U.Va. an ACC enigma
Cavs are groping for identity as Hokies arrive for key game
Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 12:10 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- From a basketball team that shared the ACC regular-season title and advanced to the NCAA tournament's second round, University of Virginia coach Dave Leitao returned eight of his top 10 scorers, including his best player, point guard Sean Singletary.

"There were more givens than questions," Leitao said Monday.

Yet as February approaches, U.Va. still is searching for an identity. Are the Cavaliers the team that won at Arizona and beat Northwestern by 42 points in November, or the one that lost to Xavier by 38 and Duke by 22 this month?

"We're halfway through our season, so we've got to get it turned around," Singletary said.

Fifteen regular-season games remain for Virginia (0-1, 10-4), starting tonight against Virginia Tech (1-1, 10-6) at sold-out John Paul Jones Arena. Leitao would like to believe his team will reach its potential this season, but he knows there are no guarantees.

"I've been on both sides," said Leitao, who also has coached at DePaul, Northeastern and Connecticut. "There have been teams that have found themselves at different points in the season: early, late, all the way up to the conference tournament. And times that teams never get together."

Leitao knew he would have to replace departed starters J.R. Reynolds and Jason Cain, but he expected to have 6-11 Tunji Soroye back at center. Knee and back problems have limited Soroye to only two games, however, and he's not the only Cavalier to have spent considerable time in the trainer's room.

Others who have missed games for medical reasons include sophomore forwards Will Harris and Jamil Tucker, sophomore swingman Solomon Tat, freshman guard Sammy Zeglinski, junior center Laurynas Mikalauskas and senior center Ryan Pettinella.

With players constantly in and out of practice, Virginia has struggled to build cohesion, and its lack of chemistry has been apparent during games. Another issue for this team -- and the Wahoos have many -- has been the inconsistency of the two veterans on whom Leitao was counting to join Singletary as offensive pillars.

Junior forward Mamadi Diane is capable of scoring 20 points in a game. He's also capable of going scoreless, as he did Dec. 19 against Hampton, and missing 9 of 12 shots from the floor, as he did Sunday night at Duke.

Senior forward Adrian Joseph, unexpectedly, has become one of the ACC's top rebounders, but the Cavaliers need more than that from him. He's also a gifted scorer, but Joseph contributed only six points against Xavier and three vs. Duke.

In Blacksburg, Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg's biggest concern is probably his team's inexperience. The Hokies lost three starters and two valuable reserves from a team that, like U.Va., advanced to the NCAA tourney's second round. Tech's roster includes six freshmen, two of whom start: 6-7 Jeff Allen and 6-2 Malcolm Delaney.

"It's fun and frustrating at the same time, and that's just the way it is," Greenberg said. "You're coming into the gym trying to find a way to motivate them each and every day."

Not until they get to the arena tonight, Greenberg said, are his newcomers likely to grasp the depth of the Tech-U.Va. rivalry.

"This group that I'm dealing with, I don't think they have a clue," Greenberg said. "I think our guys know it's Virginia, and they've heard enough about it, but they haven't lived it yet."

Virginia, unlike Tech, entered the season with realistic expectations of returning to the NCAAs. The pressure is starting to mount on the Cavaliers.

"It's easy to get down at a time like this," Diane said. "But we've got a long way to go. We've got 15 league games left. We have the talent and enough time ahead of us to make a difference, make a change."

 

Cavs' tilt with Hokies already a must-win affair
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
January 16, 2008

Is there such a thing as a big game in January? Well, who knows.

But when Virginia hosts Virginia Tech tonight at John Paul Jones Arena, it could go a long way in forecasting what kind of season it’s going to be for UVa coach Dave Leitao and company.

The Cavaliers didn’t lose a conference home game all of last season. Losing their first home tilt of the 2008 campaign to a young and inexperienced Tech squad would certainly be an ugly harbinger.

Leitao, however, isn’t panicking. He believes his team is still trying to find its identity.

“There have been teams that have found itself at different parts of the year - early, late, all the way into the conference tournament,” Leitao said. “Then there are teams that never get it together.

“I do it day by day. The most I can go is week by week. I can’t project what we’ll look like in February until we take of our business [tonight].”

Truth to be told, not very many people expected Virginia (10-4, 0-1) to win its last two games on the road - at Xavier and Duke - but they definitely didn’t expect to see UVa lose by an average of 30 points.

The most glaring deficiency in Virginia’s losses has been its defense. Xavier shot 64 percent from the field, while Duke hit 51 percent of its shots.

All of last season, Virginia only allowed four opponents to shoot over 50 percent from the floor.

“We have to learn from the [losses],” said Virginia junior Mamadi Diane. “We have to take what we did bad and learn from them, apply it.”

Added freshman Jeff Jones: “We need to have a short memory and keep on grinding.”

Virginia Tech (10-6, 1-1) is coming off a home win over Maryland, but the Hokies lost to Richmond two days before that.

Tech coach Seth Greenberg said he was proud of his team for the resiliency it showed in beating the Terps.

“I thought we took a step forward in that we made plays at the end of the game - something we hadn’t been able to do during the course of the season consistently,” Greenberg said. “It gives [us] something to build on.”

Tech is a much different team than the one Virginia split two games with last season. Nine of its 12 scholarship players are freshmen or sophomores.

The Hokies no longer have Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell wreaking havoc.

“Those were two guys who played as backcourt partners for four years and meant a lot to their success,” Leitao said. “Now that they’re gone, the team has kind of been turned over to a combination of experienced guys - [Deron] Washington and [A.D.] Vassallo - and the youth in [Jeff] Allen and [Malcolm] Delaney and [Dorenzo] Hudson.

“It looks like [Greenberg’s] enjoying coaching the team because you’re teaching every day and they’re getting better and they’re learning as they play.”

Leitao is expecting a stiff test.

“I know they’re coming in here with a positive attitude after the win this weekend over Maryland and will be coming after us,” he said. “We have to be ready for it.”

Greenberg, on the other hand, isn’t reading too much into Virginia’s last two games, particularly its loss in Durham on Sunday.

“You can’t evaluate them against Duke,” Greenberg said, “because Duke is just that good.”

Dunks

Virginia leads the all-time series with Virginia Tech 78-47. The teams split last season, with each team winning at home. … UVa needs more offense from Adrian Joseph. The senior is coming off a season-low of three points at Duke. “Individually, we need to be more assertive,” Sean Singletary said. … Greenberg on the Virginia-Virginia Tech rivalry: [It’s] huge for our students, huge for our alumni and makes a good story, but for where we’re at, and I don’t want to speak for Dave [Leitao], we’re just trying to build programs.”

 

Collision course
The Hokies and Cavs face off tonight in the latest chapter of the intrastate rivalry.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

Seth Greenberg will face Sean Singletary in Charlottesville for the last time tonight. And, after Virginia and Virginia Tech meet in Blacksburg for a second time in 212 weeks, he may never have to prepare for Singletary again.

"I love the kid," said Greenberg, the Hokies' fifth-year head coach. "I love his spirit and the way he wills his team to another level with his toughness. But, am I going to miss him? No."

Singletary doesn't have a spotless record against the Hokies, who obliterated UVa 84-57 last year at Cassell Coliseum, but the Cavaliers are 5-2 against Tech during his career.

That includes two victories at University Hall and a third at Virginia's new John Paul Jones Arena, site of the latest UVa-Tech showdown at 7 tonight.

While Tech (10-6 overall, 1-1 ACC) continues to bask in Saturday's comeback victory over Maryland, Virginia (10-4, 0-1) is searching for answers after losing back-to-back road games by a combined 60 points at Xavier (108-70) and Duke (87-65).

These are not the same teams that won first-round NCAA games on the same floor last year in Columbus, Ohio, but nobody expected much out of freshman-laded Tech, a preseason choice for 10th.

Virginia was picked fifth in the ACC and had a one-week stay in The Associated Press Top 25 after winning at Arizona in the season's first week.

Since then, UVa has lost to three unranked opponents -- Seton Hall, Syracuse and Xavier -- and irritated coach Dave Leitao to the extent that he locked them out of their plush JPJ locker room after the Xavier trip.

There have been few signs that Virginia is ready to turn a corner and re-establish itself as a bona fide NCAA Tournament participant.

"I've been on both sides," Leitao said. "There have been teams that found [themselves] at different points in the season -- early, late, all the way to the conference tournament or leading up to the NCAA tournament.

"Then there are teams that never get it together."

The end of a 10-day layoff was signaled by a change in the starting lineup at Duke, with sophomore Calvin Baker, a transfer from William and Mary, replacing freshman Jeff Jones.

Jones, the highest-rated of UVa's 2006-2007 signees, was 5-for-7 on 3-pointers against Arizona but is 0-for-13 from beyond the arc in UVa's other 13 games.

Leitao made an earlier move to freshman Mike Scott, who joined the starting lineup after fifth-year senior Ryan Pettinella developed shin splints. Pettinella was a forgotten man before he scored nine points in 18 minutes against Duke as a reserve.

Pettinella (6-foot-9, 249 pounds) might be around at the start tonight but, if the game is close, don't expect to see him at the end. In his two seasons at Virginia, Pettinella is 11-for-51 from the free-throw line, including 2-for-14 this season.

The Duke students went wild Sunday when Pettinella air-balled a free throw. At that point, he was 0-for-3 from the night and had missed 10 consecutive free throws going back to November, but his final attempt of the night rattled off the rim and backboard before falling through the net.

"You work on it; you work on it daily," Leitao said. "Ask anybody if you can fix Ben Wallace's or Shaquille O'Neal's free throws. Those things are very difficult to do, if not impossible."

Most coaches don't change their lineup after a victory, but Greenberg hasn't ruled out the possibility that a third freshman could join classmates Jeff Allen and Malcolm Delaney in the starting lineup.

Presumably, that was a reference to 5-9 former starter Hank Thorns, but Greenberg used six freshmen against Maryland.

"I don't want to speak for [Greenberg], but it looks like he enjoys coaching the team, because he's teaching every day and they're getting better," Leitao said.

That's easy for him to say.

"Don't I look happy all the time?" Greenberg said. "I'm such a happy guy. You know what? It's fun and frustrating at the same time. You're finding a different way to reach them and find the right button for what they don't know. Obviously, the little bit of success they had Saturday has made them a little more attentive this week."

Like UVa, Tech has a veteran leader in Deron Washington. Both Washington and Singletary have struggled this season.

"It's hard being a senior," Greenberg said.

At the same time, Singletary stands third in the ACC in scoring and is leading the conference in assists, which is a first.

"You know what he is?" Greenberg said. "He's a winner."
 

Going with the flow
New approach pushes Tech toward a comfort zone
Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 12:10 AM
By DARRYL SLATER
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

BLACKSBURG Seth Greenberg had seen enough of his players' uncertain glances toward him, their eyes darting in games and practices, searching for help. He was tired of the players using him as a crutch and knew he needed them to think on their own if Virginia Tech would make any dent in the ACC.

So Greenberg, the Hokies' coach, altered practice when they reconvened after Christmas. Fewer tedious drills, more full-court work. Fewer interruptions from Greenberg to critique mistakes, more learning as the players go, ironing out the errors themselves.

Tech's late-game performances had frustrated Greenberg, never more so than Dec. 23 at Wake Forest, where the Hokies frittered away a eight-point lead with 1:22 remaining and lost in regulation. They looked more comfortable to close Saturday's 67-66 win over Maryland - something the players attributed to the new practice format.

How well that maintains for Tech's remaining ACC games, starting at 7 tonight at Virginia, is anyone's best guess, mainly because a roster with six freshmen among its 12 scholarship players will shatter most crystal balls.

"We're not an expensive wine right now," Greenberg said. "We're like Thunderbird right now. I've never had any of that, but that's just the way it is."

So far, the practice change is earning positive reviews from players, some of whom complained that the old format was too boring.

"Now we know what we have to do and when to do it," freshman forward Jeff Allen said.

Greenberg would smile to hear that. During practices before Christmas, he called time out during most drills to explain how someone screwed up.

"I spent all my time in a timeout and not enough time having them think on their own, thinking on their feet," he said. "I was thinking for them too much."

He noticed his players' attention spans were too short to tolerate this slow pace, and he saw they struggled during games with running in transition because they weren't familiar enough with each other's tendencies.

Practices now operate like this: After warm-ups, Greenberg teaches a concept, then lets the players execute it for two possessions in a full-court situation, to simulate a game. If Greenberg sees a mistake, he won't blow his whistle and stop play. Instead, he'll wait until after the possessions to review what went wrong or right.

Senior forward Deron Washington said Greenberg ran practices this way last season, when the Hokies had three senior starters. Washington struggled with adjusting to his new teammates this season and welcomed the quicker practice pace as a way to feel them out.

"If we weren't doing that, we'd run down the court and we'd pass the ball to spots where people aren't," Washington said.

At the end of the Maryland game, Greenberg saw much more certainty from his players than he witnessed earlier this season.

Freshman point guard Hank Thorns made "the best play of the game," Greenberg said, when he stretched the defense, then pitched the ball to freshman guard Malcolm Delaney, who hit a 3-pointer that tied the score with 52 seconds left. Forty seconds later, the Hokies slid into their cut-oriented offense immediately upon command, and Allen drew a foul, then made a free throw to give them a 67-66 lead.

It all looked so smooth and refined, just like they practiced it.

"It came out and showed a lot because we were getting up and down the court so easy," Washington said. "It just seemed like everything was flowing and everybody was playing together."

 

Cavs, Hokies both have questions going into game
Posted to: Men's College Basketball Sports
By Ed Miller
The Virginian-Pilot
© January 16, 2008

Rivalry? Who has time to focus on a rivalry?

Virginia's basketball team has lost two straight games by a combined 60 points. At Virginia Tech, six of coach Seth Greenberg's top 10 players are freshmen.

So, when the Cavaliers and Hokies meet tonight at John Paul Jones Arena in Charlottesville, Greenberg and Virginia coach Dave Leitao will be less focused on state bragging rights than on seeing signs of progress from their teams as ACC play heats up.

"Virginia-Virginia Tech is huge for our students. It's huge for our alumni. It obviously makes a good story," Greenberg said Monday. "But where we're at and, I don't want to speak for Dave, where they're at, we're just trying to build programs."

Their current situations are a contrast to the breakthrough seasons they enjoyed last year. Virginia shared the regular-season title, Tech was a factor until the final weekend and both made the NCAA tournament after long droughts. Virginia had not made it since 2001, Tech since 1996.

The Hokies lost the core of last year's team and were facing a rebuilding season. At Virginia, with eight lettermen back, "there were more givens than questions," Leitao said.

At the moment, it's Virginia (10-4, 0-1) that's looking for answers - particularly on defense. The Cavaliers allowed Xavier to shoot 64 percent and gave up a school-record 16 3-pointers. Duke made 11 treys and shot 51 percent.

The Cavaliers haven't played well since a 91-61 win against Elon on Dec. 22. Leitao said, after a 78-70 win against Hartford on Dec. 30, that he was troubled by his team's lack of consistency. His fears have been realized the past two games.

Injuries have contributed to Virginia's inconsistent play. Center Tunji Soroye has played eight minutes all season and his defensive presence has been missed. Power forward Laurynas Mikalauskas has missed the past five games with a shoulder injury. Forward/center Ryan Pettinella also missed three games with injuries, leaving Virginia thin in the post.

Sophomore Jamil Tucker has been slowed by a balky back and Solomon Tat missed the first 11 games with a sports hernia.

On the perimeter, veterans Mamadi Diane and Adrian Joseph have not played as consistently as Leitao would have hoped. Freshman Jeff Jones has tailed off after a strong start and has been replaced in the starting lineup by William and Mary transfer Calvin Baker.

Even All-ACC guard Sean Singletary, seemingly the team's only sure thing, has struggled with turnovers.

Leitao said he has been a part of teams that struggled early and then pulled it together - as well as teams that never found their way.

"The most I can go is day to day and game to game," he said. "I can't project what we'll look like in February until we take care of our business today."

Greenberg is also having trouble knowing what to expect from his team, which is one of the youngest in the nation. The Hokies (10-6, 1-1) come into tonight's game hoping to build on a 67-66 comeback win against Maryland on Saturday.

Tech trailed by five with 1:46

left. Three freshmen - Jeff Allen, Hank Thorns and Malcolm Delaney - scored the final six points to pull out the win.

"We took a step forward in that we made plays at the end of the game," Greenberg said.

If that helps his young players grow up more quickly, all the better for Greenberg, who has been relying on veteran forwards Deron Washington and A.D. Vassallo to help bring his team along.

While he downplayed the importance of the rivalry for the coaches, Greenberg admitted that the intensity will be raised a notch tonight for the players - even if most of his don't know it yet.

"This group I'm dealing with right now, I don't think they have a clue," Greenberg said. "They're just going to go out and play."

 

Tech-U.Va. tilt's lack of fanfare shows ACC needs hoops upgrade
Posted to: Bob Molinaro Sports
Bob Molinaro
Virginian-Pilot columnist
Read Articles

Does it disappoint you to learn that tonight's basketball game between Virginia Tech and Virginia in Charlottesville isn't receiving nearly the amount of fanfare that surrounded the Hokies-Cavaliers football game on Thanksgiving weekend?

I'm being sarcastic, of course.

In late November, Tech and U.Va. played for a divisional football title, whereas nothing much is at stake when a couple of still-undefined basketball teams meet in January.

That's too bad, but that's basketball.

Those of us who like basketball are content to watch the long season unfold at a relatively casual pace, with teams jockeying for position within conferences and in the national polls, before the annual (and often forced) madness of March rolls around.

Now, at long last, the ACC season is taking center stage after being stuck in the wings for what seemed like too long.

Maybe it's just me but, from my vantage point, the ACC is starting to feel like a football conference. Football stories and football concerns seem to dominate at the expense of roundball.

While ACC football is generally criticized as being overrated, the impact of the sport on basketball is not. As some predicted would happen, conference expansion and greater emphasis on football has helped dull basketball's impact.

My take on this may be a reaction to football success in the commonwealth - both Virginia Tech (the football school) and Virginia (the basketball school) enjoyed exceptional fall seasons. Meanwhile, basketball continues to resound in North Carolina where, with the exception of Wake Forest, the football stinks.

A column in Sunday's Pilot summarizing the past football season contends that the ACC remains a basketball league, as if that's such a bad thing. The headline reads: "ACC must show it can be more than a basketball conference."

Maybe that's the perception among some people, but I'd be just as happy if the ACC began to show it can become more than the basketball conference it is now.

In large measure, ACC basketball is living off its reputation, which remains golden with the ESPN crowd and others who profit from its image but pales in comparison with what it was. This season, after North Carolina and Duke, the conference is a mishmash of mystery teams. The league simply isn't as engaging as it should be.

One reason, I think: Across the board, it's lacking in compelling individual talent.

Spare me the dreaded P-word. Parity is not Clemson losing in overtime to North Carolina, then turning around and dropping a home game to Charlotte.

Don't talk about balance after a weekend in which the Tar Heels routed North Carolina State by 31, Boston College reduced Wake Forest to clam chowder (112-73) and Virginia traveled to Durham, N.C., for its ritual beating.

This might seem like a strange time to be questioning the ACC's pedigree. After all, top-ranked North Carolina is considered a Final Four shoe-in - and Duke is still Duke.

But a long regular season paves the way to San Antonio. Unless it wants to mirror Major League Baseball - where only encounters between the Red Sox and Yankees are considered worthwhile viewing - the ACC would do well to cough up a few more compelling attractions than just a pair of highly publicized Carolina-Duke tussles.

Tech vs. U.Va. probably doesn't qualify, at least not outside the state. It's hardly a great match-up - more of a reminder that it's time to shake off those football hangovers.

 

Virginia vs. Virginia Tech: Who's got next?
The inconsistent Cavaliers and Hokies still seek answers.
BY MELINDA WALDROP
247-4634
10:01 PM EST, January 15, 2008

Both teams are coming off their most successful seasons in recent memory. But going into tonight's matchup, both face questions about lineups that look quite different from last year's editions.

Virginia went 21-11 last season and shared the ACC regular-season title, then gained its first NCAA tournament win since 1995. Virginia Tech went 22-12 and earned its first NCAA tournament victory since 1996.

Key players from those squads -- J.R. Reynolds at Virginia, Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell at Virginia Tech -- are gone, and their absences have been felt in up-and-down seasons. The Cavaliers (10-4, 0-1 ACC) have beaten Arizona but lost badly at Xavier and Duke, while the Hokies (10-6, 1-1) stumbled early but have won four of their last five.

"Our basketball team is still a work in progress," said Tech coach Seth Greenberg, whose team beat Maryland 67-66 Saturday. "We're still kind of identifying who we are and getting our guys to understand their roles, (but) I like our team, I like our young players, and we've made pretty good progress."

Progress was not on display during Virginia's 87-65 drubbing at Duke in its ACC opener Sunday. The Cavaliers will need a short memory to bounce back tonight.

"Playing Virginia Tech is always a challenge for us," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "It becomes more of an emotional game than normal. ... I know they're coming in here with a positive attitude after the win this weekend against Maryland and coming after us, and we've got to be ready for it."

Here are some of the main factors that may influence tonight's game:

The coaches

Dave Leitao

Leitao, the reigning ACC coach of the year, is 46-32 in his third season at the U.Va. helm. Leitao is 4-1 against Tech counterpart Seth Greenberg, including a three-game sweep in the 2005-06 season, when the teams met in the first round of the ACC tournament.

Seth Greenberg

In his fifth season, Greenberg's record with the Hokies stands at 77-62. He has just one win against Leitao -- an 84-57 victory last Feb. 10 in Blacksburg. Greenberg's Hokies lost two senior guards from the team that finished tied for third in the ACC last year at 10-6.

The stars

Sean Singletary

Singletary leads the Cavaliers with almost 18 points a game and the ACC with 6.57 assists per game. As important as his stats -- which include an 84 percent free-throw shooting percentage and 40 percent shooting from 3-point range -- is his emotional floor leadership. As Singletary goes, so often go the Cavs.

Jeff Allen

The freshman forward has had an immediate impact, leading the Hokies with 8.2 rebounds per game while averaging nearly 13 points and starting all 16 games. Allen led Tech with 17 points in a win over Maryland on Saturday and will need to keep coming up big in ACC games.

The seasons

Virginia

The Cavs have had their highs -- a 75-72 win at Arizona on Nov. 17 -- and their lows, including a 108-70 loss at Xavier on Jan. 3 and Sunday's loss at Duke. U.Va. will need more consistency if it hopes to match last season's 11-5 conference record.

Virginia Tech

The Hokies came up short in close games against Butler, Penn State and Old Dominion before dropping their ACC opener, 77-75, at Wake Forest on Dec. 23. In the heart of conference play, Tech will need more of the mental toughness that helped it edge Maryland. Keys to victory

Virginia

1) Supporting cast

Veteran guards Adrian Joseph and Mamadi Diane have to knock down shots, while Calvin Baker must handle the ball well enough to give Singletary a breather.

2) Bang on the boards

The Cavaliers are outrebounding teams by 11.4 boards per game. They'll have to keep that inside focus against Tech, which is averaging five more rebounds than its opponents.

3) Shoot the 3 -- selectively

Virginia has made 40 percent of the 325 3-pointers it's taken this season. But the Cavs can't abandon an inside game that still needs work.

Virginia Tech

1) Clamp down on defense

The Hokies led the ACC in scoring defense, allowing less than 59 points per game. That gives a young team still finding its identity more room to grow.

2) Get Vassallo going

Junior A.D. Vassallo is averaging 15.8 points and shooting almost 42 percent from 3-point range, third in the ACC. Once hot, he can be hard to stop.

3) Take care of the ball

The Hokies are ninth in the ACC with a 0.93 assist-to-turnover ratio. Even a small improvement could be huge, as the Cavs are just eighth, at 0.94.

 

Baker provides UVa with more offensive production
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
January 16, 2008

Rewarded with his first career start against Duke, Virginia guard Calvin Baker got one piece of advice from coach Dave Leitao before taking the court at Cameron Indoor Stadium.
"He told me to be aggressive," Baker said. "And that's what I did."

Baker was one of the few bright spots for the Cavaliers, who have lost their last two games by 60 points and are hoping to avoid their first 0-2 start to ACC play in the Leitao era when they host Virginia Tech tonight at 7 p.m.

Baker, a walk-on who transferred from William & Mary, scored 13 points against Duke on 6-of-14 shooting before cramps limited him in the second half.

But it wasn't what he did as much as how he did it. The 6-foot-2, 186-pound guard showed an aggressive offensive game Virginia has been severely lacking since J.R. Reynolds graduated last spring.

One of Reynolds' best offensive skills was getting to the basket, a talent that could mask off-shooting nights. Baker was the only Cavalier to consistently get in the lane against Duke's hounding defense, which held Virginia to season lows in 3-point makes (4) and attempts (14).

"When I got into the paint, they just told me that they were going to jump everything," Baker said. "So I just tried to give them a pump fake and get them in the air or something and just get the shot off."

It's a welcome change for the Cavaliers, who have become increasingly satisfied with shooting 3-pointers, taking 325, more than anyone in the conference but Clemson. In all four of its losses, UVa has shot 34 percent or worse from 3-point range.

Baker replaced freshman Jeff Jones in the starting lineup. Jones, who started the first 13 games, has slumped since a breakout game at Arizona in November when he hit five 3-pointers and scored 15 points. He hasn't made a 3 since, misfiring on 11 straight.

Against Duke, Jones played four minutes and looked every bit his age, going scoreless and committing three turnovers.

Leitao said he made the change just to switch things up. Baker had been a sparkplug off the bench but was still playing 23 minutes a game, fourth most on the team.

"Normally when I come off the bench, there are some things that I can see that are going on and I try to fix it," Baker said. "But starting, you're the first one to make the mistakes and you're the first one to do anything good. So it's a little bit different."

Leitao hedged when asked if the change was permanent.

"Nothing is ever permanent, except death and taxes," he said. The lifelong New York Giants fan couldn't help but twist the knife a little, adding, "and the Cowboys losing."

Virginia is in need of some kind of change. The Cavaliers haven't lost back-to-back games this bad since Clemson and North Carolina beat them by 26 and 45 points, respectively, in 2006, Leitao's first season.

UVa's last two opponents - Xavier and Duke - combined to shoot 57 percent and both narrowly out-rebounded the Cavaliers, who are tied for second nationally in Division I with a +11.4 rebounding margin.

"I don't know that right now or at any point I'm real good at picking out positives, either collectively or individually," Leitao said. "We need to get better on defense. We need to get better at our execution. We need to get better at more guys playing together on the same page.

"That's more my concern than if a guy or a team did things better."


 

Hokies still find road wins elusive
By Nathan Warters
Lynchburg News & Advance
January 16, 2008

History is not on Virginia Tech's side tonight when it visits John Paul Jones Arena. Not that it really matters to these Hokies. Most of them, eight to be exact, haven't been a part of a road losing streak against Virginia that dates all the way back to 1970.
That's right. Tech hasn't beaten the Cavaliers in Charlottesville in more than 40 years (It's last win there came on Jan. 6, 1968).

"We don't really worry about stuff like that," freshman point guard Hank Thorns said. "We're just going to treat this like it is: another important road ACC game."

More than half of Tech's players have never experienced a game at JPJA, Virginia's year-old basketball arena. Some, like senior forward Deron Washington and junior forward A.D. Vassallo, lost in their first game there last March. The Hokies have lost nine straight in Charlottesville (the teams played at neutral sites from 1976 to 2000).

This year's Tech team has yet to prove it can win a true road game (it's 0-4), but it showed some maturity Saturday in coming from behind to beat Maryland 67-66 at Cassell Coliseum.

The Hokies' focus tonight is to ride the wave of momentum from Saturday's win. They know they'll have to get off to a good start to beat the Cavaliers (10-4, 0-1 ACC). They were behind at halftime in all four of their true road losses (they're 3-2 in neutral site games).

Tech (10-6, 1-1 ACC) has been known to play in spurts this season, and one of its biggest flaws was an inability to finish out games. It corrected that in Saturday's win over the Terrapins. The Hokies let a 15-5 lead slip away and trailed for most of the second half before rallying in the final 1:28.

Thorns hit a fall-away jumper and assisted on freshman guard Malcolm Delaney's tying 3-pointer. Freshman forward Jeff Allen, who was named ACC freshman of the week after recording 17 points, nine rebounds, three blocks and five steals against Maryland, made one of two free throws with 12.4 seconds remaining to give Tech its only second-half lead.

The Hokies failed in comeback attempts at Penn State, at ODU and at Richmond, and it squandered an eight-point lead in the final 1:22 at Wake Forest. Maybe the Maryland result was a sign the young Tech team is finally learning the importance of playing a complete game, especially in Atlantic Coast Conference play.

"I think we're growing every day. We're getting better in practice," Delaney said after the Maryland victory. "I think if we played this type of game earlier in the season, we probably wouldn't have won.

"We learned from our mistakes, and coach (Seth Greenberg) always says if you learn from your mistakes, you don't make them again. I think we just went off the games we lost and just brought it together."

If Tech can handle Virginia guard Sean Singletary like it did Maryland's Greivis Vasquez, it might be able to break the Charlottesville losing skid.

The Hokies held Vasquez, the Terrapins' leading scorer, to 10 points on 2 of 14 shooting (0 for 7 from 3-point range). Singletary is coming off one of his worst games of the season (six turnovers) against Duke. He did, however, score 18 points in the 87-65 loss to the Blue Devils.

"They mirror us a lot, (Mamadi) Diane and A.D., and (Adrian) Joseph and Deron," Greenberg said. "I don't know who to compare Singletary to right now. He's special. He's special because of his heart. He's a fierce, fierce competitor. He's a winning player."
 

London still appears to top Spiders' list
AD Miller says no resolution has been made in UR's search
Wednesday, Jan 16, 2008 - 12:07 AM Updated: 02:29 AM
By JOHN PACKETT
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

University of Richmond Athletic Director Jim Miller was back at the Robins Center yesterday. Whether that means anything in his search for a new football coach is hard to say.

Miller has interviewed at least two candidates to replace Dave Clawson, who left last Friday to become the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at the University of Tennessee.

University of Virginia assistant Mike London appears to remain the leading candidate for the position, which could be filled by the end of the week.

Sources say London was interviewed at the Robins Center on Monday evening, after Miller had talked earlier in the day with UR's defensive coordinator Russ Huesman, who got a strong endorsement from Clawson, his boss for four years.

Two sources have indicated that Miller may have been interested in The Citadel coach Kevin Higgins, who worked with Clawson when the two were at Lehigh. But Higgins is not believed to be a serious candidate at this time.

Higgins was also an assistant coach at UR from 1985-87 before going to Lehigh.

"There is no final resolution on anything yet," Miller said last night. "We're moving forward as quickly as we can for this time of the year. It's tough to get with people this time of year, with recruiting and everything else going on."

Miller would not say what coaches he has interviewed. Asked if he intended to talk with more candidates, Miller said, "It will be resolved in the next day or two whether we'll be talking to someone else. I really can't tell you when this is going to be resolved. But I feel certain we'll fill the position with a qualified coach and a dynamic leader."

Other names mentioned as potential candidates include former Massachusetts coach Mark Whipple; Elon coach Pete Lembo, a former assistant at Hampden-Sydney; and Princeton coach Roger Hughes.