Cavs' road victory slips away
Virginia rallies from a 19-point deficit, but its 21 turnovers eventually prove costly.
By DOUG DOUGHTY
THE ROANOKE TIMES

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Six days after its stunning upset at eighth-ranked Maryland, Virginia reassumed its road identity Wednesday night.
The Cavaliers' 10th loss in their last 11 ACC road games came in improbable fashion, as they overcame a 19-point deficit then collapsed down the stretch in an 81-67 loss at North Carolina.

The one constant was turnovers, as it frequently is when the Cavaliers leave home. They turned the ball over on their first four possessions and six of the first eight in falling behind 10-0.

"Some guys were ready," UVa coach Pete Gillen. "Some weren't. I'm not going to name names or point fingers. You've got to be ready to play. A couple of guys were in a bit of fog."

Almost all of the early turnovers were the result of lazy entry passes into the post, or came when UVa's post men fumbled the ball. Late in the game, it was point guards Todd Billet and Majestic Mapp.

Mapp entered the game with 17 minutes left in the first half and, within six seconds, had committed the first of six turnovers when he slipped and the ball hit his back before bouncing out of bounds.

"It's tough to win when your point guards get a total of 10 turnovers," Gillen said. "They weren't the only ones, but they've got to take care of the ball better than that."

UVa had a size advantage over a Carolina team that did not start a post man, but the Tar Heels (13-10, 4-6 ACC) used their quickness to jump out to an 18-4 lead within five minutes.

The Cavaliers (14-8, 5-5) watched Carolina build its lead to 19 points, 34-15, before scoring the last eight points of the half to trim the deficit to 37-28.

"I was disappointed; they were disappointed," said Carolina coach Matt Doherty, speaking for his players. "I said, 'If I would have told you this afternoon that we'd be up by nine points at halftime against Virginia, you'd have been happy, right?'

"Obviously, I really fired 'em up because we came out and [the Cavaliers] tied us after that."

Billet made it 47-47 on a baseline drive with 13:14 left and Virginia actually had the ball and a chance to take the lead when Billet had a turnover on the next possession.

A 3-pointer by freshman Derrick Byars, who scored all 12 of his points in the second half, got the Cavaliers as close as 54-52 with 9:48 left before Carolina went on an 11-0 run to blow the game open.

With the game on the line, UVa failed to score on seven straight possessions. That included four missed shots, two turnovers and a missed one-and-one by Billet, who entered the game as an 88.7 percent free-throw shooter.

UVa senior Travis Watson made only three of 11 shots from the field but finished with 13 points and a game-high 15 rebounds one day after receiving eight stitches above his left eye. Watson, injured in practice Wednesday, played with an orange head band pulled low over his forehead.

The Tar Heels got 21 points from each of their freshman guards, Raymond Felton and Rashad McCants. McCants, who scored in double figures in the first 20 games of the season, regained his shooting touch after going 1-for-15 from the field in the previous two games.

"I wanted to go to a smaller lineup to try and create a little havoc and also hoped that it would jump start Rashad," said Doherty, who had not started McCants in the previous three games. "It's the first time we had started that small a lineup."

Carolina hit the 80-point mark for the first time since beating Vermont 80-54 on Dec.19 and shot better than 50 percent from the field (31-of-61) for the first time since the opening game, Nov.18, against Penn State.

"Seems like five years ago," Doherty said.

UVa had won the teams' last four meetings and was 6-1 in the last seven games between the teams, but Wednesday night's outcome was more representative of a rivalry in which Carolina is 57-5 in Chapel Hill.

"Their quickness was better than our size," Gillen said. "We wanted them to adjust to us, but we had to adjust to them."

 

Oak Hill takes bite out of the Celts' upset bid
Roanoke Catholic grabs a third-quarter lead, but Oak Hill regroups after Paulius Joneliunas loses several teeth following a slam dunk Wednesday.
By ROBERT ANDERSON
THE ROANOKE TIMES

The largest crowd for a basketball game this season at the Roanoke Civic Center turned out Wednesday night to see Roanoke Catholic face Oak Hill Academy.
How many people who came through the turnstiles in the old building on the corner of Williamson Road and Orange Avenue thought Catholic stood a chance against the nation's sixth-ranked high school team?

"I know one," Catholic coach Dick Wall said. "I must not be very smart, but that was me."

Wall nearly came off like Einstein, enjoying a four-point lead in the third quarter before Oak Hill pulled away for a 71-54 victory over the Celtics.

The Catholic coach left wanting more.

"I'm hard-headed enough to think that if we played them again tomorrow night we'd have a good chance to beat them," Wall said. "That's what I told our kids. That's the way I want them to think."

Oak Hill guard J.R. Reynolds could have used a mulligan. Reynolds, who starred at Catholic for four years before transferring to the longtime prep powerhouse, finished with 12 points but made just five of 15 shots from the field and fired up one airball in his return to Roanoke.

Shooting 40.6 percent from 3-point range entering the game, Reynolds had been showing a healthy jump shot.

"It's been good 'til today," said Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 guard who has signed with Virginia. "I just wasn't using my legs enough. My shot wasn't falling. The team didn't do so well, but we got the victory. I'm happy with that."

The outcome was in doubt most of the night as Tadas Stanaitis, Tony Hairston and Turner King combined for 23 first-half points. Early in the third quarter the Celtics took a 34-30 lead on a slam dunk by 6-foot-10 center Paulius Joneliunas.

It could have been a momentum builder for Catholic (14-8). Instead, Joneliunas' momentum after the shot caused his feet to slip from under him. The transfer from Lithuania hit face first on the floor, knocking out several front teeth and cutting his chin.

Oak Hill junior Isaiah Swann, the game's high scorer with 23 points, converted a quick layup at the other end. Worse, Joneliunas left the game for the rest of the quarter as Oak Hill (27-3) went up 50-42 at the break. Catholic recovered Joneliunas' choppers, but the Celtics never recovered on the scoreboard, quickly falling in a 59-44 hole as Oak Hill turned up the defensive pressure.

"Don't ask me if that made a difference," Wall said. "You lose 6-10, 250 pounds, you don't have to be Dean Smith to figure that out."

It is also apparent this Oak Hill team will not go down the annals of the private school in Grayson County as one of program's best squads. Guard Marcus Williams (Connecticut) and forwards Ivan Harris (Ohio State) and Dion Dacons (unsigned) are headed to Division I schools along with Reynolds, but they don't carry a 'can't-miss' label like former OHA stars Jerry Stackhouse and Ron Mercer.

"Probably to be 27-3 is an accomplishment for this team," Oak Hill coach Steve Smith said. "We're not as physically imposing as most Oak Hill teams. A lot of games are over when we're in the layup line, but this team doesn't intimidate anybody. We know that."

The Warriors were ranked No.1 nationally by USA Today until they were beaten 65-45 on ESPN by LeBron James' and Akron (Ohio) St. Vincent-St. Mary.

"Tonight, we did not play well," Smith said. "We played about eight minutes of good basketball. We seemed to be a little out of whack. I don't know what it was." Reynolds, playing his final prep game in his hometown, said Wednesday's game might have been a case of one team wanting it more than the other.

"We're just basketball players like everybody else," he said. "It's real hard to get up for every game. When you go on other people's turf and play them, they're going to be up for you."

 

U.Va. rallies, then runs out of gas against UNC
By ED MILLER, The Virginian-Pilot
© February 13, 2003

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Like the crowd at the Dean E. Smith Center, Virginia was late in arriving Wednesday night.
The Cavaliers trailed 10-0 before the pricey perches at courtside were even occupied. They were down 23-6 by the time the suits took their seats.

After that sluggish a start, a nine-point halftime deficit represented a moral victory. A 47-47 second-half tie? Cause for celebration.

But Virginia couldn’t sustain it. Fading down the stretch, throwing the ball away, the Cavaliers ended up going quietly, 81-67 in front of 20,445.

“Our turnovers, I thought, beat us,” coach Pete Gillen said. “Twenty-one turnovers led to three, four, five easy baskets, breakaways. You can’t win that way.” It’s also difficult to win when falling down 19 on the road, even if it was in the first half. Virginia (14-8, 5-5 ACC) trimmed the lead to nine at the half, and pulled even with 13:14 left.
But, as forward Devin Smith said: “We expended a lot of energy during that stretch.”

The Cavaliers blamed their slow start on a small, quick North Carolina lineup that pressured the ball relentlessly, never allowing Virginia to settle into its offense.

The Virginia game plan called for punching the ball inside to center Travis Watson and forward Elton Brown. But the Cavalier guards couldn’t get them the ball. Often, they could barely get it over halfcourt.

“Their quickness tonight was better than our size,” Gillen said. “We had to adjust to them. We were hoping they would adjust to us.”

UNC’s lineup change was subtle. Coach Matt Doherty started 6-foot-4 Rashad McCants instead of 6-9 Byron Sanders, leaving 6-8 Jawad Williams as the team’s tallest starter.

The start was McCants’ first in four games. The freshman responded with 21 points. He’d scored just two points in the previous two games.

“I just played,” McCants said. “I didn’t really think about anything — my shot going down or anything in the past. I was just focusing on a new day.”

Point guard Raymond Felton matched McCants with 21 points and carved up the Cavaliers with his ball handling in the second half. Felton scored on a breakaway layup to make it 67-54 with 4:13 left, then threw an alley-oop pass to Williams to put the Tar Heels up 69-55 with 3:25 remaining.

Felton followed that with another driving layup, a pair of free throws and a dish to Williams for another dunk, making it 77-61 with 1:02 left. UNC (13-10, 4-6) finished with 20 assists and shot 51 percent.

“We have five guys who can pass and shoot the ball, and that puts a lot of pressure on the other team to come out and guard us,” Doherty said.

Todd Billet led Virginia with 16 points, but also committed four turnovers. Backup point guard Majestic Mapp committed six turnovers in 14 minutes.

Billet scored eight points late in the first half to help Virginia pull within nine. A Billet drive tied the game at 47, and the Cavaliers were within 54-52 with 9:30 left.

North Carolina responded with an 11-0 run, however.

“If they had taken the lead, we could have put our heads down,” Williams said. “But we didn’t want that to happen, so we kept them at arms distance.”

Virginia helped, with turnover after turnover. Watson, who finished with 13 points, had just two in the final 13:40. He was playing with eight stitches over his eye after taking an elbow in practice Tuesday.
 

Cavaliers revert to form on the road
The Virginian-Pilot
© February 13, 2003

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. A team couldn’t have come out any flatter than Virginia did Wednesday if it had been shipped overnight to the Dean Dome in a Federal Express envelope.
So much for U.Va.’s newly developed appetite for the road. As some suspected, U.Va.’s unexpected victory last week at Maryland now appears to be more fluke than a forecast of things to come.

“Some guys weren’t ready to start the game,” road worrier Pete Gillen said after U.Va.’s 81-67 loss. “I won’t name names. But a couple guys were in a bit of a fog.”

Pea soup, by the looks of it.

“Turnovers, missed shots. Before you know it, boom, we were in trouble,” Gillen said.

Down 10-0 trouble. Behind by 19 trouble. This can happen when a team misses 19 of its first 25 shots.

Yes, U.Va. came back. All the way back to tie the game at 47. But the effort took a toll, and North Carolina eventually sprinted into the clear with an 11-0 run.

“I think we got tired,” Gillen said.

So now Virginia is a .500 team again in conference play. For another night, the Cavaliers were just another run-of-the-mill outfit that can’t keep body and soul together in the other guy’s gym. U.Va. is in good company. The ACC is a model of mediocrity.

“They used an up-tempo defense against us tonight,” said guard Derrick Byars, “and we didn’t handle it.” Added Gillen: “Their quickness tonight was better than our size.”

Everybody on U.Va. and North Carolina talked about how good the quicker Tar Heels looked, failing to explain how a team that was playing so well managed to squander a 19-point lead on its home court.

Still, at the beginning and near the end, the Cavaliers managed to bring out the best in an opponent that started the night with only three conference victories. This was the first time since a mid-December game against Vermont that the Tar Heels scored as many as 80 points. It was the second time all season, and the first since November, that Carolina shot as high as 50 percent from the field.

Defense? U.Va.’s defense didn’t get off the bus.

It didn’t help U.Va. that Travis Watson played with eight stitches above his left eye after getting hit in practice Tuesday. The U.Va. senior covered the wound with an orange headband worn very low on the brow, making it appear that Watson was playing peekaboo with the crowd.

Watson finished with only 13 points, but fought hard for 15 rebounds. As a team, U.Va. clawed away 18 offensive rebounds.

“That shows effort,” Gillen said.

It also shows an inability to put the ball in the basket. North Carolina’s defense gets to claim some of the credit for U.Va.’s futility.

“I was afraid of their size,” said UNC coach Matt Doherty, “so we tried to attack way down court so hopefully they wouldn’t get the ball into the post.”

U.Va. had trouble with that. Todd Billet is not a natural point guard, and Majestic Mapp, not ready for prime time after multiple knee surgeries, turned over the ball six times in only 14 minutes.

This kind of game invites a reassessment of Keith Jenifer’s absence.

Much-maligned even before he was arrested for a campus assault, Jenifer’s suspension was cheered by many U.Va. fans. But U.Va. needed his quickness and ballhandling ability. His suspension is good for the image of the program, but it limits the Cavaliers in the open court.

“This,” Billet said, “was a game where Keith would have thrived. A lot of double-teaming. A lot of broken plays. He could have taken people off the dribble.”

U.Va. could have used him. Assuming he came out swinging. Not enough Cavaliers did.
 

Cavs cut by the quick
Small lineup gives Heels a big victory
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 13, 2003
 

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - Virginia drowned in a tidal wave of turnovers and missed shots at the Dean Smith Center last night. Before a crowd of 20,445, U.Va. fell 81-67 to North Carolina, whose superior athleticism proved decisive in this ACC game.

Virginia (5-5, 14-8) turned over the ball on its first four possessions and quickly trailed 10-0. The Cavaliers' deficit grew to 19 before they launched an inspired rally late in the first half. By halftime, the Tar Heels' lead was down to nine, and with 13 minutes left, the score was 47-47.

But the Cavaliers couldn't sustain their comeback, falling victim once more to sloppy ballhandling and an inability to make open shots. After reserve guard Jermaine Harper hit a 3-pointer to pull U.Va. to 54-52 with 9:49 left, the Heels (4-6, 13-10) ran off 11 straight points to take command.

"Their quickness tonight was better than our size," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said.

The Cavs, who had won four straight over UNC, finished with 21 turnovers. When they managed to hold on to the ball, they didn't do much with it, missing 39 of 63 shots from the floor. Virginia came in shooting a league-best 46.8 percent in ACC games.

"We missed some shots inside that we usually make," Gillen said.

The Cavaliers' defense didn't receive a passing grade, either. The Tar Heels went small, starting five perimeter players, and zoomed by Virginia time and again. They shot 50.8 percent from the floor, the first time since their opener they'd made more than half of their field goal attempts.

Freshman point guard Raymond Felton scored 21 points, as did classmate Rashad McCants, a 6-4 wing who ended his recent slump in emphatic fashion.

"I really sensed he'd have a good game," Gillen said. "You don't keep a great player down, and he's obviously a great player."

For Virginia, the list of standouts was short. Freshman wing Derrick Byars had 12 points, four rebounds, two assists and, perhaps most impressive, no turnovers. Junior point guard Todd Billet scored a team-high 16 points but had more turnovers (four) than assists (three).

Senior forward Travis Watson, playing with eight stitches above his left eye, had 13 points and 15 rebounds, but he turned over the ball three times and missed 8 of 11 shots from the floor. Sophomore starters Jason Clark (small forward) and Elton Brown (center) combined for two points, one rebound and four turnovers. Clark turned over the ball on Virginia's first three possessions, one reason he played only 12 minutes.

"It's frustrating," Watson said of the turnovers. "We can't have that as a team."

Sophomore forward Devin Smith came off the bench to score 14 points but was only 5 for 15 from the floor. Point guard Majestic Mapp, in his shakiest performance since returning from a serious knee injury, had six turnovers and failed to score.

"It's tough to win when the two point guards get a total of 10 turnovers," Gillen said. "They weren't the only ones, but they've got to take care of the ball better than that."

As recently as last season, U.Va. was noticeably quicker than UNC, but that's no longer the case. The Tar Heels started a lineup that featured 6-8, 204-pound Jawad Williams at center and 6-6, 216-pound David Noel at power forward, and the Cavaliers couldn't keep up.

In Charlottesville last month, post players Watson and Brown combined for 28 points in U.Va.'s 79-72 victory over UNC. Carolina coach Matt Doherty knew his team couldn't bang with Virginia inside, so he tried a different tactic.

"That's the first time, obviously, that we've started that small of a lineup," Doherty said.

Virginia outrebounded UNC 42-34, but Doherty was willing to make that trade. His players came up with 10 steals and consistently drove around or cut behind the slower Wahoos, who never led.

"That was probably the quickest lineup I've seen all year," Byars said.

 

U.Va. can't beat fast hands, fast feet
JOHN MARKON
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST Feb 13, 2003
Contact John Markon at (804) 649-6892 or jmarkon@timesdispatch.com

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. According to the protocols of the NCAA Basketball Committee, University of Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage will be requested to leave the room if and when the Cavaliers are discussed as a possible at-large selection.

Frankly, if anyone threatens to show tape of the first seven minutes of the Cavs' 81-67 loss last night at North Carolina, requests won't be necessary. Littlepage would be out in the hallway before anyone could push "play."

Last night's opening 6:53, which ended with Virginia trailing 23-6, amounted to a stark reminder of how vulnerable the Cavaliers (14-8) may have become against a smaller, quicker opponent.

North Carolina (13-10) certainly qualifies. The Tar Heels' starting lineup last night con sisted entirely of guards and small forwards.

The "biggest" UNC starter was sophomore Jawad Williams, a 6-8 204-pounder who probably didn't count on lining up at center too often this season. "That's the first time we've started a lineup that small," said UNC coach Matt Doherty, who pulled 6-9 post man Byron Sanders in favor of an extra wing player. "I will say that we had five guys who could pass, dribble and shoot out there."

The Cavs? Well, they couldn't be so sure. As much as some U.Va. fans have enjoyed blaming suspended point guard Keith Jenifer for the team's shortcomings this season - and as well as Virginia played without Jenifer in wins over Maryland and N.C. State last week - there were many times last night when Virginia looked hopelessly slow without him.

Point guards Todd Billet and Majestic Mapp combined for 10 turnovers, six by Mapp in only 14 minutes.

"We can't do that," U.Va. coach Pete Gillen said. "We can't go on the road and fall behind by 10-0 and 23-6. We can't do those things and win."

It should be mentioned, of course, that Virginia came all the way back from its early deficit, gaining ties at 47-47 and 50-50, but then it was more Carolina quickness, more Cavaliers turnovers and, ultimately, an appropriately one-sided final score.

"It took most of what we had to get back into the game," Virginia forward Devin Smith said. "When we needed to, we couldn't slow them down."

Carolina's fast hands and feet certainly limited Gillen's options. Two of Virginia's most rugged inside players, Elton Brown and Jason Clark, couldn't stay with anyone UNC had on the floor. As a result, they went to the bench and stayed there.

All match-ups at point guard favored Carolina as freshman Raymond Felton (21 points) was always at least a step ahead of Billet and Mapp.

The Cavs might have expected a dominant performance from 255-pound senior center Travis Watson against his welterweight opposition but didn't really get it. Watson owned the boards (15 rebounds) but had a hard time shooting (3 of 11) and scoring against UNC's persistent double-teams.

The best news for Virginia might be that few Atlantic Coast Conference teams, even if they elect to "go small," can put the kind of quickness on the court that UNC did last night.

"It was probably a little more quickness than we were used to seeing," U.Va. freshman Derrick Byars said. "We were slow in adjusting to them. By the time our perimeter players adjusted, they had that big lead."

When the teams met last month in Charlottesville, it was U.Va. grabbing the fat early lead and hanging on for a 79-72 win.

"We outplayed them after we got behind, though," said the Tar Heels' Rashad McCants. "Tonight, we just got out, pressured them, made them turn the ball over a lot and . . . blew them out."

And it certainly looked as if it could happen again at any time.

Memo to Gillen, who has yet to direct the Cavaliers to victory in an ACC tournament game: The only time you may want to see the Tar Heels in Greensboro is out in the Coliseum parking lot.
 

Cavs Aren't Up to Speed Against UNC
By Jim Reedy
Special to The Washington Post
Thursday, February 13, 2003; Page D06

CHAPEL HILL, N.C., Feb. 12 -- Riding high after resurrecting their season with two important ACC wins, the Virginia Cavaliers were knocked back to earth with an 81-67 loss tonight at North Carolina.

Virginia (14-8, 5-5 ACC) trailed by 19 in the first half before rallying to tie the game at 47 with 13 minutes 14 seconds remaining. But the Tar Heels surged soon thereafter, turning a slender 54-52 lead into a commanding 65-52 margin that provided their first win in five tries against the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers fell behind 34-15 before an effective zone defense helped bring them within nine at halftime. Less than seven minutes into the second half, the Tar Heels (13-10, 4-6) allowed the lead to slip away completely when Virginia guard Todd Billet (16 points) tied the score with a baseline flip in transition.

After Jawad Williams, one of four Tar Heels who scored in double figures, missed on the other end of the court, Billet came back down on the break with a chance to give the Cavaliers their first lead of the game. He had teammate Derrick Byars open for a moment underneath the basket, but the pass glanced off Byars's hand and out of bounds. Raymond Felton hit a three-pointer on the next possession, pushing North Carolina back in front for good.

"Virginia's a good ballclub," said UNC Coach Matt Doherty, whose team got 21 points apiece from Felton and fellow freshman guard Rashad McCants. "They're going to make a run. They did. I thought our players really responded."

Virginia struggled when the Tar Heels applied full-court pressure and finished with 21 turnovers, including 10 by Billet and fellow point guard Majestic Mapp.

"Our turnovers, I thought, beat us," Cavaliers Coach Pete Gillen said. "Twenty-one turnovers -- you can't win that way."

Virginia power forward Travis Watson, who wore an orange headband to protect eight stitches in his left eyelid, had 13 points and 15 rebounds as the only Virginia big man to play more than 12 minutes.

"We had some big guys in there and [North Carolina's] quickness was better than our size," Gillen said. "We couldn't play our big guys because they were too quick."

The Cavaliers could scarcely have played worse in the opening five minutes. They committed six turnovers, including ones on each of their first four possessions, and did not score until Billet capped their ninth possession with two free throws.

Defensively Virginia was just as bad, allowing the Tar Heels to run their offense with little resistance. The Cavaliers could not stay with Carolina's athletic perimeter players in man-to-man defense. It didn't help that Virginia's Jason Clark, the 6-8 forward who slowed Wake Forest's Josh Howard and North Carolina State's Julius Hodge in recent weeks, played only eight minutes in the first half because his defensive skills could not offset his three quick turnovers.

Virginia fell behind 10-0, prompting Gillen to call two timeouts in the first three minutes. The margin quickly swelled to 18-4, then 23-6 before peaking at 34-15 when Jackie Manuel (12 points, career high nine rebounds) hit 1 of 2 free throws with 5 minutes 17 seconds left in the half.

"Some guys were ready, but some weren't," Gillen said. "A couple of guys were in a bit of a fog."

Cavaliers Notes: North Carolina shot 50.8 percent, its first game above 50 since a season-opening win against Penn State. . . . Virginia, which dropped to 5-58 at North Carolina and 2-7 in road games this season, had won four straight against the Tar Heels, its longest streak in the series since winning five in a row from 1917-20. . . . Watson upped his career rebounding total to 1,020, moving him past UNC's Mitch Kupchak into 22nd place on the all-time ACC list. Another Tar Heel, 1998 national player of the year Antawn Jamison, is 21st with 1,027. In Virginia's record books, Watson is 19th in points, second in rebounds and fourth in blocks.