U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch Jan 12, 2007

NUMBERS GAME: Each of Virginia's starters played at least 28 minutes Wednesday against top-ranked North Carolina, led by guards J.R. Reynolds (35) and Sean Singletary (32), who would have played more if he hadn't been in foul trouble.

By contrast, the Tar Heels' starting guards, freshmen Wayne Ellington and Ty Lawson, played 21 and 20 minutes, respectively. UNC coach Roy Williams' other backcourt options included Bobby Frasor, Marcus Ginyard, Quentin Thomas and Wes Miller.

"They've always got fresh people," U.Va. coach Dave Leitao said after his team's 79-69 loss to Carolina at the Dean E. Smith Center. "I thought almost midway through the second half that we wore down mentally, and they never wore down mentally. And a lot of that has to do with substitutions."

Singletary, the ACC's leading scorer, had 14 points against UNC but finished with more turnovers (eight) than assists (seven).

"I struggled, definitely," Singletary said. "Coach Williams did a great job pressuring me and getting guys on me and frustrating me. But we stuck together for the most part, and we're really excited about that going into Saturday."

U.Va. (1-1, 9-5) plays another ACC road game tomorrow afternoon, this time against Boston College (3-0, 11-4).

For Leitao, who grew up in New Bedford, Mass., about an hour's drive from Boston, the BC game will be his first in New England since he took over as U.Va.'s coach after the 2004-05 season.

Leitao played at Northeastern University in Boston. He later was an assistant and then head coach at his alma mater. He's also a former Connecticut assistant.

One of Leitao's assistants, Steve Seymour, is from New England, too. Seymour grew up in Rockland, Mass., and graduated from Bridgewater (Mass.) State.

MIXED REVIEW: Laurynas Mikalauskas, who averaged 6.2 points and 4.5 rebounds in 2005-06, made 4 of 5 shots and scored 10 points against UNC. That marked the first time in double figures this season for the 6-8, 255-pound sophomore.

But on a night when Carolina grabbed 21 offensive rebounds, Mikalauskas didn't help U.Va. in that area.

"He got some finishes and played good defense today," Leitao said. "But again, he played 29 minutes and got two rebounds. All of us, not just him, I'm not picking on him at all, have got to do a better job on the backboards."

UNC outrebounded Virginia 47-34. Jason Cain, a 6-10 senior, led U.Va. with eight boards.

BACK ON TRACK: In U.Va.'s 76-75 loss to Stanford last weekend, sophomore swingman Mamadi Diane started but played only 18 minutes and scored only two points. Against UNC, Diane hit his first shot - a 3-pointer - and turned in a solid effort. He finished with 14 points and five rebounds.

"I think it's real important just to come out and hit shots early," said Diane, U.Va.'s third-leading scorer this season at 11.3 ppg. "Hitting the first shot always leaves you with a good feeling, and you start to roll with it and get into the flow of the game easier."

ON THE GRIDIRON: U.Va.'s football coaches are optimistic that Andrew Pearman will return to school this month. Pearman, a wide receiver from Charlotte, N.C., who began his college career at Hawaii, withdrew from U.Va. for personal reasons in November. The younger brother of former Cavaliers standout Alvin Pearman has two seasons of eligibility left.

The ACC's football schedule for 2007 is due out in the next month. Out of conference, U.Va. will host Pittsburgh and UConn and visit Wyoming and Middle Tennessee State. U.Va. is expected to open the season at Wyoming, which played at Scott Stadium in 2006.

Of the players who were redshirt juniors for Virginia in 2006, at least two will not be back next season. Kevin McCabe, who ended last season as U.Va.'s No. 3 quarterback, plans to transfer to a Division II school. Keenan Carter, a reserve nose tackle in 2006 who didn't figure prominently in U.Va.'s plans for next season, will try to earn a spot in the NFL.

STRONG START: The points have been tallied for fall, and U.Va. (303) is seventh in the U.S. Sports Academy Directors' Cup competition.

Virginia trails Colorado by one point and UCLA and Wisconsin, which are tied for fourth, by only six. U.Va. didn't get any points from its football team but fared well in men's soccer (83 points), women's soccer (64), field hockey (60), men's cross country (48) and women's cross country (48).

The Directors' Cup competition, sponsored by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics, awards points based on schools' performances in NCAA championships. U.Va., traditionally strong in the spring, finished 16th overall in 2004-05 and 26th in 2005-06.

U.Va. may benefit this spring from a recent rule change. Virginia earned only 50 points for winning the NCAA men's lacrosse title in 2006, but a championship in that sport will be worth 100 points this spring, as has been the case most years. - Jeff White
 

UVa left it on the boards
Better rebounding might have yielded upset win
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7247
January 12, 2007

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - If there was one thing that the University of Virginia men’s basketball team really excelled at last season, it was rebounding. Virginia finished third in the ACC with an average margin of plus-4.6.

Heading into Wednesday night’s clash with No. 1-ranked North Carolina, UVa had outrebounded 10 of 13 opponents,

However, in its 79-69 loss to the Tar Heels, Virginia was destroyed on the glass. UNC outrebounded UVa, 47-34, including a 21-8 edge on the offensive end.

“If we would have just hit the glass a little more,” said Virginia freshman Will Harris, “I think we would have won the game.”

Not committing eight turnovers within an eight-minute span in the second half might have helped UVa’s chances, too.

But in the second half when UNC broke things open, Virginia (9-5, 1-1 ACC) continually allowed the Tar Heels second chances, usually from point-blank range.

UNC’s Brandan Wright abused UVa the most. The freshman had nine boards, five on the offensive end.

When Wright and his teammates didn’t convert on put-backs, they were able to get to the foul line, where they had a season-high 41 attempts (converting 26).

As you would expect, Leitao, who has harped on rebounding since he took over the program, was not pleased.

After talking briefly about his team’s poor work on the boards in his postgame press conference, Leitao was asked another question on the subject and became angry.

“We just talked about that,” snapped Leitao at a reporter. “Were you not listening? I just talked about it. It was a problem.”

A frustrated Leitao then used a four-letter expletive that was heard live on the school’s radio network.

“Excuse my language,” he said. “[But] rebounding is something that you have to do. They’re very good at it - the No. 1 rebounding team in the league - but you have to battle them and I don’t think we battled them on the backboards.”

There was one silver lining for Leitao’s team. Virginia, which plays at Boston College on Saturday, played some of its best defense of the season, holding UNC to just 38-percent shooting, including just 3 of 13 from 3-point range.

It was the fifth-lowest percentage by a UVa opponent, although it has to rank as the most impressive when you consider that the other games were against Morgan State, UNC Asheville, Maryland-Eastern Shore, Hampton and Puerto Rico-Mayaguez - not No.-1 ranked UNC (15-1, 2-0).

The Tar Heels’ shooting performance was their third-worst of the season.

“They’ve got heart,” said North Carolina coach Roy Williams, when asked about Virginia. “There’s no question about that. I felt like every shot we took they were challenging and getting a hand up.”

But by game’s end, UNC wore Virginia down with its depth. Twelve Tar Heel players saw action.

“They’re as well-balanced of a team that we’re going to play all year long - or even in the next few years,” Leitao said. “They have [12] guys that they rotate. They kept coming at us with defensive energy. It cost us.”

UNC was able to throw numerous defenders on Sean Singletary, Virginia’s leading scorer, and force him into a season-high eight turnovers.

It was obvious that Singletary was trying to do too much.

“Yeah, he probably took it too deep into the teeth of the defense a little bit,” Leitao said. “What we needed was somebody else to take the pressure off of him a little bit. He kept forcing [shots], but we didn’t give him the kind of confidence offensively that would allow him to continue to share the ball with everybody. We needed more people to make more plays.”

Said Singletary: “It seemed like we were playing 20 guys. [UNC] just kept bringing talented guys in and out. They did a good job of forcing turnovers and slowing me down on the break.

“They just wore us out. They don’t miss a beat. They bring a point guard in, then they bring another point guard, then they bring in another point guard. They just pressure you up and down the whole court and don’t give you any breaks.”

The resulting fatigue clearly affected Virginia’s performance on the boards.

“I know, personally, we could have won if we had just rebounded a little more,” Harris said. “The game was very winnable for us.”

 

Cavs bust on boards
Virginia did a lot of things right in its loss at No. 1 UNC, except when it came to competing for rebounds with the Tar Heels.
Doug Doughty

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. -- Good defense, Virginia men's basketball coach Dave Leitao contends, generally leads to good offense.

That wasn't the case Wednesday night.

UVa had lengthy scoring droughts at the end of both halves and was unable to pull off an upset of No. 1-ranked North Carolina, which shot 37.9 percent in a 79-69 victory at the Dean Smith Center.

If rebounding can be considered to be defense, however, maybe Virginia's defense wasn't so outstanding.

The Cavaliers (9-5 overall, 1-1 ACC) gave up 21 offensive rebounds on a night when they absorbed their worst beating on the boards this season, 47-34.

At game time, Carolina (15-1, 2-0) was ranked third out of 119 Division I teams in rebounding, with an average differential of 11.7. Virginia had been 17th, with an average differential of 8.4.

"Rebounding is something that you've got to do," Leitao said. "They're [the Tar Heels] very good. They're the No. 1 rebounding team in the league. That's what the stats tell me. That's what the tape tells me. But, you've got to battle them and I don't think we battled them."

Virginia had lost 61 of its previous 66 games in Chapel Hill, where the Tar Heels had routed the Cavaliers 99-54 last March. But Virginia came out flying and was on a 100-point pace when it took a 27-19 lead on a three-point play by Sean Singletary with 9:51 left in the half.

The Cavaliers failed to score on eight straight possessions late in the first half and on nine consecutive possessions in the second half.

Earlier in the second half, Virginia had committed eight turnovers during a 6 minute, 35 second span -- four by Singletary. He had been averaging fewer than three turnovers a game.

"This is the ACC," Singletary said. "You've got to be a lot stronger with the ball. We beat ourselves. I struggled, definitely. Coach [Roy] Williams did a good job of pressuring me, of getting fresh guys on me and frustrating me.""

By Leitao's count, Carolina used four point guards against Singletary.

"What we needed was somebody to take some of the pressure off of him," Leitao said. "He kept forcing it and he missed a couple of guys, but we didn't have the kind of confidence offensively that would allow him to share the ball with everybody. We needed more people to make more plays."

"We wore down mentally and they never wore down mentally, and a lot of that has to do with substitutions. We ask so much out of Sean and J.R. [Reynolds]. It's hard to ask them to be crisp as you need them in an environment like this."

Reynolds had a team-leading 15 points, a season-high seven assists and only two turnovers in 35 minutes. Singletary and Mamadi Diane had 14 apiece, and the Cavaliers got a season-high 10 points from Lauris Mikalauskas.

"He played with energy, he got some finishes and played better defense," Leitao said, "but he played 25 minutes and got two rebounds. All of us, and I'm just not picking on him, have got to do a better job on the backboards.

"You can't give up 21 offensive rebounds and say, 'Oh, by the way, we should have won the game."

Senior post Jason Cain returned to the starting lineup after three games of spot duty and finished with eight points and eight rebounds in 28 minutes.

Cain attributed the rebounding discrepancy "to a little bit of everything," he said. "They're deep, they're athletic, they're strong. They send four or five people to the glass at a time. There were a lot of long rebounds today."

The loss dropped the Cavaliers to 3-13 on the road during Leitao's two seasons, with the ACC counting a 59-52 victory over Division II Puerto Rico-Mayaguez as a road win because the Tarzans were the host team for the San Juan Shootout.

UVa will attempt to win its second ACC road win of the Leitao era when it ventures to Boston College for a 2 p.m. Saturday matchup.

The Eagles (11-4, 3-0) boast the ACC's leading rebounder in senior Jared Dudley, but are not as deep as Carolina.

"It's good to see that our team's really turned the page in terms of chemistry," Singletary said. "We were lacking that the whole year. Even last year, we didn't really have chemistry. We had a lot of chemistry today. We stuck together for the most part and we're really excited about that going into Saturday."
 

UVa recruit Williams wins convert in San Antonio
Carter serious about NFL bid
By Doug Doughty

In the days leading up to a rating of the state’s top football prospects, a person whose opinion I value greatly said he wasn’t sold on Virginia recruit J’Courtney Williams for two reasons:

Strike one was the level of competition Williams faced at Christchurch School (Bill Brill’s alma mater, for goodness sakes) on the Northern Neck. Strike two was Williams’ durability, based on the knee injury that limited him to five games this season.

However, with no obvious candidate to replace Williams, I went ahead and rated him as the No. 4 prospect in the state, the same as I had in the preseason.

I felt better about that selection today after speaking with Highland Springs coach Scott Burton.

Burton coached the secondary and served as defensive coordinator for the East team in the U.S. Army All-American Bowl.

Burton coached this year’s No. 3 prospect, defensive back Cris Hill, at Highland Springs.

Did Williams belong in the Top Five?

“I do think so,” Burton said “Without seeing those other ones, I can say I definitely would have loved to have had him. He really impressed me, with everything from the mental aspect to the physical aspect.

“Even though he played at a smaller school and there are, I guess you could say, people who are yet to jump on the bandwagon because of that, I think he’s going to turn a lot of heads.”

Not that Burton was skeptical.

“I was intrigued,” Burton said. “I don’t know if ‘skeptical’ is the right word, but I was intrigued to get to know him and see what kind of player he was and I was really impressed.”

Williams received a majority of the playing time at one of the linebacker positions.

“We had five linebackers to play three spots and I felt he definitely was in the upper echelon,” Burton said. “I’m not sure if there was any sort of depth chart going in. It depends on which service you read, but we had both the No. 1 weak-side and the No. 1 strong-side linebacker in the country.

“I’m not even sure which side J’Courtney ended up starting at. I’m pretty sure it was the weak side.”

So, Williams started ahead of the No. 1 linebacker in the country – again, according to one service.

“Yes,” replied Burton, who said the decision was made collectively by the defensive staff.

“What we were doing was a little bit different than what he was used to. He was more of an in-the-box linebacker for us and really took to it well.

“He has real good instincts and I was really surprised by how well he ran and how well he changed directions.”

Actually, Virginia is talking about using Williams (6 foot 4, 218 pounds) at safety.

“What he told me was, coach [Mike] London told him he would be a hybrid-Troy Polamulu type that you can’t really define clearly,” said Burton, referring to the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Pro Bowl safety.

“You know, I can see that. I don’t know if he can run with slot receivers, but certainly he’s got a lot of ability. He’s a versatile weapon for any defensive coordinator.”

THE WORD I’M GETTING is that, while Keenan Carter has not made a public announcement, an agent has gotten word to the NFL that Carter is passing up his fifth season of eligibility at Virginia.

Carter is on schedule to graduate in May but is likely to stay out of school during the semester and devote his attention to training for workouts with NFL teams. A source indicates that Carter also may have gotten an invitation to a Texas all-star game.

Neither Carter nor his family and advisors felt that he got as much playing time as warranted, and his assessment of the Virginia nose-tackle situation indicated that in 2007 he would have to share time – at best – with Allen Billyk and Nate Collins.

UVa will have two other young players with nose-tackle attributes, Kevin Crawford and recruit Nick Jenkins.