UVa needs road victories
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
February 23, 2006

CHARLOTTESVILLE - On Tuesday, members of the media were allowed to tour the still-under-construction John Paul Jones Arena, where Virginia athletic department officials were glad to point out the myriad elements of its state-of-the-art design that they hope with give the basketball team a sizeable advantage in years to come.
For the time being, though, the Cavaliers seem quite comfortable at University Hall.

Following Tuesday's 72-58 win over No. 11 Boston College, Virginia improved to 11-2 at home this season with a 6-1 mark in ACC games. Two ranked teams - BC and No. 24 North Carolina in January - have traveled to Charlottesville this season and both have gone home losers.

Of course, there's the flip side to that impressive home record and it's why Virginia (14-10, 7-6 ACC) probably has to win out if it has any hope of receiving an NCAA Tournament berth - its 1-5 record in ACC road games.

For as focused, tough and gritty as UVa has been at home, it's been just the opposite on the road.

The problems have been mostly offensive. At home in ACC games, the Cavaliers average 73.9 points per game and shoot 45.2 percent.

On the road, they average 60.3 points per game and shoot 36.4 percent.

Just in the last four days, the Cavaliers were overwhelmed by an inconsistent Florida State team in Tallahassee before coming home and soundly defeating a Boston College squad that had won 10 of its last 11.

The question is why?

"If we knew, then we would have energy on the road," freshman swingman Mamadi Diane said. "At home, I don't know, we have the fans. We're playing in a gym that we're accustomed to, where we play every day. I think it's just a level of confidence here that we may not have on the road."

"It's inexperience and lack of depth and all those type of things," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "All year long ? we've been trying to get better about all the intangibles. And in order to do that, it takes maturity.

"We've had up and down practice days and weeks (and) that shows itself more on the road than anything else, where you have conditions going against you and what you have to rely on is not just that jump shot, not just that rebound, but you have to rely on something inside and a collective energy."

Youth is certainly a factor. Both of Virginia's freshmen - Diane and forward Laurynas Mikalauskas - have played considerably better at home.

While Diane's ACC scoring and rebounding averages are about the same home and away, he's shooting 40.5 percent at U-Hall compared to 33 percent on the road. Tuesday night, he sank three of his four 3-point attempts. Prior to that, he hadn't made a 3 since January.

Mikalauskas, a fan favorite who Leitao says "operates on emotion and grit," feeds off the crowd more than any player on the team. In ACC home games, he's a 62 percent shooter. On the road, 48 percent.

"We're real confident at home," point guard Sean Singletary said. "Everybody's knocking down shots and things like that, getting to loose balls.

"But that's typical of a young team, I assume, because being young, playing at home, you're in your comfort zone. Going away, you're uncomfortable, the crowd is against you. There are so many factors going against you and you've just got to be disciplined and focus in."

Surprisingly, the player with the biggest gulf, at least statistically, between his home and road performance is Singletary.

The sophomore has averaged 24.3 points per game and is a 46 percent shooter in ACC home games.

On the road, he's averaging 14.2 points per game and shoots at a 30 percent clip, suggesting it's more than just inexperience that accounts for UVa's road woes.

Whatever the reason, the Cavaliers have two more chances to reverse their road fortunes - Saturday at Clemson and March 1 at North Carolina.

Said Singletary: "We're just going to go out there with a lot of energy and hopefully we won't have a letdown."

 

UVa freshmen fill big roles in clutch
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
February 22, 2006

As explosive as J.R.Reynolds and Sean Singletary were during Virginia's 72-58 victory over 11th-ranked Boston College on Tuesday night, the Cavaliers wouldn't have been able to pull off the upset without strong performances from their two freshman.
Mamadi Diane and Lauris Mikalauskas had their best collective effort of the season against the Eagles.

Diane notched nine points, five rebounds and two steals in 24 minutes. Mikalauskas had four points, four rebounds and two blocks in 25 minutes.

The statistics themselves were not overly impressive, but the duo's performance in the clutch was.

With Boston College trying to scratch its way back into the game, Diane hit a 3-pointer to increase Virginia's lead to 15 with 9:39 remaining. Mikalauskas hit a pretty jump hook in the lane on the Cavaliers' next possession. A minute later, Diane hit another 3.

"I thought [Diane] had as good a game as he'd had in a month - not just his scoring, but his energy," said Virginia coach Dave Leitao.

Like many freshman, Diane has had an up-and-down season. However, he has usually played pretty well at home.

"I think this week I did a lot of work on my shot, getting my balance - and I think that helped," Diane said.

Mikalauskas, who suffered a broken nose and concussion against Florida State on Saturday, wasn't sure if he would be cleared by the Virginia medical staff to play against Boston College.

"He thanked me after the game," said Leitao, with a chuckle. "He said, 'Thanks for letting me play.'

"He's a guy that operates on emotion and grit. He just didn't want to let his teammates down by not playing."

Mikalauskas, who did a steady job of keeping Boston College's big men off the boards, said playing with a protective facemask was an adjustment.

"It was kind of hard to see on the sides," he said. "I'm going to go back to the [doctor's] office and we're going to fix that."

Both Diane and Mikalauskas said they were looking forward to Clemson on Saturday, despite the fact Virginia has won just one ACC road game this season (against Virginia Tech).

Against Boston College, Diane said the team's energy and concentration were the keys.

"We have to find a way to bring that level of energy and concentration on the road," Diane said. "I think if we do, we have a good chance of being successful."

After Clemson, Virginia (14-10, 7-6 ACC) plays at North Carolina on March 1. The Cavaliers play their last scheduled game at University Hall on March 5 against Maryland.

Mikalauskas didn't want to talk about the thing that is on the mind of every Virginia fan right now: Making the NCAA Tournament.

"I'm sure everybody's thinking about it, but we have to try and concentrate on the next game," Mikalauskas said. "We have to play it and see what happens."

 

Littlepage working on NCAA field
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
February 23, 2006

Eighteen days from Selection Sunday and already Craig Littlepage's brain is on basketball overload.
As chairman of the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament Selection Committee, his charge is to produce the best 65-team field he can for March Madness. The Virginia director of athletics has watched every game he could get his remote control on, while also taking in a multitude of games in person.

Last weekend alone, Littlepage viewed more than 20 college basketball games on television, which by comparison should get most of you couch potatoes some degree of pardon from your better halves.

Bracket methodolgy

But there's a method to Littlepage's madness. While he acknowledges all that RPI gobbledygook, he depends heavily on what he sees rather than what he reads from a digest of every statistical analysis known to man.

This year in particular, he and his fellow committeemen will have to rely on all the available data for one reason: the NCAA bubble could swell to its largest size in years.

Partly because of parity or a lack of the usual number of quality teams, there could be a record number of squads playing their way to the bubble. Separating those teams may be as tedious as splitting hairs, but Littlepage will stick with the mission of the selection committee.

The true basketball people out there will tell you when it comes down to taking one team over another under intense scrutiny, that a lot of these teams will actually rise or fall in how they have chosen to compile their tournament resume.

In other words, not only will Littlepage and his mates look at how a team performed in its own conference, but how those teams have conducted their nonconference business. If they have played an aggressive schedule outside their own league or played some quality road games, they will have helped their own cause.

Whereas a steady diet of nonconference cupcakes isn't viewed kindly by the committee, especially if a team hasn't ventured far from its own home court.

Conference gridlock

"It seems there is gridlock at the top of many conferences and also in the middle of some conferences [such as the ACC], so as a result there is still little differentiation between teams," Littlepage said Wednesday.

Add the conference realignments, which have resulted in imbalanced schedules within many of the super conferences, and it is easy to see the challenges that Littlepage's committee faces when it comes to picking 34 at-large teams to fill out the NCAA field.

Most of the major conferences no longer play round-robin schedules. For instance, in the ACC, Virginia played six teams only once (Boston College, Miami, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Georgia Tech and Duke).

In some conferences, certain teams don't even face some teams in their own league.

So, when two teams or more from the same conference end the season with an 8-8 league record, Littlepage and Company have to dissect those schedules to determine what distinguished those teams from one another not only in the league but outside as well.

In most years, there are quite a few virtual locks for the 34 at-large bids, sometimes those locks numbering well into the 20s. This year, maybe not.

"There could be a lower number [of locks] this year," Littlepage said. "When we did our brief go around a couple of weeks ago, we did have a lower number than usual."

Just for practice, the committee was trying to cast votes at that time, but the gridlock prevented much progress. A lot can change in two-and-a-half weeks, but maybe not this year.

We hear so much about RPI out here in the sports world and while that information is useful, it's not like the committee sequesters itself in an Indianapolis hotel, takes the top 34 at-large candidates based solely on their RPI.

What is the RPI you ask? It's a statistical breakdown of every Division I team in terms of wins, losses, strength of schedule, home records, road records, records vs. the Top 25, records vs. the Top 50, vs. the Top 100, vs. the Top 150, vs. the Top 200. You get the picture.

"You have to recognize that the committee is comprised of 10 people," Littlepage said. "For me, a person who played, was an assistant coach and a head coach, I might look at [the potential field] in a certain way. I might rely more on evaluation tools such as what I see, what I hear from other coaches who watch games. Others may use rankings, RPI, statistical data.

"The beauty of the committee is always a composite range of preferences. One person may give more credibility to the RPI, while others may use subjective analysis, what they see, what they feel, what they hear," Littlepage said.

Selecting the field is only part of the job. The other is to put together geographically and competitively balanced regions, something that the Virginia AD dabbles with almost daily as sort of a rehearsal.

He will be the first to admit that his seeding process changes almost daily because "very few teams are running the table." In the experimentation, he has noticed that not only are the No. 8 and 9 seeds presenting a challenge as usual, but so are the 2's, 3's and 4's.

In a very complex process, Littlepage demands that the committee errors always on the side of integrity. So, when a Kentucky writer asked Wednesday if Littlepage owed Wildcats coach Tubby Smith, a longtime friend, any favors you could almost feel the Virginia AD bristle.

"There's nobody that I owe any favors to," Littlepage answered.

Like everyone else on the massive NCAA bubble, Kentucky will have to play its way into the big dance.