Scattershooting around the ACC, while noting that UVa fans can see their future on display this weekend ... That’s when Oak Hill Academy and Cavalier recruit J.R. Reynolds come to town for a showdown against Montrose Christian, Saturday at 7:30 p.m. in University Hall. The game pits the top two high school teams on the east coast in what USA Today called the best high school game in the nation this week. Oak Hill is 31-3 and ranked No. 6 in the USA Today poll, while Montrose is 20-1 and ranked No. 5. Reynolds is having a sterling senior season for Coach Steve Smith’s Warriors, averaging more than 20 points per game over the last three weeks. Against Laurinburg a couple of weeks ago, Reynolds broke the Oak Hill single-game record for 3-pointers with 14 in a 44-point effort. “I’m hoping a lot of Virginia fans, especially UVa students will come to the game and help us out Saturday night,” said Reynolds. “I hope they’ll come out and yell for us. That would give me a feel for what it’s going to be like next year.” Reynolds is the second member of next year’s Wahoos squad to play in U-Hall this season. Gary Forbes of Brooklyn, N.Y., scored 32 in a losing effort against Blue Ridge here earlier this month. Oak Hill’s Smith said that he really liked Forbes’ game and believes that both Forbes and Reynolds will be impact players for the Cavaliers next season. Another person to keep an eye on in the game is Montrose center Linas Kleiza, still unsigned and a player the Hoos would love to have. Smith said that Kleiza reminds him a lot of former Wake Forest center Darius Songaila. Tickets are $6 for adults, $4 for students and children. Oak Hill also features Marcus Williams (U Conn signee) and Ivan Harris (Ohio State signee). Title change? Remember when the ACC Tournament used to mean something? Now, it seems more of an afterthought because most of the teams are focusing on the NCAAs, while the ACC tourney appears to be more of a formality. Few teams head into the tournament not knowing their postseason fate in an event that mostly benefits a team hoping to play its way off the bubble. So, should the ACC’s official champion be crowned for winning the league’s tournament or for winning the conference’s regular season? Most of the coaches polled Tuesday believed that winning the regular season is a more significant accomplishment, but in actuality, many coaches felt that way 20 years ago as with UVa during the Ralph Sampson era. “There’s no doubt that the regular season is the real test of the teams,” said Maryland coach Gary Williams. “The tournament provides something special for the ACC but the regular season is tougher.” Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski added, “Obviously the regular season is a better test for our league because if you go to those other leagues, they don’t even play each other twice. That’s why there’s so much disparity when you try to pick [teams for postseason] by conference records.” Changing game. Count UNC coach Matt Doherty as one of the people who believe the college game has evolved into a smaller man’s game. “That has been the process over the last few years,” said Doherty. “There’s not a lot of good big men out there. We had Rasheed Wallace but he only stayed two years. We got bitten pretty bad a couple of years ago when we tried to recruit four big men and three went pro including Oak Hill standout De Segana Diop].” Doherty said that if you look at the NCAA champions over the past four years or so, he doesn’t believe there was anyone with a center taller than 6-10. “That’s the way the game is now and you just have to deal with it,” said the Tar Heels coach. “It’s more of a forward and guards perimeter game and in some ways that makes it more exciting.” UVa coach Pete Gillen said that if he could load up at any position it would be at guard. “My kingdom for guards,” said Gillen. “I think it’s a guards game today. It’s nice to have big guys but just give me good guards in college basketball.” NCAA hopes. Polling the ACC coaches, most believe the league deserves at least five spots in the NCAA Tournament. “I’m not waving the flag for the ACC, but look at a team like Virginia, which has beaten Kentucky, Maryland and Wake,” said Deacs coach Skip Prosser. The Cavs are 5-8 in the ACC with three conference games remaining (at FSU, home vs. Georgia Tech and Maryland). “I think in our league five teams have got to go,” said Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt, who doesn’t believe his team would be one of them if the season ended today. “Some leagues don’t play but once against everyone in the conference, or even not at all. “The other day I ran into a Kansas assistant coach while I was out recruiting and he said that [Kansas] and Texas only play once. Well, that’s big,” said Hewitt. “That doesn’t happen in our league. That’s the difficulty of our league. The ACC and Pack 10 are probably the two toughest leagues in the country this year.” Tiger surge. Just what was behind Clemson’s improved play heading into last night’s game at Maryland? Senior point guard Edward Scott called for a players-only meeting before the Tigers’ game against Georgia Tech on Feb. 5 and the players decided they wanted to play a more up tempo style on offense. Coach Larry Shyatt took the advice to heart and the faster pace has played not only to Scott’s strengths but led to easier baskets on the fast break. Scott had averaged 28.7 points over Clemson’s three straight ACC wins before meeting the Terps (over UNC, UVa and FSU). Free throws ...When UNC’s basketball team plays at Maryland, the Tar Heels always stay at the famed Watergate Hotel in Washington, D.C., which is about a 45-minute ride to College Park (by bus). ...Duke freshman Sheldon Williams has blocked 10 shots in back-to-back games for the Devils, but Coach K wasn’t surprised, noting: “Like the Catholic Church, we didn’t just bring Holy water and sprinkle it on him. The kid’s worked really hard.” ... Florida State has lost 15 consecutive ACC road games and finishes up at Duke on March 6. ...Georgia Tech’s bench has been outscored by opposing reserves by a 69-11 count over the last three games. ...Clemson’s five ACC wins matches their best in five seasons under Shyatt (5-11 in the ACC in 1998-99). ...When the Tigers swept UVa, it was only their second sweep of an ACC opponent under Shyatt (along with N.C. State in 1999-2000). ...FSU coach Leonard Hamilton believes his Noles could get some postseason attention if they can win out in the regular season, but easier said than done. “I think if we beat Wake, Virginia and Duke, we might get somebody’s attention. Wouldn’t you?”
What leads Virginia to central Ohio in late February? Well, according to Virginia coach Pete Gillen, it’s about honoring a prior commitment. Virginia played the Ohio Bobcats in December 2000 and is now returning the game. That’s why Virginia will be at Ohio University tonight, but the timing of this game is a little more complicated. “We had a tough time scheduling this year because of the Maui trip in November. Then we had exams. Between those two things, we just couldn’t get the game in. We don’t want to play many, if any, non-conference games during conference play but this is the only time we could get it in,” Gillen said. “It’s certainly not the ideal time, but again it was the only time we could get it in. We owe this game from two years ago. It’s a return game from then.” Originally, Virginia had put Ohio on its schedule prior to the 2000-2001 season to toughen its out-of-conference schedule; something that had kept Virginia out of the NCAAs after the 1999-2000 season. While Ohio is not the same quality team it was two years ago in terms of record and RPI, a UVa win over Ohio tonight has the same relative importance as it did two years ago in terms of the NCAAs. After its loss at Wake Forest on Sunday evening, Virginia needs victories in its four remaining games to maintain any hopes of reaching the NCAA tournament. There could be an argument that Virginia’s three remaining conference games are more essential than tonight’s contest. Still a win tonight would increase the win total while a loss would only damage UVa’s NCAA resume. Of course, a win tonight would end a four-game losing streak, which could be the most pressing of all issues. “We’ve lost our momentum and have been in a little funk,” Gillen said. “We’re struggling a little right now. Hopefully, we can improve and finish on a strong note.” Having coached at Xavier for nine years, Gillen is not unfamiliar with the state of Ohio, however, he is not as familiar with Ohio University. His Xavier teams played some MAC opponents but never at Ohio, whose arena, the Convo, has a reputation as being one of the tougher MAC venues to play at. “I’ve never been to Athens actually. Ohio is a big state, as you know. There are like 12 or 13 Division I schools. It’s supposed to be a beautiful arena and a tough place to play. We never played Ohio U. when I was at Xavier,” Gillen said. An interesting matchup in tonight’s game should be the one between Ohio’s Brandon Hunter and Virginia’s Travis Watson. Hunter is the nation’s leading rebounder, averaging 13.4 rebounds a game, and had a career-high 26 boards in an overtime victory over Akron on Jan. 8. Watson is averaging 10.5 rebounds a game but played only a limited role against Wake Forest after Gillen held him out of the starting lineup after missing a class and another unspecified team commitment. Gillen is hoping Watson returns to form both tonight against Hunter and for the remainder of the season. “We’re still debating [if Watson will matchup with Hunter]. I’m sure he’ll guard him at times. … You have to be worried about foul trouble. We need Travis to be Travis down the stretch. He doesn’t have to be Superman, but he has to play the way he’s capable and hopefully he will,” Gillen said.
ACC NOTES
Feb 26, 2003
CLASS OF 2003: Duke got 17 points and eight rebounds from senior forward Dahntay
Jones in its Feb. 15 win over Virginia. Three nights later, senior guard Edward
Scott scored 32 points in Clemson's victory over U.Va.
Yet another senior hurt the Cavaliers on Sunday night. Forward Josh Howard, the
clear choice for ACC player of the year, scored 28 points in Wake Forest's win
over Virginia.
That was the Wahoos' fourth straight loss, and with four regular-season games
left, they can't afford another setback if they hope to make the NCAA
tournament. Virginia (14-11) visits Ohio (9-14) tonight.
"We need our veteran guy to help lead us down the stretch: our senior," U.Va.
coach Pete Gillen said yesterday.
That would be four-year starter Travis Watson, a second-team all-ACC pick in
2001-02 and the lone senior in Virginia's rotation. The 6-8, 255-pound Watson
violated team rules last week and didn't start against Wake.
Watson, the ACC's leading rebounder (10.5 ppg), had only four boards and three
points in 19 minutes. Tonight he'll face the nation's leading rebounder, Ohio's
Brandon Hunter, a 6-7, 265-pound senior.
"We're just going to need Travis to be Travis down the stretch; not to be
Superman, but to play the way he's capable," Gillen said.
A MODEST PROPOSAL: N.C. State coach Herb Sendek said yesterday that "there's a
real case to be considered to expand the NCAA tournament field beyond the
present 64 . . . I think that would enrich college basketball at this time."
The parity prevalent in college hoops, Sendek said, means "so many deserving
teams" fail to make the NCAAs and thus are "told by the sports world that
they're not supposed to feel good about themselves, and I think that's
unfortunate."
WAKE-UP CALL: Before the season, the media picked a young Wake team to finish
sixth in the nine-team conference. Look at the Demon Deacons (9-3, 19-4) now.
They're ranked No. 12 nationally and came out of the weekend atop the ACC
standings.
"Am I surprised?" North Carolina coach Matt Doherty said. "I guess this year
you're not surprised at anything. For one, they have the best player in the
league, and he's a senior, and I think that is huge. He's given those young guys
great direction."
The 6-6 Howard is the ACC's top scorer and ranks among the league leaders in
rebounding, field goal percentage, free throw percentage, steals and blocked
shots. Doherty also praised the Deacons' other starting forward, 6-8 sophomore
Vytas Danelius (13 ppg, 7.3 rpg).
"People don't talk a lot about Danelius," Doherty said. "He's a talented
basketball player, and he's been through some wars last year."
. . .
HOME-STATE ADVANTAGE: Greensboro, N.C., will play host to the 50th ACC
tournament next month. Only seven times has the tourney been held outside the
Tar Heel State: three in Landover, Md. (1976,'81 and '87) and four in Atlanta
(1983,'85,'89 and 2001).
Does playing in familiar surroundings help the conference's four North Carolina
schools? Absolutely, Maryland coach Gary Williams said.
"If you were from North Carolina, where would you rather play, North Carolina or
Baltimore?" Williams said.
Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski said: "I don't feel that way, but again, we're in
North Carolina. I'm sure that there'd probably be moments if I was coaching
someplace else that I would feel differently."
. . .
LOBBYING HARD: Krzyzewski has said he believes the ACC should get six or seven
teams into the NCAA tournament. Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt is of like mind.
"In our league," Hewitt said, "I think five teams have got to go. It's such a
hard league."
Only three ACC teams are locks to the make the NCAAs: Wake, sixth-ranked Duke
and No. 14 Maryland, the defending national champion. Still in contention for
at-large berths, to varying degrees, are N.C. State, Virginia, Georgia Tech, UNC
and Clemson.
"The difficulty of our league definitely warrants that we should get at least,
in my opinion, five teams in," Hewitt said. "Which five? Certainly we hope by
the end we could be one of those five."
The Yellow Jackets (5-7, 12-11), who play host to Duke tonight, have lost four
of their past five games.
LOOKING AHEAD: Florida State (3-10, 12-12) closes its first regular season under
coach Leonard Hamilton with games against Wake, Virginia and Duke.
"What we're trying to do is end the season as strong as possible as we look to
the future," Hamilton said.
A NIT bid is unlikely. Still, if the Seminoles were to, say, beat Wake and Duke,
they'd "get somebody's attention, don't you think?" Hamilton said with a laugh.
FSU stunned Duke in Tallahassee early this month. - Jeff White
Published February 26 2003
David Teel
Doherty hears criticism as
Tar Heels struggle
In the real basketball world, players eat blocked 3-pointers and underachieving coaches pay their dues.
They listen.
They listen to radio callers question personnel decisions.
They listen to expert analysts question strategy. They listen to the moans and groans cascading from the second deck.
North Carolina's Matt Doherty and N.C. State's Herb Sendek live the gig. Last night, Doherty lived it harder.
The Tar Heels, 14-13 and reeling toward an early spring, blew a six-point lead in regulation and lost 75-67 in overtime.
You could see the disappointment in Doherty's thick eyebrows and hear it in his thin voice. Before the final horn, he could see the Dean Dome crowd nearly disappear in mere minutes, and he could hear the telltale silence of a celebration that evaporated in a flood of deep sighs.
The remaining fans, many of them undergraduates wearing blue T-shirts and howling the blues, booed State's Scooter Sherrill (22 points) for dunking after the buzzer. Then they applauded their classmates' effort only three days after a 40-point embarrassment at Maryland intensified alumni scrutiny of Doherty's third season.
All the ego massages in Orange County couldn't soothe Rashad McCants, who missed a tying 3-pointer with just over a minute left in overtime and three foul shots along the way.
"The Maryland game had no effect on this game," McCants said. "We had it. We had the game and should have won it. We didn't."
The verdict, presumably widespread, does little for Doherty's standing among the well-heeled contributors, who counted on the coach's promised improvement rather than a grip on eighth place at 4-9, with or without Sean May's broken foot.
Second-half conditions suggested a different outcome, with State's Julius Hodge (21 points) in dire foul trouble and Carolina's Raymond Felton in control of his game after a 1-for-7 first half. David Noel's interception and dunk pushed the lead to 61-55, but Hodge got the call on a charge-block issue and hit two foul shots.
At the end, still ahead by two, the Tar Heels fizzled. Felton drove into traffic and missed a pretzel prayer, which Hodge answered with a tying jumper over Jackie Manuel. The clock showed eight seconds. Doherty waved off any notions of a timeout. The Tar Heels rushed into the frontcourt. Manuel wound up with the ball on the right wing and launched a bomb, which Hodge blocked.
"We want to push it and try to get a good look," Doherty said. "You call timeout, they set their defense. That's something where I'll have to look at the tape to see what the options were. That's something we talked about, we worked on, and didn't get the shot off we would have liked. I think any coach, in that situation, would say 'don't call a timeout.' I'd be glad if I was the other coach. I'll call a timeout defensively in that situation."
Between regulation and overtime, Doherty detected a dark mood among his iron five. He tried to lift their spirits, but the pep talk didn't last long. McCants hit the first basket of overtime, but Sherrill's fallaway 3-pointer from the left sucked considerable air out of the building.
Carolina failed to score for six straight possessions, and State kept hitting foul shots - 22 of 22 in all, tying the school and ACC records. Sendek, never at a loss for a stiff descriptive phrase, observed: "Obviously, our free-throw shooting was integral...."
The outcome brightens the Wolfpack's hopes for an NCAA Tournament invitation. The 15-9 record lacks punch, but State is 8-5 in the ACC with Maryland, Clemson and Wake Forest left in the regular season. A winning league record would almost certainly nail down fourth place and satisfy many of the selection committee's conditions.
In an arena once known as Blue Heaven, the future looks relatively bleak. With Georgia Tech, Wake Forest and Duke left, the Tar Heels will chase .500 to a photo finish. They can't contemplate the NIT Double - preseason and postseason titles - unless they break even and get center May back.
Doherty guided Carolina to its worst season in 2002, an 8-20 repudiation of 36 mostly magical winters. Doherty returned home last night on the flat heels of the Tar Heels' worst ACC loss ever, a 40-point fiasco that isolated him as a coach in search of public acceptance.
Sendek finally escaped the NIT treadmill last winter, riding senior guards and assertive freshmen to the last seconds of the NCAA's second round. The sixth-year breakthrough heightened expectations, but the big payoff remains elusive.
The past, however checkered, serves as prologue. In the tangible present of last night, Doherty and Sendek engaged in a coach-off. The winner calmed his crowd, or at least muffled his rabid critics for another few days. The loser couldn't avoid rankling the easily disturbed.
Fair or foul, that's how the practical basketball world operates.
| Cavalier Daily Senior Writer |
In a season where road wins are hard to come by in the ACC, the Cavaliers (14-11, 5-8 ACC) will have an opportunity to gain a road victory against the Bobcats (9-14, 6-9 MAC), who are 6-4 in Athens and 2-0 against non-conference opponents at home.
Virginia will have to test its abilities away from Charlottesville against Ohio's star senior forward and MAC player of the week, Brandon Hunter. Hunter, who averages 22 points and 13.3 rebounds per game, is aided by fellow senior guards Steve Esterkamp (13.4 ppg) and Sonny Johnson (14.4 ppg). Ohio is coming off back-to-back overtime games, including an 84-82 home loss to Akron on Sunday where Hunter put up 30 points and 12 rebounds on his way to his 19th double-double of the season.
The Cavaliers will have to continue to improve on both sides of the ball as they put their 2-8 road record on the line -- their only non-conference road win this season came against Rutgers Dec. 21.
That means maintaining the scoring balance the team seemed to find in their 75-71 loss at Wake Forest.
In their three previous losses, the Cavaliers averaged under 70 points per game but allowed just under 80 points. During the Wake Forest game, junior guard Todd Billet and sophomore guard/forward Devin Smith shared the scoring role for Virginia. Billet's 25 points and Smith's 18 were met by a reinvigorated Elton Brown who put up 16 points and nine rebounds.
"They have great balance with [Travis] Watson and Brown inside and guys like Billet and Smith on the outside," Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser said. "When they have balance, they're hard to guard."
Virginia's season trends affirm these comments. Billet's average of 13.8 ppg and Watson's 13.5 ppg are followed closely by Smith's 11-point average and Brown's 10.8 ppg.
But none of this scoring will matter if the Cavaliers cannot make more headway on defense and at the free-throw line. During the Wake Forest game, the Cavaliers went 10-of-18 from the line while Wake made one more free throw than Virginia attempted.
These deficiencies -- combined with 10 more turnovers than the Demon Deacons, no blocked shots to Wake's three and four steals to their eight -- neutralized offensive chances that the Cavaliers could have used to build a lead.
"I'm very disappointed we did not win tonight," Virginia coach Pete Gillen said after the loss Sunday. "You have to give Wake Forest a lot of credit."
One key problem seems to be the Cavaliers' point guard situation. Distributing the position's minutes has been difficult with sophomore guard Keith Jenifer continuing to serve a suspension. Billet and junior guard Majestic Mapp have split the duties, but this has forced Billet to run the offense rather than concentrate on scoring.
Virginia will have to learn quickly from the four-game losing streak as chances for regular season wins dwindle. The Wake Forest game, though a loss, demonstrated some of the talents the Cavaliers can employ as the ACC tournament draws near, but more work is needed.
"We don't play for moral victories," Gillen said. "But I'm proud of our team and the way we played."
"We thought we would steal one today because of the simple fact that we played our hearts out," Mapp said of the team's effort at Wake. "Every game is important."
With the chances for an NCAA tournament bid hanging by the thinnest of threads, the Cavaliers have no margin for error from now through the end of the ACC tournament.