2003-04, most notably a late collapse at the ACC Tournament with a victory seemingly in hand.

“What do we want to bring them back up for?” Clemson coach Oliver Purnell said. “They were bad memories.”

The memories are not much better through the first five ACC games, three against top-10 teams.

Clemson has scored less than 60 points in three consecutive games, the Tigers’ worst such streak since Larry Shyatt’s second season in 1999-2000. The last time Clemson went four consecutive games with less than 60 points was 1994-1995 in Rick Barnes’ first season.

The Tigers average 58.6 points and 20.2 turnovers and are shooting 37.7 percent in ACC games. The turnover problems have contributed to 46.8-percent shooting for their ACC opponents.

Given the offensive problems, Purnell wants Clemson to play faster, not slower. He believes the guards are hesitating bringing the ball up the floor and often pick up their dribble too soon.

“If you push the ball, you get the defense backing up,” Purnell said. “You’re attacking as opposed to them attacking. We have to get in a more attack mode, and that may help us get the defense get on their heels.”

Guard Shawan Robinson is the only Clemson player with a positive assist-turnover ratio in ACC games. Guard Vernon Hamilton, the primary ball-handler when he plays, has 21 turnovers and 12 assists.

Purnell is not discounting the season yet, although his frustration seems to be growing.

This week, Purnell jokingly asked reporters why they were not asking him about Clemson’s 10 victories, which matched last season’s total. He dejectedly said the Tigers are “close” to losing their chance to resemble Maryland’s dramatic turnaround while winning the 2004 ACC Tournament.

“Things can change so quickly,” Purnell said. “By beating Virginia, you set up a situation where (the current) stretch wasn’t too bad. ... A Virginia win sets up a golden opportunity. The great thing about this league is you get opportunities. You just have to make the most of ’em.”

Smith improving, but Cavs aren't
Team has lost five of six since senior co-captain sprained his right ankle
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Jan 22, 2005
CLEMSON AT U.VA.
TODAY: 7:30 p.m.

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Three freshmen, five sophomores, no juniors and now, with the departure of Jason Clark, only two seniors.

That's the makeup of the basketball squad at the University of Virginia, and that's why senior co-captains Devin Smith and Elton Brown try to stay positive around their younger teammates.

"If they see us down, they're going to be down," Smith said yesterday at University Hall.

The Cavaliers had no reason to be down when they took the court to face visiting Loyola Marymount two nights before Christmas. U.Va. was ranked No.25 nationally and had a 7-1 record, the loss having come at Iowa State in a game in which Smith scored a career-best 40 points.

In the second half against Loyola Marymount, however, Virginia's fortunes abruptly changed. Smith severely sprained his right ankle. The Cavaliers managed to win without him, but since that night they've lost five of six. Moreover, the team learned Wednesday that Clark, its starting power forward, was academically ineligible and wouldn't play again at U.Va.

"It's difficult," Smith said of losing Clark. "But we've just got to take it like he got hurt, and other people have just got to step up."

After missing three games, Smith returned to action Jan. 12 and had 21 points and six rebounds in a loss to Miami. His ankle continues to improve, but his team is reeling. Heading into its game against ACC rival Clemson (1-4, 10-7) at U-Hall tonight, U.Va. (0-5, 9-6) has been outscored by an average of 16.2 points in conference play.

"We've just got to stay together and fight through it," said Smith, a 6-5, 242-pound forward who leads Virginia in scoring and 3-point shooting and ranks second in rebounding.

"The season's not over. . . . We've still got a lot of games to play."

Smith, who as a freshman starred at Coffeyville Community College in Kansas, has played in 71 games for the Cavaliers. Rarely has he been at full strength.

He had knee surgery before his sophomore season and struggled with his stamina that year. As a junior, Smith missed four games because of a back injury that forced him to sit out most practices and ultimately required offseason surgery. Though clearly the team's best all-around player in 2003-04, Smith started only 12 games.

"I'm just looking forward to being injury-free for one year at Virginia." he told The Times-Dispatch in July.

That dream ended Dec. 23, when another injury marred yet another season for Smith.

"That's life," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said, "but I just feel bad for the young man."

Smith, 21, said he doesn't - such setbacks are part of the game.

"I try not to think about the injuries I'd had, because there's not anything I can do about it," he said. "There was nothing I could have done to prevent them. It makes me happy that I have an opportunity to play."

At Coffeyville, Smith was a junior-college All-American. Because he had met NCAA academic standards coming out of high school, he was eligible to play in Division I as a sophomore. Smith narrowed the list of schools he was considering to three - U.Va., Kansas and Iowa - before deciding to come to Charlottesville.

Had he chosen Kansas, Smith would have played in one of the nation's most storied programs. Still, he said: "I never second-guess the decision, because I made it for myself. Nobody made it for me."

$130 million or bust
UVa. enters critical phase for basketball-arena project
On the Front Row
Chris Graham
chris@augustafreepress.com

Virginia's 82-68 loss to Maryland at the sold-out Comcast Center on Wednesday dropped the Cavs, once ranked as high as 19th in the national polls in December, to 0-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference.

That was the bad news.

The good news - the program got a chance to glimpse into its future.

The $126 million, 17,500-seat arena is the ACC's newest hoops palace, opening in 2002. In 2006, it will become the second-newest basketball arena in the conference with the grand opening of the $130 million, 15,000-seat John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville.

"We've reached the point where we are building a facility that is 17 months from being a reality. What we are striving for is building an arena, a multi-use arena facility, that is the best multi-use arena facility in the country. Not one of the best, but the best facility in the country," University of Virginia athletics director Craig Littlepage said on Tuesday at a news conference launching the athletics department's mass-marketing campaign that is aimed at raising the final $35 million and change needed to complete the arena project.

Money ball

The state of Virginia is not participating monetarily in the John Paul Jones Arena project - meaning the athletics department is on the hook for the entire nine-figure construction tab.

"This campaign is very aggressive. Never before has a university attempted to fund an athletics facility of this size all privately financed. One hundred thirty million dollars, all private giving, requires an extreme commitment from our staff, not to mention our donor base," said Dirk Katstra, the executive director of the Virginia Athletics Foundation, which is responsible for raising operating and capital money for UVa. athletics.

In contrast, the state of Maryland took care of a good chunk of the Comcast Center project price tag. According to Joe Hull, the senior associate director of athletics at the University of Maryland who was the project manager for the Comcast Center development effort, the state contributed $58 million of the $108 million arena-construction cost, and the state highway department kicked in an additional $18 million to take care of infrastructure needs at the arena site in College Park.

"To do what they're doing at Virginia would certainly be challenging," Hull told The Augusta Free Press. "Primarily what it does is it affects how you go about doing what you do. Because we didn't have as many pressures related to the money that we had available at our disposal, we were able to make decisions with respect to the construction of the building based on what was for the best of the building and the best of the university without having to worry as much about the impact on the bottom line."

Without money worries, the Comcast Center project moved along as smoothly as one could imagine the construction of a sports arena going, to hear Hull tell it. In contrast, the word from Littlepage this week is that the UVa. arena effort is in a bit of a crunch time right now.

"There's no flexibility. We need to meet that number," Littlepage said.

Pressure cooker

It might not be the best time to get a public-focused fund-raising effort going, what with the Virginia men's basketball team faring so poorly right now.

"There's been a general desire to make sure that when we go into the new arena that we are on an upswing," Littlepage told reporters on Tuesday. "We, I think, it would not be a stretch to say that we have not gotten to the point that we want to be. It is in part my job to make sure that we are poised and on an upward movement in our program going into new arena."

Those words could be interpreted to make it sound like men's hoops coach Pete Gillen's days as the captain of the Wahoos' ship are numbered.

"There are people around the program who are saying things that would certainly lead you to believe that to be the case," said Dan Bonner, a college-basketball commentator for Fox Sports Net and a University of Virginia graduate and basketball-program alum.

"When you see statements attributed to people like Craig Littlepage saying that it's important that the program gets back on track and starts moving in a positive direction before the opening of the new arena, you have to wonder," Bonner said.

But Bonner questions whether or not the speculation in the news media and on Internet message boards about Gillen's future is more than the regular parlor talk.

"It's a bit early for people to be speculating about Pete Gillen's future. Five games into the conference is not enough to judge a season on," Bonner told the AFP.

"If this team can come back and play the way it did in November and December and work its way back to .500 in the conference, or close to .500, it will make the NCAA tournament. Then what do you do about Pete Gillen?" Bonner said.

March Madness is two months away - and two months is an eternity in college basketball. It's also an eternity when you're 17 months from the scheduled completion of an arena project.

"If you can look into your crystal ball and pick your time table, and decide we're going to launch this campaign at this particular date, honestly, I don't think the schedule and the performance of the team really has that much bearing on it as much as we wanted to get this out early this year, giving us 16 months to really hit the fund-raising part of it hard as we move toward the opening date of the building. The excitement of the new building will helpfully carry the day here," Katstra said.

"For this project to reach a successful conclusion, though, we're going to need everything to be on target," Littlepage said. "We're going to need everybody to be on board. We're going to need the teams' performances to be on the upswing. We're going to need the enthusiasm to be growing among our fans and our student body. Everything needs to be moving in a positive direction. We won't change our goals or our expectations."

If you build it, will they come?

"We will build this 15,000-seat arena with the idea that we're going to be building it for basketball. And that we're going to have the kind of team that people are going to want to see," Littlepage said.

That has been what the athletics department has been saying all along, of course. But some observers have raised the question as to whether or not UVa. can fill a 15,000-seat arena when it has trouble filling the 8,457-seat University Hall on a consistent basis.

"We know that we'll have to move outside of our current fan base," Katstra said. "The nice thing about a new arena and having seating available is that for the past 10 to 15 years ... well, really, since Ralph Sampson was here, we haven't had the opportunities for people to buy tickets, except for the occasional holiday games, when the students aren't around.

"We've sold out virtually every year since Ralph was here," Katstra said. "Obviously, with 15,000 seats, we'll have the opportunities to offer seats to attract new fans. It's like when we expanded the football stadium, we weren't sure how long it was going to be until we sold that out. We sold that out the past year. We hope this is somewhat the same mentality, although the football fan base six Saturdays a year is going to be different than 15 games a year with some of the games on Wednesday night at 9 o'clock."

Maryland officials didn't have the same worry moving into the more spacious Comcast Center in '02.

"For men's basketball, we were in a situation where games played at Cole Field House were sold out, and had been for some time, and we have been sold out since the opening of the new arena," Hull said. "And we actually have a waiting list of over 2,000 contributors, and that works out to between 5,000 and 6,000 ticket requests, because most people on the waiting list want more than one ticket."

Optimism

"This is not something that in this point and time is a concern because I think that I'm ready, the staff is ready, and the University of Virginia is ready to put us in a position where we will have the kind of basketball program that is on the upswing," Littlepage said this week.

"We will be there. I guarantee that. That is part of my job. We're going to have the kind of facility and the kind of team in that facility that everybody is going to be proud of."