U.VA. NOTES
Published: February 13, 2009

Trading places
The man whom Chad Wilt replaced as defensive-line coach at Virginia, Levern Belin, is expected to replace Wilt as defensive-line coach at Liberty.

Belin, one of three assistants let go by Al Groh after the 2008 season, has known Liberty coach Danny Rocco since the late 1980s, and they've worked together at several schools, including Virginia.

Wilt, whose hiring was announced last week, was a graduate assistant at U.Va. when Rocco was on Groh's staff there. When Rocco became coach at Liberty after the 2005 season, Wilt was his first official hire.

"He did a great job up [in Charlottesville]," Rocco recalled this week. "He began to learn the system, learn the strategies, the philosophies that were being taught up at U.Va."

At Liberty, Wilt also distinguished himself as a special-teams coach and as a recruiter. His territory included Tidewater and Charlotte, N.C.

Murderers' row
Of the 12 teams on Virginia's 2009 football schedule, which was announced yesterday, only two did not have winning records last season: Duke (4-8) and Indiana (3-9).

Indiana was a late addition to the schedule. In exchange for playing at Middle Tennessee in 2007, a visit that solved a scheduling problem created by Temple's move to the Mid-American Conference, Virginia was promised four home games against MAC teams.

The first was supposed to be this season, but a deal couldn't be struck with the MAC, for various reasons, and so the Hoosiers agreed to fill that slot. Virginia will visit Indiana in 2011. The first of the four games against MAC foes at Scott Stadium now is expected to be in 2010.

Indiana, incidentally, lost to two MAC teams in 2008.

Analyst questions Ogletree's decision
On a teleconference Wednesday, ESPN's NFL draft analyst, Mel Kiper Jr., was asked about wide receiver Kevin Ogletree's decision to pass up his senior season at U.Va.

Ogletree, who missed the 2007 season while recovering from knee surgery, caught 58 passes for 723 yards and five touchdowns in 2008.

"Ogletree has the ability. It surprised me, though," Kiper said. "My attitude has always been if you're not a first-round pick, you should stay, unless you just feel like -- whether you're a secondor third-round pick -- it's just time to move on and you're really not worried about where you're going in the draft. If you don't care where you go in the draft and you just want to move on with your career or whatever you want to do, then you come out.

"But if you really care where you're going, you should be a first-round pick or you should stay. And I think in Ogletree's case, he's not a first-round pick. So, I think he should have stayed."

Leitao defends tactics
On his radio show Wednesday night, men's basketball coach Dave Leitao was asked about critics in the media who contend that his players "play scared" because they're worried that a mistake will land them on the bench.

"I don't know what they say," Leitao told Dave Koehn, host of Cavalier Call-in. "If they ask me questions, I answer them. I don't read the paper. I don't get on the Internet. I don't do any of that, so I don't know really know what they say and what their opinions are. I have 100 percent comfort and confidence in what I do and how I do it."

-- Jeff White

 

UVa Insider, The Column/Doug Doughty

One of this morning’s first e-mails came from former Charlottesville sports reporter and rivals.com honcho Andrew Joyner, who wanted to know the identity of Virginia’s next defensive coordinator.

I think a lot of people had the same question when they heard that 65-year-old Bob Pruett was retiring.

They needed to read the fine print.

At the time of the announcement Wednesday that he was retiring for good, Pruett was the Cavaliers’ assistant head coach for defense.

That had been his title since Dec. 8, when head coach Al Groh announced a series of changes that involved assistants Mike Groh, Steve Bernstein and Levern Belin “stepping down” from their positions.

That was the big news of the day, but the news release also indicated that linebackers coach Bob Diaco would become the Cavaliers’ new defensive coordinator and that Pruett would serve as assistant head coach/defense.

In rereading the release today, I noticed that there was no indication whether Diaco would or would not remain as linebackers coach.

Al Groh has served as de-facto linebackers coach since the 2005 Music City Bowl, when the departure of assistants Al Golden, Ron Prince and Danny Rocco left the Cavaliers short-staffed.

Diaco also was the Cavaliers’ special-teams coordinator, so, if Groh wanted to devote special attention to the linebackers, he wasn’t really interfering. Diaco had enough to do.

Now, Diaco has even more to do, although there’s a chance that somebody else will get the special teams.

But, just take a look at UVa’s defensive staff as presently constituted.

Diaco, the first-year coordinator, turns 36 next Thursday.

Anthony Poindexter, 32, was an All-America safety as a player for the Cavaliers who will coach the secondary for the first time this year after working with the running backs since 2004.

New defensive-line coach Chad Wilt, 30, has five years’ experience in the Groh version of the 3-4 defense but was a Cavaliers’ graduate assistant as late as 2005.

Compare that to the Cavaliers’ 2008 defensive staff, which had Pruett and 64-year-old Steve Bernstein.

Pruett and Bernstein both had backgrounds coaching in the secondary, so I’m thinking that turning that group over to Poindexter might be a little much in his first year as a defensive coach.

I offered that opinion to Pruett on Wednesday and he didn’t disagree with me.

So, here’s what I’d do. I’d move Bob Price back to the secondary, his original area of expertise, and bring back Danny Wilmer, 61, to take over the tight ends from Price.

Wilmer coached the tight ends under former coach George Welsh and recruited the Tidewater area where Pruett was so well-received and signed seven players this year. If Pruett could still have an impact as a recruiter at 65, so would Wilmer.

Does it need to be said that Wilmer signed the likes of Shawn Moore, Thomas Jones, Tiki and Ronde Barber, Mark Dixon, Ray Roberts, etc., etc.?

There are readers of this column who have grown tired of the Wilmer references. I can’t say that I would expect Groh to go down that path. He had the opportunity once before, when he took over as coach in 2001, but got so many mixed messages in exit interviews with the Welsh staff that he didn’t keep anyone but Price.

He also might think that a Diaco-Poindexter-Wilt-Price might require too much Groh intervention. Can Diaco coach the linebackers and be the defensive coordinator? Maybe not in Year One.

You can’t really take away Diaco’s coordinator title at this point, so how do you woo another Bob Pruett? The title of assistant head coach for defense might not excite some people but a $250,000 salary and a multi-year contract might.

New offensive coordinator Gregg Brandon is signed for more than one year, not surprisingly given the insecurity that comes from two losing seasons in three years.

Pruett didn’t come to Virginia as a 3-4 guy, but, from all indications, he and Groh were a good match. UVa had a pretty good defense last year and Groh won’t want to change that.

He does have recruiting to consider, too. Wilt recruited the Tidewater area while he was at Liberty and Price recruited South Hampton Roads until this year. With the inroads made this year at Chesapeake’s Oscar Smith High School, which returns the state’s No. 1-ranked junior in quarterback Phillip Sims, any indecisiveness would be dangerous.

 

U.Va. looks to tame Tigers, hunt down ACC victory
Stumbling Virginia ranks last in field goal percentage, scoring defense in conference as No. 10 Clemson rolls into town Sunday
Ernie Washington, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
Published: Friday, February 13 2009

Sophomore guard Mustapha Farrakhan saw only three minutes of playing time in the Cavaliers’ latest ACC loss to Florida State Tuesday.
The Virginia men’s basketball team — loser of eight straight ACC games — is set to face No. 10 Clemson Sunday. Tuesday against Florida State, the Cavaliers played their best first-half in ACC play since their victory against Georgia Tech, even though they could not hold on to their halftime lead, losing 68-57.

“It sucks,” Virginia freshman guard Sammy Zeglinski said. “It’s no fun, but we’re gonna continue to get better and go out there every day.”

One area that the Cavaliers are looking to improve is their shooting. Virginia shot just 34 percent from the field and 26 percent from three point range against Florida State. On the season, Virginia is last in the ACC in field goal percentage and tied for last in three-point field goal percentage. If they did not rank third in ACC free-throw percentage, the Cavaliers could find themselves in an even worse situation heading into their game against Clemson.

“It is frustrating,” freshman guard Sylven Landesberg said of the team’s shooting rates. “We have a lot of guys who could go for a lot of points, and knock down shots with hands in their face, open shots. It’s just frustrating to see in the games that it’s hard sometimes for us to score.”

The Cavaliers might catch a little break Sunday against Clemson, considering that the Tigers are in the bottom half of the ACC in field goal defense and three-point field goal defense. If Virginia wants to beat the Tigers, however, it will need to work on its defensive play as well.

Virginia is last in the ACC in scoring defense, field goal percentage defense and is .001 away from being last in the ACC in three-point field goal defense. Clemson’s offense, meanwhile, can attack Virginia in a variety of ways. Inside, junior forward Trevor Booker has been an essential part of the Tiger offense. Booker averages 14.9 points per game and is second in the ACC in rebounding, averaging nine per game. He also showed impressive offensive prowess during the Tigers’ 74-47 thrashing of Duke Feb. 4, scoring 21 points on eight of 10 shooting from the field and adding eight rebounds — five of which were of the offensive variety. Factor in Booker’s ACC-leading 2.3 blocked shots per game, and the Cavaliers could struggle to contain Clemson’s biggest two-way weapon.

Outside, Virginia has a lot to handle as well. Senior guard K.C. Rivers has led the Tigers this season, contributing an efficient 14.1 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. Sophomore guard Demontez Stitt is seventh in the ACC in assists with 3.6 per game, while fellow sophomore guard Terrence Oglesby is lethal from three-point range, making 40 percent of his long-distance shots. Virginia coach Dave Leitao and his Cavaliers will need to grapple with a lot of offensive and defensive issues Sunday, and the team’s recent ACC struggles certainly do not bode well.

“When you’re struggling, you look at things that you try to control,” Leitao said. “When you’re struggling, you take care of your business in one aspect, you tend to leak oil in another.”

And if Virginia needs any extra motivation Sunday, one of its all-time greats also will be receiving an honor at John Paul Jones Arena. Sean Singletary, a three time first-team All-ACC honoree and the fifth-highest scorer in Virginia basketball history, will have his number retired during halftime. Virginia recently has been retiring only jerseys, but it made an exception for the current Charlotte Bobcat.

 

No. 5 Virginia posed for ITA crown defense
Inglot, deep starting six travel to Windy City this weekend to compete in National Indoors
Andrew Seidman, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor
Published: Friday, February 13 2009

Sophomore Sanam Singh won his match at the No. 2 singles slot last weekend against the Terrapins in the squad’s first conference matchup of the season.
“People have underrated us.”

Senior Dominic Inglot will have a chance to prove his critics wrong this weekend when the No. 5 Virginia men’s tennis team steps into the national spotlight and tries to defend its ITA National Indoor Championship title in Chicago.

Virginia (8-0, 1-0 ACC) will take on No. 12 Tulsa (9-1) in the first round of the 16-team tournament. In No. 1 singles, No. 43 Inglot will face No. 10 senior Arnau Brugues, the third top-10 player Inglot will face this season. Inglot’s first victim was No. 9 Enrique Olivares of East Tennessee State. Inglot won in straight sets, 6-3, 6-4 in a 7-0 Virginia romp. He then defeated No. 4 Bruno Agostinelli in come-from-behind fashion, 3-6, 6-4,10-8 in a 6-1 rout of Kentucky over the weekend. Brugues, a three-time All-American, has yet to lose in singles this season, despite Tulsa’s 3-4 loss against No. 2 Texas. Although he won both his singles match 6-4, 6-2, and his doubles match with partner Philip Stevens, 8-6, Tulsa relinquished its 3-2 lead, succumbing to Texas’s superior depth. If Virginia is to advance to the quarterfinals, it may need to exploit this weakness.

“We are better at No. 2 and No. 3 than last year,” Inglot said. “The depth is better. Lower down the lineup, we’re very strong.”
It is telling that Virginia’s highest nationally ranked singles player, No. 11 sophomore Michael Shabaz, plays in the three-spot behind Inglot and sophomore Sanam Singh. Virginia’s three top singles and doubles teams are all undefeated.

Even further down the lineup in the No. 4 to No. 6 spots, the Cavaliers boast an impressive 19-4 combined singles record. Tulsa dropped all three of its matches in those spots against Texas, so if Virginia junior Houston Barrick and junior Lee Singer can continue their recent productivity, the team will have a great chance to advance.

A win in the first round would set up a potential rematch with No. 4 UCLA, which Virginia defeated in the quarterfinals of last year’s National Indoors by a score of 4-3. But no matter who the Cavaliers face, the competition in the tournament will be some of the fiercest Virginia has faced all season.

“The teams will get tougher,” Shabaz said. “We’re competing for a National Championship. We have a lot of confidence going into it.”
As such, Virginia stepped up its training regiment this week to prepare for the competition. Even after the team’s 7-0 demolition of Maryland Sunday, Inglot said the team has not rested.

“These next three days are vitally important days of training,” Inglot said, adding that he intends to focus on his serve and volley before the tournament. “You have to think about what you want out of the three days.”

Although the team has not yet looked ahead to potential matchups against UCLA and No. 1 Ohio State, Virginia coach Brian Boland said he believes the Cavaliers are heading into this weekend’s tournament with confidence.

“The important thing is to go into indoors with momentum,” Boland said. “We’re focused on the next match — it’s a big step.”

If Virginia can carry its momentum through the tournament, it may finally gain recognition as a serious NCAA Championship contender this season.


 

Pruett reflects on storied career
By Jerry Ratcliffe
Published: February 13, 2009

Bob Pruett left his footprint on Virginia’s program for years to come by recruiting several promising football players from the Tidewater area over the past year.

The longtime coach, who spent his last season in the profession at UVa, called it quits on Wednesday because of health and family issues.

For those who have followed his storied career that spanned five decades and impacted the programs at Marshall University (his alma mater), Wake Forest, Florida, Mississippi, Tulane and Virginia, it’s hard to believe that Pruett is riding off into the sunset.

He plans to spend next football season helping Marshall regain the status he brought to that program during his nine seasons there (1996-2004), when the Herd won 94 games in nine years. He wants to get behind the coaching staff there and lend all the moral support he can.

But he won’t forget Virginia. He plans to make the three-and-a-half hour drive from Hungtington, W.Va., to Charlottesville on several weekends to watch the Cavaliers.

“I believe Virginia’s football future is so bright that we’re all going to have to wear sunglasses,” Pruett said.

It’s only right that he has chosen to live in the shadows of where he experienced the most glorious years of his football life, at Marshall.

What he accomplished there, he describes as being like a fairy tale.

He took over a program that was once booted out of the Mid-America Conference because of a lack of facilities and the ability to compete, then dominated the league. He coached in two Division

I-AA national championship games, won one of them, oversaw the program’s transition to I-A, where they went to seven bowl games in eight years, had two undefeated seasons, and he coached three Heisman Trophy finalists (Randy Moss, Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich).

“The year we didn’t go to a bowl game we were 8-4 and beat Kansas State, which won the Big 12 championship,” Pruett recalled. “We were the Boise [State] or the Utah of our time.”

His Thundering Herd became a feared opponent during that span. They beat Clemson and South Carolina on the road, overcame a 38-8 halftime deficit in a bowl game and beat East Carolina. They beat Ben Roethlisberger’s Miami of Ohio team in the game that Leftwich suffered a broken leg.

Marshall played Ohio State and Georgia back-to-back in road games, losing to the Buckeyes on a last-second field goal and falling 13-6 between the hedges as two drives stalled on the goal line.

Beating Montana for the national title was something special. The Grizzlies had beaten Marshall in the previous year’s title game, so the rematch in Huntington was highly anticipated.

“Both teams entered that game 14-0, but by the end of the third quarter we had them 46-6,” Pruett smiled. “I told the coaches to come down out of the press box and let’s just enjoy the rest of the game. Let’s play base defense, let’s get all the kids in the game. If [Montana] scores a couple of touchdowns, it’s OK. Those younger kids we got into the game ended up ninth in the country a couple of years later.”

If you want to know what kind of guy Pruett is, then all you had to do was trace his evening of the championship game. He didn’t throw a huge celebration party or bask in the championship glory.

He kept it simple.

“It was my wedding anniversary,” Pruett said. “My wife and I went over and watched [then-Marshall coach] Billy Donovan’s basketball game. We sat on the edge of the bleachers and watched. We wanted to sit down and have time to do what we like to do.”

Reflecting upon an illustrious career, Pruett remembered several coaches who had influenced him along the way, his college coach at Marshall, Charlie Snyder, who had coached for Blanton Collier (of Cleveland Browns fame). He remembered Bill Dooley, Steve Spurrier, Billy Brewer and Sonny Randle, who had hired him out of Gar-Field High School to come to Marshall the first time.

“But the guy who has influenced all of my coaching more than anybody is Al Groh,” Pruett said. “A lot of the things we did at Marshall, I learned from Al.”

While his last stop was at Virginia, one of his goals in life, he decided to leave Wahoo Nation with a wish.

“If I could wave a magic wand, it would be that Cavalier fans understand that the glass is half full and not half empty,” Pruett said. “I believe that would help things tremendously around here because the players spend a lot of time out in this community.

“If you keep hearing how good you’ve got it instead of how bad you’ve got it, that’s the one thing that can help these players feel appreciated and confident,” Pruett said. “That’s the one thing about Marshall. The fans, the university, the community was all behind us all the time and we were able to play better than we were supposed to because we knew those people always had our backs.”

Pruett said that Groh is the right man for Virginia and that he preaches the right things to his players.

“He portrays the kind of toughness to a team that you want,” Pruett said. “He won’t let a team quit. For him to do what he did this past season was amazing. People say we had the toughest schedule in the country, minus all those starters, and a disastrous start. We still could have won the division. That’s my view and anyone that knows Bobby Pruett knows I call it like it is even if it steps on some toes.”

Leaving the game he loves isn’t easy.

“I’m going to miss the relationships with the coaches and the players, and the high school coaches that I recruited around. I really like people,” Pruett said.

He said he’ll try to make the transition from Virginia coach to Virginia fan.

“The toughest thing about not being here next season is that I won’t be able to be a part of the fruits of this past season’s labor,” Pruett said. “Like I said, wear your sunglasses to Scott Stadium.”

Like Pruett said, he calls ‘em like he sees ‘em, even if it requires shades.

 

The Challengers
With a team of up-and-comers, Virginia looks to be more than a runner-up in 2009
By: Conor Orr
Posted: 2/12/09

Danny Glading sat and watched the Syracuse players rush onto the field. A double-overtime goal from Mike Leveille had just sent SU to the national championship game and sent Glading's Virginia team home. The Orange met in the center of Gillette Stadium in a bouncing sea of orange and white.

Glading and his teammates would be on the next bus back to Charlottesville, left to ponder what could have been.

In the midst of the disappointment, Glading, a then-junior attack, was struck with empathy after seeing senior standouts Ben Rubeor and Will Barrow end their college careers in gut-wrenching defeat to their longtime rivals.

"The first feeling I had was sadness for the seniors," Glading said. "They were such a great group of guys and such great friends to all of us that it was sad that it was their last game, last moments as Virginia lacrosse players."

But it was something else Glading saw that provided respite from the somber atmosphere surrounding the team that day - a pack of young players, freshman mostly, that made up one of the most highly touted Virginia classes in recent decades. This could be the team's ticket back to the final four in 2009.

Returning sophomores Rhamel and Shamel Bratton, alongside goalie Adam Ghitelman, look to lead the now No. 1 Cavaliers to a fifth national title on the strength of a newfound maturity and focus preached by head coach Dom Starsia after a season where they were "almost there."

"One of the reasons we're No. 1 is that we were the youngest of the four teams in (the final four) last year," Starsia said. "So it's not surprising that we're the pick, we have a lot of guys back from a year ago. We're just a more mature team than we were a year ago."

Maturity though, was something Starsia scrambled to find last season. It was one of the reasons for the team's abrupt exit. And it was one of the reasons he referred to his players as "his children" or "his pups."

"It's like talking to your children talking to these guys," Starsia said. "They look at you, and they don't really believe you until they experience it for themselves, and we were close (last year), but we could have been better if we worked a little better, worked a little harder."

***

Having confidence is part of the maturation process, too.

Ghitelman, a sophomore goalie, remembers the bitter sting of immaturity and how it affected his freshman season.

For the first nine games of 2008, Ghitelman played well. The undefeated Cavaliers held two of its first nine opponents to under five goals. But as the winning streak waned, the goalie became overwhelmed.

"I guess you could say it was a mental thing," Ghitelman said.

More bad shots crept between the posts as Virginia's margin of victory was growing smaller and smaller until the team's game with then-No. 4 Maryland on March 29.

It was Virginia's first and only game in the No. 1 ranking that year and it ended in a six-point blowout loss to the Terrapins, a loss after which coach Starsia saw telltale signs of weakness in his goalie.

"I was sitting in the locker room after the game, and he was one of the last ones out of the locker room when I was still sitting there, and he just looked so down," Starsia said. "He just felt like he was a freshman that had the weight of the world on his shoulders and he was just taking a beating."

Starsia benched Ghitelman for the rest of the season in favor of senior Bud Petit. All the while, Starsia worried about the broken confidence and stunted maturity of his freshman standout.

But the goalie didn't fold. Instead of breaking down, he responded to the pressure and took Starsia's message, investing it into rebuilding himself in the offseason.

As the starting goalie of the United States' under-19 lacrosse team, Ghitelman lead the squad to its fifth-ever gold medal in July while garnering the award for best goalkeeper in the tournament.

"It was unbelievable, I'll tell you," Ghitelman said. "It was very special, and I'll tell you it helps a lot being back here (at Virginia) with that gold medal under my belt."

Ghitelman is ready for 2009, Starsia said. He just has to show the rest of collegiate lacrosse.

"I think Adam is going to have a good year," Starsia said. "He's got the confidence of his staff and his teammates, but he's got to show the world now."

***

Dealing with expectations is part of growing as a player, and coming into last year, nobody had higher expectations than the Bratton twins.

Rhamel and Shamel, a pair of sophomore midfielders from Huntington Station, N.Y., became the face of lacrosse before they even got to college. With speed, agility and killer instincts, the freshman duo had the eyes of the lacrosse nation upon them.

"I get more crap out of all the attention that we get than enjoyment," Rhamel Bratton said. "My friends are always busting me about it - I think it's funny."

But they deserved the attention. In one three-game stretch at the beginning of the season, each of the Brattons scored a goal in those consecutive contests, cementing themselves as a target for other teams.

"They were two of the leading freshman midfield scorers in the country last year," Starsia said. "And when I'm talking about the development of that freshman class, I'm often times referring to Rhamel and Shamel."

The duo though, was still young, still inconsistent. Despite the numbers, they lacked focus. It wasn't all there, Starsia said. The emphasis in training and in the weight room hadn't come full circle just yet.

Rhamel remained a substitute coming off the bench while Shamel bounced in and out of the starting lineup for the rest of the season. Shamel finished fifth on the team in scoring, and Rhamel finished sixth. Together they totaled 24 goals and 10 assists. It was good, but it could have been better.

During the offseason, Rhamel had a stick in his hand whenever he got the chance. Shamel remained in Charlottesville to hit the gym, gaining 20 pounds of muscle. They understood their coach's message of growth.

"We really matured a great amount compared to last season," Rhamel said. We just got into better lacrosse shape, it's really important - we should be doing fine.

Starsia agrees.

"All last season we were telling them what they need to do, what they need to work on," Starsia said. "I'd say 'you need to get faster, stronger' and they were looking at me like 'come on coach, I've always been the best guy on the field.' But this season they've really bought into things, their effort, in and out of the weight room, 100 percent better."

***

Starsia has grown up a lot, too. He knew he couldn't beat himself up for the loss to Syracuse. He didn't even watch tape until months later when a friend invited him up to his reservation in upstate New York and forced him to watch the replay.

Instead, it's about oversight. Managing his children, his pups, and grooming them into the team that could be his fourth national title team in 18 seasons.

Now, his players believe him, they hang on his words because they know what it's like to lose the way they did.

"A lot of times the kids don't really believe me until they live through it," Starsia said. "To get as close as we did a year a go, and to hit the post a couple times in the national semifinals and not have a chance to play for the national championship. It just helps the guys know that the margin between winning and losing is so slight."

And now that they've grown up, there's no time to waste, no more obstacles in their way.

"I think we wasted a lot of time last year, but now we have that little bit of edge as we go forward. I've noticed we have that sharper focus," Starsia said. "There's a little greater appreciation for the daily effort, and you only get that from living through it."