UVa sticks fork in Lancers
Cavaliers blow out Longwood
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
February 16, 2006

With 1 minute, 26 seconds remaining in the first half of Wednesday night's game between Virginia and Longwood, a Virginia fan - standing on the end line - began jumping up and down. She was holding a sign that read: "Stick a Fork In Longwood."
The sign was in support of the Cavaliers' Mike Forkin, a seldom-used walk-on who had just checked into the game. However, it was also a dead-on synopsis of what had transpired until that point. Come to think of it, it summed up the entire game.

Virginia did pretty much whatever it wanted to against a clearly overmatched Longwood squad and claimed an easy 91-56 nonconference win in front of 7,652 fans at University Hall.

The Cavaliers were led by Sean Singletary's 20 points. J.R. Reynolds added 16.

Forkin finished with a career-high five points. Fellow walk-on Billy Campbell had a career-high five assists.

So, everyone was feeling pretty good afterward, right? Think again.

"We kind of played down to the level of our competition, and you can't do that," Reynolds said.

Virginia coach Dave Leitao said he was disappointed with his team's performance.

"Games like this are very difficult to play, emotionally as much as anything else," Leitao said. "I tried to get our team ready to play the game much more from the neck up. Games like this you have to play through as much the psychological part as the physical. I don't think that we did a real good job in that area.

"I don't know that we did anything today to make ourselves better and prepared for the last stretch run of our regular season."

Virginia (13-9, 6-5) has five games remaining before the ACC Tournament, starting with a game at Florida State on Saturday night.

"Regardless if it's practice or a game against Longwood you have to play the game a certain way," Leitao said. "We played to our competition level - no disrespect to Longwood - as opposed to what our level is supposed to be."

Leitao was most upset with his team's lackadaisical defense in the first half. Virginia allowed Longwood - a school not yet Division I-certified - to shoot 59 percent. The Lancers were playing without their top two scorers, who were out with injuries, but still managed to get open looks. They were led by Dana Smith and Morgan Clayton, who combined for 19 points.

When Longwood's first-half shooting percentage was brought up, Leitao looked nauseous.

"That's a very high number against a team that, on paper, you shouldn't be giving that up to," he said. "We need to go back to work and look at the film and understand what we're on this journey for, and what we have to do to give ourselves a chance to become successful.

"We're not a team that can just yawn its way through. We're not that good. We're not that experienced to be able to do that. We have to play a certain way, and I'm not sure we got that accomplished today."

The reason Virginia led by 24 at the half was because of Longwood's flimsy 2-3 zone that had more holes in it than Dick Cheney's hunting companion. The Cavaliers shot a whopping 62 percent from the field.

"We're still in the infant stages of building a Division I basketball program," said Longwood coach Mike Gillian.

It looked that way, as Singletary scored 15 of his points before the break. Reynolds had to sit out most of the half because of foul trouble.

The highlight of the half was when Virginia guard T.J. Bannister found Lauris Mikalauskas on a fastbreak for a dunk. Mikalauskas, who was fouled on the play, hit a free throw to put Virginia up 42-22.

After the break, Longwood went ice cold. The Lancers opened up 1 of 12. During that time, Reynolds found his stroke, connecting on three 3-pointers to up Virginia's lead to 31.

Singletary, who was clearly the most annoyed looking player on the court during the game - with the way the Cavaliers zoned out at times - tried to look on the bright side.

"We had lot of mental lapses and things like that, but it's a credit to Coach we were still able to go in there and get a 20-something point win," he said.

Virginia big man Jason Cain, who had eight points and three rebounds, played just 19 minutes. It was his shortest stint since a 19-minute outing against Hartford on Dec. 31.

"I thought he and other guys weren't giving the kind of effort we needed to make our team better," Leitao said. "Fortunately, because of the score, we could use other people today."

Much to the delight of the Mike Forkin Fan Club.

DUNKS: Tempers flared in the first half between Singletary and the Lancers' Brandon Giles. During a stoppage, the two appeared to exchange words and small shoves.

Bannister played in his first game since Duke. He had missed the last four games after aggravating his sports hernia injury. Bannister finished with two points and five assists but drew the wrath of Leitao after an errant behind-the-back pass late in the first half.

Virginia walk-on Matt Deasey was the only Virginia player who didn't score. In the final minute, with the crowd begging him to launch a shot, Deasey unleashed a tough leaner that was an airball. The junior is still looking for his first points of the season.

 

Cavs can't afford to lose focus
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
February 16, 2006

The man with the master plan didn't really have a lot of his blueprint dedicated to nights like these.
So, when Dave Leitao glanced at Virginia's basketball schedule upon taking the job last April, he probably grimaced when he saw a home date pop up with Longwood on Feb. 15. Basketball Scheduling 101 says you don't schedule this kind of game at this time of year, which is normally reserved for conference play only.

Should you elect to step out of league play in mid-February, it's usually one of those nationally televised deals against a household name that gets your players' attention and gets you ready for the postseason.

Leitao saw it coming. He knew that it would be one of those games where his team was supposed to win by 40. The Cavs won by 35 over the Lancers, only in their second year of Division I play, but Leitao wasn't happy.

The focus wasn't there.

The crispness wasn't there. The defense wasn't there.

What this means is that today's practice in University Hall might make boot camp seem like fun.

Not a happy blowout

Normally, a 91-56 win is good for something, and everybody walks away happy. Not this time.

All Virginia (13-9) got out of this exercise was a win over a Longwood team with an average RPI of 317, which has now lost 38 consecutive road games.

"I'll take the win," Leitao said. "I'm not going to give that back. But the team knows that when we get back to the gym tomorrow, I'm not going to be very happy."

He had warned his young team about the dangers of losing focus against a nonconference opponent at this point of the season. He used Boston College's escape over unheralded Stony Brook as an example.

Leitao ain't smiling

Even though the Cavs shot nearly 62 percent in the first half and held Longwood to 18.8 percent in the second (6 of 32), there wasn't a whole lot that put a smile on the demanding Leitao's face after this one. He pulled Jason Cain in the first half and ordered him to take a seat for lack of effort. Needless to say, Cain had plenty of company before the night was over.

"If we were playing an ACC team tonight we'd probably get beat by 20," said junior co-captain J.R. Reynolds, who admitted, even though it was hard getting up emotionally for Longwood (7-19), that good teams get up for everybody.

Before you judge Leitao's and Reynolds' comments as arrogance, consider that they meant no disrespect to their opponents from Farmville. Rather, they were more aggravated by not living up to their own expectations.

Virginia is in the middle of the pack of the ACC, a place that most observers wouldn't have given them a snowball's chance of approaching.

With five games left in league play, the Cavaliers' postseason fate lies in their own hands.

"Everybody in the country is fighting for their lives," Leitao said about the regular-season stretch run.

In the volatile ACC, where any team can seemingly take out the other on any given night - with the exception of leader Duke - the Cavaliers at least have the opportunity to finish strong. Or, if they can't regain the defensive prowess and the mad dog rebounding that made preseason prognosticators eat their words, this team could go down the tubes in a hurry.

This time of the season is reserved for fine-tuning a basketball team - building off its strengths. The last thing Leitao wanted to do was go back to the drawing board and re-emphasize lessons he figured his team learned in December.

"I think all of our issues stemmed from the lack of intensity on defense," he barked.

Nothing will get you in Leitao's doghouse any quicker than just going through the motions on defense or not boxing out on the boards. Most of the Wahoos will hear that 'til it hurts in today's practice session.

Leitao really has only two days to get his team's full attention before resuming the real season. The team flies Friday to Tallahassee, where Florida State is attempting to get its act together for the stretch run.

With Virginia's poor road history the past few seasons, not only will Leitao have to get his team's attention, he'll have to play Dr. Phil in order to convince them that their 2-7 mark away from University Hall is nothing more than a mirage.

From now until mid-March, every game looms as huge. Every win seems to mean twice as much, and every loss is magnified to potential disaster. Nothing can be taken for granted, and nothing less than full focus will suffice.

 

ODU spoils Virginia's home opener
By Jay Jenkins / Daily Progress staff writer
February 16, 2006

Kevin Gunter, the No. 1 starting pitcher for Old Dominion, has been hearing comparisons to Florida Marlins pitcher Dontrelle Willis for quite some time.
The association is only natural. Both pitchers are 6-foot-4, don jersey No. 35 and have awkward pitching deliveries while throwing from opposite sides of the mound - Gunter is a righty and Willis is a southpaw.

On Tuesday, Gunter did something else Willis is known for: accumulate a high pitch count.

Despite throwing a staggering total of 139 pitches, Gunter tossed a complete game on the mound to lift Old Dominion past Virginia, 5-1, spoiling the Cavaliers' home opener at Davenport Field. ODU improved to 5-0 overall, while UVa fell to 2-1.

"I told our players that when you wear this uniform, you're going to get their No. 1 guy [on the mound]," said Virginia coach Brian O'Connor, referring to the numerous in-state battles his team plays.

"I have to tip my hat to Gunter. He threw the ball very, very well. There is a reason that he is a No. 1 [starter] and he showed it today."

Virginia's starting pitcher, Pat McAnaney (0-1), did not share the good fortunes of his counterpart.

McAnaney, who went 7-0 with a 1.55 ERA last year as a rookie, struggled to get on track early, allowing seven hits and five runs before being chased from the contest after the third inning.

After scoring lone runs in the first and second inning, ODU delivered what proved to be the knockout punch when third baseman Justin Gregula hit a two-out, two-run homer to left off McAnaney that landed shy of the scoreboard.

"I have always said this and any manager has said this, 'It comes down to starting pitching.' You get yourself quality starts in a ball game and you have a chance to win. They did and we didn't," O'Connor said. "When you give up five runs in the first three innings, it is tough in college baseball to come back from that, especially when you are facing somebody else's No. 1 [pitcher]."

UVa scored its lone run of the game in the fourth after right fielder Tim Henry scored from second on an RBI single by Sean Doolittle. Henry, who finished 2 for 3 and extended his hitting streak to five games dating back to last season, reached on a double that hopped over first base and into foul territory.

Gunter said the run got his attention.

"You kind of want to relax when you get a 5-0 lead. That is kind of when they got that run and I said, 'Let's go.' I had to treat it like we were down," Gunter said. "We put up a 5-spot early, they gave me some support and I ran with the ball."

Virginia had 10 base runners in the game, but center fielder Mike Mitchell was thrown out stealing in the first inning and eight other runners were left stranded.

"Overall, as a team, I was very disappointed in our intensity level," said O'Connor, who is now 1-3 against ODU. "We cannot expect to play the game like we played it today and win against a good team like Old Dominion.

"Collectively, as a group, I was very, very disappointed in our approach on the mound and offensively."

Virginia returns to action Friday at 3 p.m. as it opens a three-game series with Towson (0-0). Last season, Towson went 34-24 and had an NCAA Division I-best 105 homers. UVa senior Mike Ballard (1-0, 2.57 ERA) is scheduled to start on the mound.

NEWS & NOTES: Two Virginia relievers - Robert Poutier and Shooter Hunt - allowed six batters to reach base (three hits, three walks), but none of those crossed the plate. Poutier, making his season debut, tossed three innings, allowing two hits and two walks. Hunt, a freshman, looked sharp, needing just 39 pitches to retire nine of the 12 batters he faced, striking out four.

Tom Hagan, who started at DH for the Cavaliers, finished 3 for 4 at the plate, giving the senior his fifth career three-hit game.

 

A win is about all that it is
U.Va. rolls to nonconference win; coach unhappy with performance
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Feb 16, 2006
VIRGINIA 91 LONGWOOD 56

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- The crowd at University Hall never really got into the game last night, and neither did the home team.

Against Longwood, still in transition from Division II to Division I, Virginia could afford multiple lapses of concentration. The Cavaliers allowed the Lancers to shoot 59.1 percent from the floor in the first half and grab 14 offensive rebounds in the second. U.Va. still won going away, 91-56, before an announced crowd of 7,652.

"I'll take the win," first-year coach Dave Leitao said. "I'm not going to give that back."

Leitao added, though, that his players know he won't be happy when they convene for practice today. Sure enough, the Cavaliers' mood in postgame interviews was somber.

"We played down to the level of our competition, and we can't do that," junior guard J.R. Reynolds said. "If we were playing any other team in the ACC tonight, we'd probably have gotten beat by 20."

The Lancers (7-19) would have been outmanned even at full strength, but they played with- out their leading scorer, junior swingman Maurice Sumter, who was scratched yesterday afternoon because of a rib-cage injury. Another Longwood standout, Meadowbrook High graduate Michael Jefferson (12.8 ppg), has been out since Jan. 7 with a season-ending groin injury.

Against a soft zone, the Cavaliers (13-9) made 7 of 13 long-range attempts and shot 61.8 percent from the floor in the first half.

"We wanted them to shoot jumpers, and they made them," Lancers coach Mike Gillian said.

Sophomore point guard Sean Singletary tied his career high with four treys and led all scorers with 20 points. Reynolds added 16, and sophomore swingman Adian Joseph chipped in 11 for U.Va.

Despite its porous first-half defense, Virginia led by 24 points at the break. The Cavaliers' defensive intensity later picked up, but their lack of focus allowed Longwood to repeatedly get second shots. U.Va. dozed for much of the second half before closing with 12-3 run behind walk-ons Billy Campbell, Mike Forkin and Drew Shiembob.

Leitao said he tried to get players "ready to play the game much more from the neck up and understand that if we're going to continue to make progress, games like this you're going to have to play through as much the psychological part of it as the physical. And I don't know that we did a real good job in that area."

So unhappy was Leitao that he benched starting forward Jason Cain for much of the second half. Reserve point guard T.J. Bannister, who had missed the previous four games with an injury, returned and had five assists in 14 minutes. But his play also displeased Leitao, who limited Bannister to five minutes in the second half.

"I don't know . . . that we did anything today to get ourselves better and prepared for the stretch run of our regular season," Leitao said.

The Cavaliers, 6-5 in the ACC, close with five consecutive league games, beginning Saturday at Florida State (5-6, 16-7).

Three players scored in double figures for Longwood: forwards Clayton Morgan (11 points), Kirk Williams (11) and Dana Smith (10). Morgan also grabbed a game-high nine rebounds.

"We did a great job representing ourselves and our university," Gillian said.

 

Moving or not? Greenberg questions UVa screens
By Doug Doughty

As reporters were racing to meet snow-induced deadlines, Virginia Tech men's basketball coach Seth Greenberg made an observation Saturday night that was easy to miss.

"We tried to get through screens," Greenberg said after an 81-77 loss at Virginia. "There need to be some calls."

Apparently, the subject of Virginia's screens -- and whether they are legal or not -- had been raised before.

"Seth feels that too much is going on," ACC supervisor of officials John Clougherty said Wednesday. "And especially with one particular team."

Are the Cavaliers moving? If a screener is moving and there is contact, it is an offensive foul.

"Regardless of whether the screen is set legally, if there's no contact made, then there's no whistle or no foul," Clougherty said. "The officials do get most of the screens that are illegal -- that allow a player to get open for either a shot or a move to the hoop.

"The referees do get those. They get the obvious ones. The ones that give the referees the most trouble are where there's slight contact or a rub-off screen, where the screener may have 'bumped' the defender. They're all going to do that unless you blow your whistle early and make them stand still."

In the first Virginia-Virginia Tech game, UVa post players Lauris Mikalauskas and Tunji Soroye combined for 10 fouls in 37 minutes.

"We've tried to teach screening all year long and we've gotten called for more than our share of moving screens, especially as of late," Cavaliers' coach Dave Leitao said. "We had more than a couple [Feb. 7] in the Maryland game.

"When a game is played, there's a lot that goes on and Saturday was no different in that it was a very physical game. I don't know how many the referees may or may not have missed but it's something that we try to emphasize because we have to free up our perimeter people."

Clougherty said he has "enjoyed" his conversations with Greenberg, but timing is everything.

"I don't think it's good policy for coaches to call me on teams they are going to play and try to alert me to certain tendencies," Clougherty said. "If I'm doing my homework and talking to my officials on a daily basis, we should be on top of those situations."

Officiating cradle

Ex-Roanoker Curtis Blair, now living in Richmond, was one of the officials for the Virginia-Virginia Tech game and did the UVa-Duke game in Durham, N.C., before that. The Cavaliers had Roanoke-based official Roger Ayers for their recent game at Maryland.

Blair "is going to be a very good official," Clougherty said. "He has great demeanor on the floor. He just needs more games and a little more experience. It's difficult to get our coaches to get comfortable with young officials that they haven't seen a lot. I'm telling you something, Roger Ayers can referee. I don't know you earn your spurs, but that's my job."

n Clougherty's ascension to the supervisor's job has meant less ACC visibility for Duke Edsall, a men's basketball official from Botetourt County who called the 2005 ACC championship game -- not his first -- and also has officiated in the Final Four. Edsall called the Virginia-Longwood game Wednesday night but has called only one other UVa game -- Dec. 23 against Loyola of Maryland.

"It's obvious to everybody that he doesn't have the [ACC] schedule he once had," said Clougherty, who succeeded Fred Barakat, an unabashed Edsall fan. "We're using some other people, but Duke Edsall certainly has gotten plenty of games" in a variety of conferences.

Turnover in Terptown

Five-year offensive coordinator Charlie Taaffe has become the second coordinator to leave the staff of Maryland head coach Ralph Friedgen, who previously had named ex-Virginia Tech linebacker Chris Cosh to succeed Gary Blackney as defensive coordinator. Blackney, 61, previously was the head coach at Bowling Green for 10 years and retired in December.

Taaffe, 55, was the head coach at The Citadel from 1987-1996 and also has served as an assistant at Georgia Tech, N.C. State, Virginia and Army. Taaffe has made no secret of his desire to become a head coach again and said he was resigning at Maryland in order to explore other coaching opportunities.

Cosh, the linebackers coach at Maryland in 1997, also had served as defensive coordinator at Illinois and South Caroline before spending the last two seasons at Kansas State.

'Boo Boo' no mistake

St. Paul's football coach Willard Bailey hopes he has as much success with William Fleming offensive lineman Billy "Boo Boo" Gravely as he did a couple of other ex-Colonels he had at Virginia Union, Judge Thomas and Dwayne Drew. "He has all the potential in the world," said Bailey of Gravely, a 6-foot-4, 295-pounder who made All-Region III in his only high-school season.

A Wise choice

Craig County running back Casey Hancock, whose 5,632 yards rank him fourth on the Timesland career rushing list, has made an oral commitment to UVa-Wise. Hancock, who was a sophomore when he broke the Craig County career rushing record, was the Pioneer District offensive player of the year and a second-team All-Timesland selection as a senior.
 

Cavaliers win easily but draw coach's ire
Lowly Longwood hangs with the Cavaliers in the second half and Dave Leitao was not happy.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Before scoring 10 points in the final two minutes, Virginia was on the verge of being outscored in the second half Wednesday by a Longwood team ranked 312th out of 334 Division I teams by USA Today.

No wonder Dave Leitao couldn't bring himself to smile after Virginia's 91-56 victory over the Lancers at University Hall.

"We're not a team that can yawn your way through games," Leitao said. "I'll take the win. I'm not going to give that back, but [the players] know, when we get back to the gym tomorrow, I'm not going to be real happy."

But, Leitao might have seen it coming. Two nights earlier, Stonybrook (4-19) had played 13th-ranked Boston College to a 12-point game.

"We're still learning," Leitao said. "We're not as mature as we need to be. That's why we've won a lot at home and not won a lot on the road. I think a lot of teams across the country are like that. I use BC and Stonybrook as an example."

Longwood (7-19) learned at midafternoon that leading scorer Maurice Sumpter would be unable to play, which might have contributed to a 58-34 halftime deficit. But, the Lancers played UVa on even terms in the second half until the Cavaliers (13-9) ended the game with a 10-1 run.

"Playing any other team in the ACC tonight, we probably would have been beaten by 20," said UVa co-captain J.R. Reynolds, who was fighting a sinus infection. "No disrespect to Longwood, but we played down to the level of the competition."

Reynolds didn't have his head in the game early, picking up two fouls, the second of which sent him to the bench with 17:46 remaining before halftime. When he returned with 4:18 remaining before halftime, it was only because backcourt mate Sean Singletary had picked up his second foul.

Singletary had 15 points in 12 first-half minutes and finished with a game-high 20. Reynolds scored 16 and Adrian Joseph added 11, although he missed two dunks in a 54-second span in the second half.

After its first basket of the second half, Longwood missed 18 straight shots and couldn't cut into a UVa lead that reached 77-43 with 8:36 remaining, then dwindled to 81-56. The Lancers offset 18.8-percent second-half shooting by grabbing 14 offensive rebounds.

"People still look at Longwood a certain way," Longwood coach Mike Gillian said. "This game here, it's enormous for us. When we go out and represent ourselves the way we did tonight, the questions are less and less."

The first meeting between the Cavaliers and Lancers came one year too late for a matchup between Gillian and his sound alike, ex-Virginia coach Pete Gillen, and one month late for the Longwood to be at its full complement.

Michael Jefferson, the Lancers' leading scorer for the last two seasons, has been out since Jan. 7 and will not play again this season due to a combination of ankle and groin injuries. Sumter played Monday night in a 76-55 loss at Liberty but has a rib injury.

"My comparison would be, if a team like team Virginia had to play without Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, what would their answers be?" Gillian said. "That's where we sat tonight going into this game."

Virginia played one game without Singletary and lost to Fordham 62-60, one of two home losses in 12 games for the Cavaliers, whose other setback was to Florida State (87-82) in overtime. The Cavaliers visit the Seminoles on Saturday.

 

Virginia cruises to victory at U-Hall
Coming off a tough schedule, a slightly lethargic Virginia team still managed to handily take a win from Longwood
Barney Breen-Portnoy, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

Virginia coach Dave Leitao, however, was less than thrilled with the intensity level put forth by his squad throughout the matchup. The Lancers were able to notch a 59.1 shooting percentage in the first half.

"Games like this are very difficult to play, as much emotionally as anything else," Leitao said. "I thought we were very loose, especially in the first half. By not setting a tone, I don't think we did anything today to get ourselves better prepared for the stretch run of the regular season. I'm disappointed because 59 percent is a very high number against a team that on paper you should not be giving up that to."

Every player on Virginia's roster got some playing time, including junior walk-on guard Matt Deasey. Senior guard Bill Cambels scored eight points and dished out a career-high five assists. Seldom-used junior forward Mike Forkin saw seven minutes of playing time during which he scored a career-high five points and pulled down three rebounds. Freshman walk-on Drew Shiembob recorded four points and two rebounds.

"Fortunately we could use other people today because of the score to both get them some time and also to reward the walk-ons for the job that they do," Leitao said.

Junior guard J.R. Reynolds scored 16 points on five-of-13 shooting that included four three-pointers. Reynolds's first-half effectiveness was limited by being saddled with two early fouls. Eleven of his 16 points came in the second half. Sophomore Adrian Joseph was third on the team in scoring with 11 points.

"Once I got into a rhythm, I was able to stay in the game," Reynolds said. "I just wanted to play aggressively and the shots were falling."

Virginia was able to build a 58-34 lead at halftime by shooting 21-34 from the field. Singletary knocked down three three-pointers in the first 20 minutes and scored 15 overall first-half points. Joseph knocked down four of six first-half shots for 10 points.

The game got ugly in the second half as Virginia only outscored the Lancers by 11 in the final 20 minutes. The Cavaliers' offense cooled down as Virginia shot 12 of 33 in a half that featured sloppy play by both sides. Virginia out-rebounded the Lancers for the game 40-35 overall and turned the ball over 14 times compared to Longwood's 18.

"I'll take the win," Leitao said. "I'm not going to give that back. But the team knows that when we get back to the gym tomorrow, I'm not going to be very happy. Again, we're still learning. We're not as mature as we need to be. That's why we've won a lot at home and not a lot on the road."

Junior guard T.J. Bannister saw his first action in four games. He has been ailing from a sports hernia.

By the latter minutes of the contest, the only drama was about when Deasey would be summoned from his perch on the bench to enter the game. Fans began to chant his name well before the 10-minute mark but the Pennsylvania native did not enter the game until there were a mere 56 seconds left. He air-balled his only shot attempt with six seconds left.

 

Handing out the honorary basketball medals... oh boy
ADrian Vigil

Hey, does anyone else remember the television show "Quantum Leap"? You know the one where Scott Bakula played a scientist who "leaped" into people's bodies and could not leave until he solved some major problem? Well, the point is that at the end of each episode Bakula would leap into a crisis totally unprepared and say, "Oh boy." That is kind of how I feel as I sit down and prepare to write this game column after Virginia destroyed Longwood. So everyone say it with me: Oh boy.

What can I say about the game? It was a 35-point win at home over a team that is trying to move into Division I. How much of an accomplishment is that? I honestly don't know. Besides, I have been watching too much of the Olympics in the past few days to really know what to think about basketball. Well, I could give this the gold medal for the ugliest 35 point win ever. The teams combined for 32 turnovers and there was a roughly two-and-a-half-minute stretch in the second half where neither team scored. I think Virginia guard J.R. Reynolds might agree with me.

"If we were playing any team in the ACC tonight, we probably would have been beat by 20," Reynolds said.

So you can see there really is not much to say about this game. I guess I can keep on awarding fake Olympic medals like the gold for overlooking a stat which goes to Longwood coach Mike Gillian for not noticing the fact that his team shot 59.1 percent from the field in the first half. How do you overlook a stat like that?!? Maybe it was the fact that the Lancers were down by 24 at the break. Gillian said he noticed that Virginia shot 61.8 percent for the half and he also noticed that his team had no offensive rebounds, but he "didn't even realize we shot that percentage in the first half." Overlooking that stat is unthinkable. I will cut Gillian some slack because he seems like a nice guy and he does get his team excited to play games that they know will end in losses, but that only goes so far. A coach cannot honestly say that he did not realize his team was shooting well above .500 for a half.

Getting the gold for most bone-headed decision, which is a more competitive race than it should be, is former Virginia coach Pete Gillen for scheduling this game so late in the schedule. How can a team go from playing in the cutthroat ACC to a non-conference game against a team that is 7-19? It does not make any sense. So why am I blaming Gillen for this? Just read what current Virginia coach Dave Leitao said after the game.

"I didn't have anything to do with it -- it was set when I got here."

Getting the gold for anonymity is former Virginia player Curtis Staples, who apparently held the NCAA three-point record from 1998 until Tuesday when Duke's J.J Redick claimed that record. Now I'll be completely honest and admit that Staples has nothing to do with this game, but who honestly knew Staples held the record? Outside of die-hard Virginia basketball fans, I doubt very many knew Staples was the all-time NCAA leader in three-point field goals. In fact, if I steal from Tony Kornheiser, most would not know Curtis Staples if he held up a sign that read "I am Curtis Staples." I know I wouldn't recognize him.

Getting the Johnny Weir fashion award is Virginia walk-on Matt Deasey because he was wearing blue shoes. I know Deasey does not get on the court much -- last night marked only his fifth appearance -- but blue shoes? No one else on the team was wearing blue shoes, so I am a little confused.

And finally, the Bode Miller Award for disappointment goes to the Hoo Crew. This student group that purports to raise the morale of the student fan base horribly underperformed against Longwood. They were unable to fill their reserved section and there was even enough space for Lancer fans to get lower-level seats. That's just sad.

After seeing how strange a non-conference game this late in the season is, I cannot wait for the Cavaliers to return to ACC action.

 

Skies clear under O'Connor
SEAN McLERNON

It was only a few days before Virginia's home opener against Old Dominion, yet heavy snow was falling from the Charlottesville sky. With half a foot covering the ground and temperatures hovering around freezing, conditions were not exactly ripe for baseball.

Virginia coach Brian O'Connor would not have to deal with this sort of thing at Auburn.

In southeast Alabama the climate is much milder this time of year and during the heart of the season the Tigers draw as many as 4,000 fans. The SEC school tried to lure O'Connor away from the Cavaliers in the summer of 2004 after only one year at Virginia. And considering Auburn's history of success, O'Connor must have been tempted to trade in his Virginia uniform and head south.

But O'Connor knows that in Charlottesville, the snow melts before too long. The temperature rose to 61 degrees yesterday after a frigid weekend, providing almost ideal baseball conditions. And although O'Connor's squad suffered a 5-1 loss to its in-state rivals, the Virginia skipper has to believe he has made the right decision to stay in central Virginia.

Virginia has never been much of a baseball powerhouse, but O'Connor is on his way to changing that. The Cavaliers had never reached the NCAA Regionals two consecutive years until O'Connor arrived. But during the two seasons with O'Connor in charge, Virginia recorded more than 40 victories and even earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Regionals for the first time in school history.

O'Connor has started something here at Virginia and it seems like he'll be around for the long haul to finish the job.

In the hyper-competitive ACC, O'Connor managed to land the conference's top recruiting class coming into the 2006 season. Clemson is currently the nation's No. 1-ranked team and Georgia Tech and North Carolina occupy the No. 3 and No. 4 spots, respectively, but the future of the ACC seems to reside in Charlottesville.

"We've got a lot of talented players that are new players to the program," O'Connor said. "It's just a matter of how they continue to develop and adjust to college baseball."

One of O'Connor's freshmen, starting second baseman David Adams, was drafted in the 21st round of the 2005 MLB draft, but elected to come to Virginia instead of joining the Detroit Tigers system. Two other newcomers, pitcher Shooter Hunt (34th round) and third baseman Jeremy Farrell (41st round), also chose the Cavaliers over professional contracts.

And the players he already has here aren't too shabby, either. Sophomore first baseman/pitcher Sean Doolittle earned preseason All-America honors after a stellar freshman campaign. In his first season wearing a Cavalier uniform, Doolittle hit .313 with 11 home runs and 57 RBI while going 3-2 with a 1.64 ERA in relief work. Playing for Team U.S.A. this summer, Doolittle hit .347, good enough for second on the team.

Left fielder Brandon Guyer returns after a stellar freshman season when he posted a .282 batting average. Casey Lambert, the school's career leader in saves, returns for his junior season this year. Sophomores Robert Poutier (5-1, 0.73 ERA, 49.0 IP) and Pat McAnaney (7-0, 1.55 ERA, 52.1 IP) are also back.

McAnaney recorded the first loss of his career yesterday and team captain Tom Hagan and Doolittle both looked dejected during the post-game press conference, but the young Cavaliers have plenty of time to improve before ACC play.

"This game is different from other college sports in that we play 56 ball games," O'Connor said. "The way you go about your business is sometimes different every day and the approach of the team. With half of our kids being new, they need to learn about what that approach has to be every day."

With only three of those 56 games under their belt thus far, this will certainly not be the only storm the Cavaliers will have to weather this season. Even so, with O'Connor at the helm, the long-term forecast looks warm and sunny for the Virginia baseball program.

 

Krzyzewski again takes umbrage at whispers that game officials favor Duke at free-throw line
By Lenox Rawlings
JOURNAL COLUMNIST

DURHAM - Mike Krzyzewski returned to his familiar coaching character Wednesday night, irritable, feisty and ready to rumble.

The ruddy spots on Krzyzewski's cheeks turned a deeper shade of red. His sideline postures turned more confrontational, especially when perennial officiating spur Karl Hess dragged his whistle past the Duke bench.

The public tirades against dumb passes and dumber shots turned more visceral, especially when freshman Greg Paulus compounded the errors by failing to cover his defensive flanks during a 93-70 win over Wake Forest.

"I let a couple of guys get by me, and then made a bad decision on offense," Paulus explained. "Coach isn't going to stand for that, and I don't want it either. He demands perfection, and I do, too. We were just talking about getting it together."

By all February measures, Duke has it together: 12-0 in the ACC and 24-1 overall, ranked No. 2 and poised to regain the No. 1 perch, courtesy of Connecticut's hard fall at Villanova.

Coach K, a former Army captain with three national titles on his resume, disdains any premature congratulations for a team he calls good but not great. Krzyzewski also reserves the right to erupt over perceived slights.

"I'm not downgrading my team," he said. "People take what I say sometimes and they play with my words. I'd rather have them ask me about it so I can explain it to them in English or Polish or whatever the hell they want it explained in. When I say that Sean Dockery isn't Grant Hill, that doesn't mean I don't think Sean Dockery is good. Anybody who takes it the other way is an idiot. That's wrong. That's misrepresenting me. Sean Dockery is a hell of a player, but Grant Hill is a great player."

Maybe Krzyzewski's aggression flows from his fear of becoming too passive or too satisfied with the status quo. Or maybe the story goes something like this:

The captain rode back into town on his white horse, which his rivals insisted was black. He was not amused.

The captain ran his fingers through his black hair, which his rivals insisted was white. He was not amused.

The captain saw the narrow light in the keyhole. His team squeezed through it, winning three ACC games in seven days by a total of seven points. Quite remarkable, yet his rivals looked at selective foul-shooting margins and detected darkness. He was not amused.

Whatever the cause, the effect was a blistering review of his critics. An old plot with conspiratorial overtones - THE REFS FAVOR DUKE!!! - developed a new twist during the Blue Devils' first trip to Chestnut Hill since Boston College joined the league. Duke hit 29 of 37 free throws, with four players taking all the shots. BC hit 10 of 13.

Coach Al Skinner lodged his protest afterward, calling the differential a discrepancy and disadvantage. He complained that burly Craig Smith, who fouled out after an uninspired performance, played 35 minutes without reaching the line.

Down three with time running out, guard Tyrese Rice drove into the lane and encountered Duke's Shelden Williams. They collided. Williams avoided slapping Rice's arms or head, and the refs ignored the lower-body wreck. "That last play," Skinner said, "there's contact on that play and it's OK. We make contact and it's a foul."

Any detached soul could pretty much write off Skinner's beef as ineffectual whining that camouflaged the strategic blunder of shooting a two-pointer. Some TV announcers and sportswriters grabbed Skinner's torch, however. Here and there, the recurring theme resurfaced: Duke gets the calls.

The next time out, the Blue Devils took 43 foul shots to the Seminoles' 11 in a 97-96 overtime win. Two days later, the ACC suspended the three refs for one game because they assessed a double technical foul - one on each team - without reviewing the videotape and discovering that FSU didn't deserve a technical.

The pattern changed. Duke beat North Carolina 87-83, but Carolina shot more free throws (29 to 24). Duke won 96-88 at Maryland while shooting only one more free throw. Wake Forest shot 20 free throws to Duke's 18.

Duke leads the ACC in foul-shot attempts per conference game (26.2), followed by Maryland (24.8) and BC (23.6). Duke also leads in accuracy, converting 79.6 percent, which suggests that maybe Duke is merely better at getting the job done.

After stewing over the foul chowder for two weeks, Krzyzewski picked up the flaming torch and threw it back into the mob. When a gentle reporter asked about Duke's general foul-shooting goals, Krzyzewski was waiting. He delivered his simmering message while barely grazing the philosophy that superior teams should try to make more free throws than they let opponents attempt.

"One of the first things is, this year we've been ahead," Coach K said. "When everyone's talking about the Boston College game, 14 of our free throws.... were in the last 3 minutes of the game. We're driving the ball.

"What we do - I'm not going to give out all of our things - we teach free-throw stuff. Like, if you have a deep team and you play nine guys, each one can have two fouls. Is your team in foul trouble? For me, it is, because that means you get to the double (two free throws after 10 team fouls). They don't understand team fouls. So, we're playing a team that's deep, we like to try. That's why I'm a little bit upset, because we actually teach these things. We change our offense. We drive more. If we're in foul trouble, we will not play defenses as hard and all those things, but we teach team fouls."

He drew a breath and continued.

"Ironically, the next week Boston College played and they shot 50 free throws and Wake Forest shot l4. Did anybody say anything about it? Tell me. Of course not, because it wasn't Duke. No, no, the situation wasn't Duke, and the only way we can win is if we've got that. That's crazy."

Krzyzewski inhaled and turned the conspiracy theory into a boomerang.

"Also," he said, "when anyone asks me about free throws or favoritism, my first question is: Do you think the game is fixed? Are you asking if the officials don't have integrity? That's a hell of a statement. Come on. Or when a commentator says that? Be careful about what you say. Don't do a superficial analysis because it really shows people in basketball that you're superficial. Do an in-depth analysis of why it happens and don't denigrate the officials and challenge their integrity because that's not good for the game, because that's not what's happening."

Will the referees and their new ACC boss, John Clougherty, sleep peacefully tonight, reassured that Coach K would never challenge their integrity nor abide anyone else doing so?

You make the call.