Can UVa avoid the sweep?
By JERRY RATCLIFFE
Daily Progress sports editor
Scattershooting around the ACC, while wondering if Virginia can avoid losing
three times in the same season to N.C. State …
We’ll find out Friday in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament in Charlotte.
Wolfpack coach Herb Sendek said Tuesday that it’s a tough assignment.
“That cliché has even greater depth when it’s a team like Virginia,” said
Sendek of pulling off a three-game sweep. “Virginia is a good team, a squad
ranked as high as fourth in the country and just defeated Duke, the defending
national champions. Any time you play Virginia, you’re in for a war.”
State guard Archie Miller said, “It really doesn’t matter what they’ve
done all season. They showed the ability they have when they beat Duke. Virginia
is going to be hungry. They’re a Top 25 team regardless of what they have done
all season. They have that type of talent and we have our work cut out.”
Hall a key
Miller said that the return of small forward Adam Hall to the UVa lineup is a
big deal.
“You saw what he did against Duke (21 points),” said Miller. “He’s
energy for them. He makes big plays for them. We have to really be ready to
respond. He crashes the boards on offense, gets tip dunks, a lot like Josh
Howard does for Wake Forest.”
Mapp(ing) the future
Virginia coach Pete Gillen said Tuesday he is hopeful that point guard Majestic
Mapp will be able to play next season but couldn’t guarantee it.
“He’s not feeling any pain … there’s no swelling after workouts,”
reported Gillen. “He will talk to his doctor and possibly go see him again. As
a coach, you don’t know. We hope to have him back. He’s had two major
reconstructive surgeries. If he comes back, how effective he’ll be, I don’t
know. Only time will tell and I don’t want to speculate. We feel good about
his rehab.”
Virginia could have Mapp, transfer Todd Billet (who can play both guard spots),
Mason and Keith Jenifer next season, which Gillen noted could allow him to play
two point guards together at times.
Mason confirmed last week that he will return. There were whispers that junior
center Travis Watson might be gone but apparently that has changed and Watson is
planning to return.
Whether anyone transfers or not won’t be known until after the season, but
sources say there could be a defection or two. Stay tuned.
Come and play
Several ACC coaches were defending their league as the tops in college
basketball, among them North Carolina coach Matt Doherty, who said coaches in
other leagues just don’t understand how tough it is to play in this
conference.
“We end up beating each other up a little and people outside the league
don’t know how difficult it is,” said Doherty. “I’d like some of these
teams around the country to come play in this league for a year and see how
difficult it is.”
Wake coach Skip Prosser confessed he didn’t understand until he joined the ACC
this year.
“When I was in the Atlantic 10, I thought the ACC was about hype and overkill
by media but I have become a believer. It’s an unforgiving league. You can be
playing well and still lose two or three in a row. You’re so beat up from the
season that you can be flat at the end, something we’re trying to avoid.
Where’s Elton? After a six-game stretch in January and early February,
where he averaged 14.1 points per game and played a solid role in three Cavalier
victories, freshman power forward Elton Brown has nearly dropped off the UVa
radar screen.
In the last three games, Brown hardly played and hasn’t been very effective in
the last eight outings.
Why?
“We have been playing a smaller group at times,” said Gillen. “Chasing
around a team like Duke, where they have four quick guys, is difficult to do.
Sometimes you can hit the wall as a freshman. I think his confidence is a little
down. Sometimes the team goes small because of matchup problems where we’re
not quick enough to guard some of these teams.”
Terps on top. Gary Williams was politicking hard for the ACC to get as many
NCAA bids as possible Tuesday when he was asked just what winning the league’s
regular season meant to him.
“Dean Smith used to talk about this all the time in our league meetings in the
spring,” said Williams. “He took a great deal of pride in finishing first.
It’s 16 games and you play everybody twice. The regular season championship is
very important to me.”
The only thing missing from Maryland’s curtain call for Cole Field House on
Sunday was Lefty Driesell, who led the Terps to greatness. Had he been there and
had the pep band broke out in “Hail to the Chief” one more time, the roof
might have come down at Cole.
Williams did mention the Lefthander in his postgame chat.
“Lefty was one of the great guys in college basketball history,” said
Williams. “Lefty learned how to market a program … it wasn’t just getting
the players but knowing how to package everything to attract fans and attention,
the whole package.”
Going, going … Gone? That’s the buzz out of Tallahassee where insiders
say Steve Robinson will be fired after the ACC Tournament. Robinson did
everything that FSU athletic director Dave Hart asked of him but one thing: win.
The Seminoles are 63-83 under Robinson and the perception around Tallahassee is
that his teams have a tendency to get worse rather than better over the course
of seasons.
Asked Tuesday on the ACC teleconference if he had coached his last game at Leon
County Civic Center, Robinson said, “I don’t know that … next question.”
Meanwhile, it appears that Clemson’s Larry Shyatt might stay. He has one year
remaining on his contract and with lame duck AD Bobby Robinson leaving in June,
it would be difficult to hire a new coach, who wouldn’t know who his new boss
might be.
The Tigers are 55-70 under Shyatt in four seasons, including three last-place
finishes. In Shyatt’s defense, the Tigs lose only one player, forward Jamar
McKnight, so there is enough talent returning to build around.
Question is, how patient will the movers and shakers be? Maybe more at Clemson
than most ACC schools because basketball just isn’t that big a deal.
“Is there going to be time?” Shyatt said. “How much time, and is there
going to be the needed incremental steps of patience to ultimately get and
become a middle of the road, and then an upper-division team. And then, same
goal as the president, a Final Four team. I have always felt that those steps,
that becomes a process and sometimes a long process. It took a long time to get
where we’re at.”
As reported earlier in this column, the Tigers might have to play their home
games in another arena next season, the nearby Anderson Civic Center, or either
the Bi-Lo Center or the Furman University arena in Greensville.
Teardrop time. Duke’s Jason Williams has shed some tears over the past
week, first crying after the Devils’ loss at Virginia. He missed a free throw
that could have knotted the score with 12 seconds to play.
But there were tears of joy Sunday when he was introduced as one of three
departing players prior to the Carolina game. When he hugged each teammate and
made it to midcourt, his eyes were pouring and his lips were trembling. But he
was unashamed.
“I didn’t want to control my emotions,” said Williams, who scored 37
against the Heels. “I deserve not to control my emotions. Cameron is special.
There’s only one Duke University on the map. This place has so much tradition
and so much pride that when you step on the court to play for the last time, you
want to give everything you have.”
Free throws … When Pete Gillen was slapped with a technical foul by
official Frank Scagliotta in the Duke game, it was the first “T” for Gillen
since he came to Virginia from Providence; that’s 134 games. … Coach felt he
wasn’t getting the respect he deserved and perhaps now ACC officials will view
him a little differently. … You have to give North Carolina football coach
John Bunting credit for not shying away from tough competition, as the Tar Heels
have added national champion Miami to their future schedule, a home-and-home in
2006 and 2009 (UNC will also play Notre Dame in ’06 and Michigan in ’09).
Carolina will face Texas, Arizona State and Syracuse in 20002 nonconference play
and have added Virginia Tech, Colorado and Wisconsin to other future slates.
… Florida State and Clemson have already started spring football practice,
while Virginia won’t begin until late March. … N.C. State coach Chuck Amato
said he will not hire a replacement for departed defensive coordinator Buddy
Green until spring football practice is over. … The Wolfies have also lost
starting center Derek Green, who has elected to not return for his final year of
eligibility. … Clemson forward Chris Hobbs may break the school record for
personal fouls in a season if the Tigers can advance past the first round of the
ACC Tournament. Hobbs, who has 105 fouls this season, is seven shy of the mark
set by Raymond Jones in 1982-83. Says Hobbs, “It’s frustrating … It will
get to you after a while. You think the refs are just out to get you. You feel
helpless but you just have to learn not to be so rough.”
RPI a lifeline for teams whose NCAA
hopes should R.I.P. The NCAA's tournament selection process, which offers lifelines to aspiring
college basketball teams, bows down to the major conferences as much as the
media do. People who understand how the system (wink, wink) works are not as quick to
rule Virginia out of the NCAA field of 65 as those who judge the Cavaliers
strictly on how poorly they've played most of the last month.
We apparently know this much: U.Va. must defeat North Carolina State in the
first round of the ACC tournament to have any shot at one of the 34 at-large
NCAA bids. All seem agreed on that. But many in and out of the media apparently
feel that beating the Wolfpack will be enough. That a single victory in
Charlotte will punch the Cavaliers' dance card.
U.Va. still would remain one game shy of .500 in conference play. Even a
cynic to the ways of the NCAA should expect an at-large applicant to win at
least half its league games. There should be a law.
Logic, though, neglects the impact of the RPI on the selections. The Ratings
Percentage Index can be a big-conference diehard's best friend.
The RPI is used to help select at-large teams for the NCAA tournament. Losers
of eight of the last 11 and four of their final five regular-season games, U.Va.
clings to a 45 RPI ranking.
This suggests that some voodoo mathematics are at work. It wouldn't surprise
anybody if the RPI was as unreliable as football's BCS ratings. But while the
BCS is rightly mocked, basketball's computer games get a free pass.
Gary K. Johnson, the NCAA's senior statistics coordinator, told the Cox News
Service that the RPI is ``just a tool to help the committee so they don't
overlook teams that come out of nowhere.''
A tool? Or a crutch that the NCAA leans on when it feels the need to invite
to its tournament an underachiever from one of the six major conferences?
The RPI formula favors teams from the biggest leagues and hurts the
mid-majors. It is the worst kept secret in college basketball. Even Ohio State
coach Jim O'Brien says, ``Sometimes you kind of shake your head as to where you
are with the RPI. Sometimes you think it should be better, then other times you
think you're getting the benefit of the doubt.''
U.Va. will be receiving the benefit of the doubt if a single ACC tournament
victory turns out to be enough to open the door for the Cavaliers.
The at-large selection process is supposed to take into account what a team
has done lately. Except for its upset of Duke, U.Va. has done more than enough
to discourage its faithful.
But the RPI is not as critical of the Cavaliers' poor efforts as eyewitnesses
are. There's a reason for this. The RPI does not differentiate between a
two-point overtime loss and an embarrassing blowout.
Recently, U.Va. was routed by 22 points at Wake Forest and 20 at Maryland.
The Cavaliers could have lost each game by 70 points. Wouldn't have mattered.
Debacles do not register with the RPI. The computer doesn't take into account
that a team may have rolled over like a dog.
The process is not meant to be understood. Not completely. But now, perhaps,
it's easier to see why the RPI's inspection of the Cavaliers doesn't turn up as
many fleas as the rest of us do.
This is all moot if Pete Gillen's team doesn't win its next game. A loss
Thursday and instead of talking RPI, U.Va. will be answering questions about the
NIT.
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 6, 2002
Virginia back on the bubble for an NCAA tournament bid
The reason for the Cavaliers' loss to Maryland - however understandable, given it was Senior Night, the last game at Cole Field House and that the No. 2 Terrapins are really good - is the same reason why Virginia is on the bubble in the first place.
The Cavaliers (17-10, 7-9) allowed Maryland to brush them aside with a 69-point second half, the Terrapins making 24 of 33 (72.7 percent) of their shots. And, as an added bonus, of the Terrapins' nine missed field goals and two missed free throws in the period, Virginia got just five defensive rebounds.
"It wasn't just bad defense," guard Adam Hall said. "We'd have a good defensive sequence, they'd miss a shot, and they would get the rebound."
But bad defense accounted for a lot of it, as well as many of the Cavaliers' woes this season. In years past, Virginia was not always able to execute halfcourt defense, so it used its pressure to scramble opposing offenses and make quick bursts that compensate for the Cavaliers' difficulty scoring points through the set, halfcourt offense. It also left Virginia exposed to more intelligent opponents who matched the Cavaliers' speed.
This year, Virginia has been pressing and trapping less, generating less points. The Cavaliers have played more zone and man-to-man halfcourt defense than ever before under coach Pete Gillen, in part because they are bigger and slower than in the past, regularly using two big post players instead of one last year.
Part of that also is that the ACC teams are used to the kind of pressure the Cavaliers play, facing against them twice a year since Gillen arrived for the 1998-99 season. Even with the bigger lineup (which the Cavaliers have switched away from the past two games, returning Chris Williams to power forward and Hall to small forward), it is difficult for teams to approximate Virginia's speed in practice, making meeting the Cavaliers for a one-time-only game a difficult matchup to prepare for.
It is worth noting that the Cavaliers' only non-conference loss was to Missouri, the only quality non-ACC team they played both this year and last season. The first meeting was a Virginia win, in which a second-half run of turnovers propelled the Cavaliers to victory. This year, the Tigers were better prepared.
Virginia is dead last in field goal percentage defense (48 percent) in conference-only games. In all games, the Cavaliers rank fourth, allowing opponents to shoot 43.5 percent.
But most of the Cavaliers players have said that is not the change in defense, but the change in effort that is the problem.
"I don't think it's anything we're playing," Williams said. "It boils down to what we do. Zone, man, pressure, the object of the game is to stop them and execute on defense. Whatever it was we've been doing wrong, we'd better understand that we have to step it up."
North Carolina State, the fourth seed in this weekend's ACC Tournament and the opponent of fifth-seeded Virginia Friday at 2 p.m., is a perfect example. In the Wolfpack's two games with Virginia, it has made 55 of 110 shots (50 percent). Against the seven other ACC teams, N.C. State has made just 349 of 801 shots (43.5 percent).
Behind the 3-point line, the disparity is even more noticeable. The Cavaliers allowed the Wolfpack to make 20 of 43 3-pointers (46.5 percent), whereas N.C. State made 117 of 327 shots (35.7 percent) against the rest of the league.
Center Travis Watson is emphatic that the root of the problem is the Cavaliers, not any matchup disadvantages with regard to N.C. State, not anything they are doing. And that makes the problem correctable.
"I'm not worried about what N.C. State does," Watson said. "It's not what they are doing. Not to take anything away from them, they're a talented team, but everybody is a good shooter when you play defense the way we do. You take an open shot, you make it, boom, you're a good shooter.
"It all comes down to the way we play defense. We can play with anybody in the nation, pound for pound. I really believe that."