2/21/02 - Mugging

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Virginia players have talked constantly this season about being at a crossroads. On Wednesday night, they chose their path, and it’s leading directly toward the NIT.
The Seminoles, with little more to play for than being spoilers, downed the in-dire-need-of-a-win Cavaliers, 66-59, in front of a sparse crowd of 4,681 at the Leon County Civic Center.
With the loss — their second straight and sixth in eight — the Cavaliers fell to 6-7 in the ACC and 16-8 overall.
“The effort was there tonight but not the execution. ... We had mental breakdowns,” Gillen said. “We have three tough games left now and we have to go day by day.”
Added junior guard Roger Mason Jr.: “I understand where we are [in terms of the NCAAs]. Somehow we have to correct this.”
The Seminoles (11-13, 4-9), who entered the game having lost six straight, were led by 21 points from Monte Cummings and 15-point, 10-rebound effort from Nigel Dixon.
Roger Mason Jr. led Virginia with 19 points and Chris Williams and Elton Brown each added 10 but that duo accounted for just four points in the final 16:32.
Junior center Travis Watson had just five points and three rebounds as he fouled out with 5:25 left. He was just one of the several UVa big men who lost the battle with the 6-foot-10, 350-pound Nixon both statistically and certainly foul-wise. Dixon, FSU’s leader in personal fouls, was whistled for just two fouls as Watson fouled out on an away-from-the ball offensive foul on a hook.
That disparity did not sit too well with Gillen.
“Travis Watson gets mugged. He gets mugged and then they call him for hooking. He’s one of the best players in the league and he should get a little respect,” Gillen said. “He [Dixon] gets away with a lot. He hurt us. He was very physical and you have to adjust.”
Added Brown: “He’s a big guy. ... A couple of calls didn’t go our way, but you have to keep playing.”
Regardless of the officiating, it was some more familiar woes that chiefly did in the Cavaliers: turnovers and an inability to solve a zone defense.
The Cavaliers committed 18 against the Seminoles, which allowed FSU to score 28 points off turnovers to UVa’s 12. The Seminoles implemented a 2-3 zone for nearly the entire game that limited the Cavaliers to just 40 percent shooting for the game.
“We made turnovers and they got easy baskets. We had something like 11 turnovers in the first half. We handled the ball a little better to start the second half but then made some key turnovers in the last four or five minutes,” Gillen said. “They played 40 minutes of zone and you have to execute against the zone.”
Those two flaws were evident in the crucial final five minutes of the game.
Senior swingman Adam Hall, playing his first significant minutes in 11 games because of an injured right foot, completed a three-point play with 3:29 that gave UVa a 56-55 advantage. It appeared that would be the defining play to allow UVa, which trailed 34-29 at the half, to take control of the game. Instead, it would be Virginia’s last lead of the contest.
The Cavaliers committed turnovers on three of their next four possessions after that as it was Florida State that seized control of the game with a 9-0 run over the next two-and-a-half minutes. As the Seminoles were pulling away, UVa’s offense was still struggling to find the looks and shots it needed against the zone.
Most possessions during that crucial stretch involved Mason taking desperate 3s as the shot clock wound down.
“We got tentative and made some mistakes. ... Roger’s got to get more help. The offensive execution wasn’t there. Other guys have to step up,” Gillen said.
Added Mason: “We’ve seen the zone all season so it shouldn’t be anything new. We have to do a better job knocking down shots and taking open looks.”
The one time Virginia did create a decent offensive opportunity, Hall was called for a charge that negated a layup that would have made the score 60-58 with 1:33 left. Instead, the score remained 60-56 and UVa would get no closer the rest of the way.

By JERRY RATCLIFFE
Daily Progress sports editor

TALLAHASSEE, Fla.
Not much has changed for Virginia’s basketball team since Clemson first exposed the Cavaliers’ weaknesses Jan. 8. Slap a zone on ’em for 40 minutes and dare ’em to shoot their way out of trouble. Take away their bat-out-of-hell pace and slow them down so that UVa’s athletes look like they’re moving with leaded boots instead of sneakers.
Florida State coach Steve Robinson must have bookmarked that page in his game plans for Virginia, dusted it off and worked it to perfection on Wednesday night in a 66-59 upset over the visiting Cavaliers.
We use the term upset loosely. Ranked No. 22 in the nation, Virginia barely resembles the No. 4 ranking it held coming into the new year. Rather, there’s a strong resemblance to last year’s Wahoos, who could never unlock the secret to winning on the ACC road.
This season, the Cavs are the same old road kill. A four-point favorite heading into Tallahassee, UVa came unglued once again against FSU’s zone and couldn’t stop the Seminoles inside.
“I told the team after the game that I couldn’t remember in my five years here, playing 38 minutes of zone,” Florida State coach Steve Robinson said. “We had to weather the storm because Virginia hit some tough shots, but we didn’t want the game to become a track meet.”
Instead, it became a slugfest in the middle, and for the second straight game, the Cavaliers were knocked to the deck. Last Sunday, at Wake Forest, it was the Deacons’ Lithuanian Connection of Darius Songaila and Vytas Danelius who combined to help outscore Virginia 48-22 in the paint.
On Wednesday night, it wasn’t anything quite as exotic but
rather a wide body that goes by the nickname “Big Jelly” that kept landing punches to the Cavaliers’ underbelly. He’s Nigel Dixon, 6-foot-10 and 345 pounds of mama’s cookin’ that took Virginia apart slowly.
Dixon hasn’t exactly been categorized as an offensive force during his three years in the league. As a matter of fact, he usually is whistled for a foul if he even looks in the wrong direction. But Wednesday night, Dixon got by with mugging the visitors and took full advantage as an unheralded FSU frontline nearly duplicated Wake’s feat in the paint, outscoring UVa by a 40-24 count.
Dixon led the way with his first double-double of the season, 15 points, 10 rebounds, only the third double-double of his career and the first against an ACC foe. Meanwhile, Virginia’s Travis Watson, a lightweight compared to Dixon, was held to his worst game of the season.
Averaging a double-double for the season, Watson was held to five points and a season-low three rebounds before fouling out.
But that was just part of the problem for the Wahoos, now 2-5 on the ACC road, but more importantly 6-7 in the league with games remaining against Georgia Tech and Duke at home and at Maryland in the final game to be played at historic Cole Field House. UVa is 16-8 and flirting with disaster as far as its chances for an NCAA tournament bid in spite of a strong RPI ranking.
If it wasn’t bad enough that coach Pete Gillen’s guys couldn’t stop FSU in the paint, the Cavs struggled to hold on to the ball and simply couldn’t score against the zone, the same problem they had against Clemson way back when.
UVa turned it over 18 times, a big no-no anywhere, particularly on the road. The Seminoles took advantage by converting those mistakes into 28 points.
Still, the Cavaliers could have likely overcome all their shortcomings had they just been able to shoot the ball. The Cavs connected on 40 percent of their field-goal attempts (22 of 55) and only 26.9 percent from beyond the 3-point line (7 of 26).
“Forty minutes of zone,” Gillen said, sounding like a broken record. “We still haven’t solved it. Everybody’s zoning us.”
That’s because Virginia still hasn’t proven that it can handle itself against that defense. Roger Mason Jr., who put up 19 points in a 5-for-18 shooting performance (4 of 14 from bonusphere) can’t do it alone.
The zone has been UVa’s kryptonite and Gillen is still searching for answers. But is there an answer?
Chris Williams, who has grown reluctant of pulling the trigger and freshman Jermaine Harper, still trying to feel his way through his first year of college ball, were the most obvious answers. Williams hit two treys but only took eight shots for the game after making all three of his shots the first half.
Senior Adam Hall, back in the lineup for the first time since Jan. 12, has never been known for his outside shooting and missed both attempts against FSU.
The Cavaliers really haven’t learned much since last year’s 2-6 road woes in the league. If there was ever a chance to get well away from home, it was Wednesday night.
Florida State had lost six straight games and you can find more intensity in a library than there was in the Leon County Civic Center where only 4,681 fans were interested enough to show.
Not much has changed since Jan. 8 except UVa’s ranking and chances of reaching its goal of an NCAA bid. At what point does hearing the crowd chant “Over-rated” get the Cavaliers riled up enough to do something about it?

U.Va.'s season of hope gets new dose of despair
By DOUG DOUGHTY, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 21, 2002

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Now that Virginia almost surely has played itself out of the men's basketball polls, can the NCAA tournament be far behind?

Chants of ``NIT'' were interspersed with the more familiar ``overrated'' as Florida State snapped a six-game losing streak by beating No. 22 Virginia 66-59 at Tallahassee Leon County Civic Center Wednesday night.

``Playing against nationally ranked teams on our home court is the one thing we have done well all season,'' said Florida State coach Steve Robinson, whose Seminoles were the only team to beat then-No. 1 Duke until the Blue Devils lost at Maryland on Sunday.

In a game that featured 17 lead changes and nine ties, Florida State (11-13, 4-9) did not take the lead for good Wednesday night until a turnover by U.Va. freshman Elton Brown led to a breakaway dunk by Antwuan Dixon with 2:43 remaining.

After taking a 56-55 lead on a three-point play by Adam Hall with 4:09 left, the Cavaliers failed to score on their next four possessions, three of them ending in turnovers.

Hall, playing in his second game since Jan. 12, got the last of those turnovers when he was called for a charge and his driving layup was nullified with 1:14 remaining and the Cavaliers trailing 60-56.

``I thought it was a block,'' said U.Va. coach Pete Gillen, implying that Florida State should have been called for a foul.

Officiating was one of the storylines when U.Va. shot 44 free throws in a 91-74 victory over the Seminoles in Charlottesville, and this time it was Gillen who made one of his infrequent complaints about the officiating.

U.Va. center Travis Watson, who entered the game with an ACC-high 15 double-doubles, had five points and three rebounds before fouling out with 5:25 left. ``Travis Watson gets mugged; he gets mugged, right?'' Gillen said. ``Then, they call him for hooking. He's one of the best players in the league. I'd like to see him get a little respect.''

Neither Watson nor any of the U.Va. big men had an answer for 6-foot-10 Florida State junior Nigel Dixon, listed at 350 pounds but now closer to 340, according to the FSU training staff. Dixon finished with 15 points and 10 rebounds for his first career double-double in ACC play.

``They weren't calling over the back or charge or whatever,'' Hall said. ``I say, `OK, we go to the hole like that and it won't be a charge.' Soon as we did it, they called a charge on me. I don't understand it at all.''

Hall, sidelined by a partial tear of the plantar fascia on the bottom of his foot, entered the game with 12:39 remaining in the first half and was able to play 24 minutes without any adverse effect.

Gillen went with his seventh starting lineup of the season, starting wide-bodies Watson and Brown together for the first time, and the move paid immediate results. Brown scored U.Va.'s first six points and had eight points in the first nine minutes, as did senior Chris Williams.

For Williams, that was followed by the kind of lull that has marked his play of late. He went nearly 20 minutes without attempting a shot and was 1 for 5 the rest of the way.

To look at the stats, it was a wonder the Cavaliers were in the game. They shot 40 percent, including a 5-for-18 performance by Roger Mason Jr., who had a team-high 19 points; committed 18 turnovers and were outrebounded 33-22.

Moreover, Florida State shot 51.1 percent from the field against a U.Va. team that held each of its first 16 opponents under 50 percent. Florida State became the fourth team in eight games to turn the trick Wednesday night.

Nevertheless, the game could have gone either way until the last two minutes. Monte Cummings, helped from the floor with 10:48 remaining, returned to hit five of six free throws over the final 2:13 and finish with a game-high 21 points.

Virginia Tech has developed in-state contacts to such a degree in Frank Beamer's 15 years as football coach that the Hokies have been able to monitor the recruiting activity of archrival Virginia somewhat easily.

So it was that the Hokies were able to obtain a flyer distributed to UVa recruiting targets in which the Cavaliers said their coaching staff had a combined 56 years of pro football experience.

Tech was struck by the way UVa counted time spent in summer camps by then-college assistants Mike London and Ron Prince, who were enrolled in the NFL's minority internship program, and Kevin Ross, whose father was the head coach of the San Diego Chargers and Detroit Lions.

At a time when coaching resumes are being scrutinized as never before, Virginia coach Al Groh has his interpretation and he's sticking to it.

"There's no attempt to deceive," Groh said. "I didn't compute it myself, but I think it comes pretty close to the number of training camps this coaching staff has been through.

"If a guy plays in the NFL, he gets credit for the whole year even if he didn't stay the whole year. Association with teams, that's what it is."

Groh was the New York Jets' linebackers coach when London took time out from his duties at Boston College to work at the Jets' camp in the summer of 1999.

"I went to two Super Bowls," Groh said. "What am I supposed to tell people, that I didn't go. When you look at the fact that I coached in the NFL for 13 years, [offensive coordinator] Bill Musgrave played and coached for 10 years and [special-teams coach] Corwin Brown played for eight years.

"Whether its 48 years or 56 years or whatever you want to call it, that's a big chunk of it."

Groh would not discount the effect the flyer had on a class ranked among the top 10 in the country by many recruiting analysts.

"I'm sure it got some players' attention at some point," he said, "but I think most of these players made their decisions more on relationships they had developed than how many playoffs games I had been in."

RATINGS THEORY: Curious how the UVa men's basketball team could remain in the top 15 despite losing four games in a row? It's called timing.

The Cavaliers have played five straight Sunday games, losing three of them. In almost all cases, the coaches' poll is conducted prior to Sunday games and many of The Associated Press voters find it convenient to vote early in the day.

While the media may have dropped UVa to 22nd this week as the result of the Cavaliers' loss Sunday at Wake Forest, the Cavaliers had won back-to-back home games against Clemson and North Carolina when the coaches dropped them from 13th to 15th.

STAYING INDOORS: David Noel, a Southern Durham (N.C.) wide receiver who had committed to North Carolina, elected not to sign with the Tar Heels and will attempt to play basketball for UNC as a walk-on. Carolina is out of scholarships, although Noel, who is 6-foot-5, is not viewed as a high-major basketball prospect.

MAKING HISTORY: VMI insiders say that basketball recruits and fellow Lithuanians Tadas Mankevicius and Jonas Norbutas from Roanoke Catholic will be the first international players to play for the Keydets. Mankevicius, a 6-9 post player, will sign in April. Norbutas, a 6-3 swingman, will try to play as a walk-on.

Rockbridge High School quarterback Jonathan Wilson, son of the VMI laundry services director, will not be the first son of an employee to play for the Keydets. Former Lexington High School and VMI wide receiver Brandon Bissell is the son of ex-VMI commandant Col. Michael Bissell.

THE OTHER SIGNING DAY: While most college athletic programs have signing days in the fall and spring, men's and women's soccer joins football in having one signing day - in February.

New Virginia Tech soccer coach Oliver Weiss did not take office until Feb.1 and was expected to huddle with predecessor and soon-to-be associate Jerry Cheynet before using his scholarships. At UVa, coach George Gelnovatch was quick to replace three pro draftees.

Gelnovatch, who lost underclassman Kyle Martino to Major League Soccer, says that signee Paul Johnson from Princeton, N.J., "may be the best athlete we've had to sign to play men's soccer at UVa, and that is saying a lot."

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - The Virginia men's basketball team desperately needed a victory, and the schedule seemed to be in its favor. U.Va.'s opponent last night was ACC rival Florida State, which entered with a six-game losing streak and couldn't count on much crowd support at Tallahassee-Leon County Civic Center.

The Seminoles didn't need it. The 22nd-ranked Cavaliers managed to make FSU look good and, in the process, suf fered a major setback in their bid to make the NCAA tournament. Florida State closed with an 11-3 run and humbled Virginia 66-59 before 4,681 fans.

The loss was the sixth in eight games for the Cavaliers (6-7, 16-8), who has been ranked as high as No. 4 nationally this season.

"The effort was there," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said, "but the execution, the mental breakdowns, the turnovers at key times . . . It's tough to win with 18 turnovers on the road. A lot of them led to breakaways and layups."

The Seminoles (4-9, 11-13) parlayed those 18 mistakes into 28 points. After 6-10, 340-pound center Nigel Dixon's free throw pulled FSU to 56-56 with 3:14 left, Virginia turned the ball over on three of its next four possessions. Following the first of those errors - 6-9 freshman Elton Brown lost the ball in a double team - FSU took the lead for good on Antwuan Dixon's breakaway dunk with 2:43 left.

Another freshman, point guard Keith Jenifer, turned it over on Virginia's next possession. Then, senior swingman Adam Hall, who made his first extended appearance since Jan. 12, was called for a controversial charge while scoring on a drive that could have made it a two-point game with 1:33 left.

"I thought it was a block," Gillen said.

Not many calls went the Cavaliers' way. They were called for 24 personals - to 13 for the'Noles - and had two starters, junior center Travis Watson and Chris Williams, foul out. Watson was disqualified with 5:25 remaining after being called for an offensive foul away from the ball.

Watson, the ACC's leading rebounder, departed with five points and three boards in 26 minutes, ending his streak of four straight games with double-doubles.

"Travis Watson gets mugged. He gets mugged, and then they call him for hooking," Gillen said in disbelief. "He's one of the best players in the league. I'd like to see him get a little respect."

Dixon, known around the league as "Big Jelly," bulled his way to 15 points and 10 rebounds, his first double-double in an ACC game. Dixon, who entered as the Seminoles' leader in fouls per game, grabbed five offensive rebounds and was called for only two personals. Led by Dixon, FSU outrebounded U.Va, one of the ACC leaders in that category, 33-22.

"He really hurt us," Gillen said. "He's very physical, and he got away with a lot."

Seminoles guard Monte Cummings, who sat out part of the second half with a deep thigh bruise, had 15 points before intermission - including nine straight in one stretch - and finished with a game-high 21. FSU shot 51.1 percent from the floor, the third time in the past five games a U.Va. opponent has hit more than half of its field-goal attempts.

Florida State started and stayed in a 2-3 zone that the Cavaliers never solved. They shot 40 percent from the floor, including 26.9 percent from 3-point range.

"We've seen it all season. It shouldn't be anything new to us," junior guard Roger Mason Jr. said of the 2-3. "Teams are going to challenge us, and we've got to do a better job responding. We need to knock down our shots. The open looks I got I need to knock down."

Mason scored 19 points but missed 10 of 14 shots from beyond the arc. Starting forwards Williams and Brown added 10 points apiece, but each had only two after the break. A bright spot was Hall, who'd missed 10 games with a foot injury. He totaled six points, four rebounds and three assists in 24 minutes.

"We've missed Adam," Mason said. "He brings a lot of intensity and a lot of energy, and he did help us tonight. Unfortunately we didn't win, but it's nice seeing him back in a uniform."