Cavaliers look to bounce back from tough losses
By John Galinsky / Daily Progress staff writer
March 6, 2004

When Virginia, the defending national champion, lost to both Air Force and Denver last weekend in the Pioneer Face-off Classic, everyone in the lacrosse world was shocked. Well, everyone but John Desko.

It’s not that Syracuse’s coach thought little of the Cavaliers - far from it. It’s just that he understood how dangerous it was for UVa to travel to Colorado and face those western programs on their home turf.

After all, his Orangemen made the same trip to Denver’s Pioneer Field two years ago and fought off challenges from the same two teams. In March of 2002, Syracuse trailed Air Force 4-2 after one quarter before winning by 12 goals. A day later, Desko’s team was tied with Denver midway through the fourth quarter and prevailed 13-10.

The Cavaliers weren’t quite so fortunate last weekend, losing to Air Force 7-6 and Denver 9-7. But Desko says those conditions were ripe for an upset or two.

“Having been there and done that, I know what a big adjustment it is to play out there,” Desko said. “You have a long flight, you’re playing in that altitude, and you’re playing two teams it’s hard not to overlook. It could have just as easily happened to us. We had a hard time with both those teams. It doesn’t necessarily reflect poorly on Virginia. They still have an extremely talented lacrosse team.”

Virginia (1-2) suffered the consequences, however, dropping from No. 1 to No. 15 in the USILA coaches’ poll going into today’s game against No. 3 Syracuse (1-0) at Klockner Stadium.

“For college kids, confidence is a fragile commodity, and that took a blow,” said UVa coach Dom Starsia. “People say Syracuse is a perfect game for us to play right now. I’m not sure if I buy that, but it’s certainly a game that gets everybody’s attention.”

The Virginia-Syracuse rivalry is among the best in the sport, and their matchups usually rank high in entertainment value. Both programs are known for their high-octane offenses and freewheeling style of play. Last year’s game was typical - a back-and-forth affair that ended with a 16-15 victory for UVa at the Carrier Dome.

But the Cavaliers have struggled on offense this season, getting little production from their young midfielders and inconsistent play from their attackmen.

“Syracuse is a scary team, especially offensively. My concern is we might not want to get into a shooting match with them right now,” Starsia said. “With the ball not jumping in the goal for us, you don’t want to have to depend on scoring 15 goals to win, so we might need to take a more disciplined approach to this thing.”

The Orangemen showed their usual explosiveness in last week’s opener against Army. Down 13-12 in the third quarter, they scored six straight goals, including four in 90 seconds, and won 19-15. All-American attackman Michael Powell matched his career high with eight points (three goals, five assists) and Sean Lindsay scored four goals. But Syracuse, with several new faces at close defense, looked shaky at that end of the field.

“Army played a good game, but I was definitely disappointed in the number of goals we gave up,” Desko said. “The possession time was in Army’s favor. I just don’t think we played a very patient game.”

Desko figures the Cavaliers are eager to prove last week’s results were a fluke, so he expects plenty of intensity from the home team.

“I’m sure they’ll be like a wounded animal,” he said. “They don’t like losing. I’m sure they’ll be desperate not to lose again. As a coach, you’d rather they had won both of those games so there’s not that sense of urgency.”

Note. UVa senior defenseman Brett Hughes practiced Thursday and Friday and may play in today’s game, Starsia said. Hughes was injured in a facemask-to-facemask collision during last Sunday’s game at Denver and was carried from the field on a stretcher. In last year’s victory over the Orangemen, Hughes held Powell without a goal.
 

Willams wants changes in ACC officiating
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 6, 2004

Scattershooting around the ACC, while wondering if recent coaching complaints will change how the league governs its basketball officials ...
North Carolina coach Roy Williams wants to see ACC refs held more accountable for decisions they make, particularly on questionable plays.
Don’t get Williams wrong. He doesn’t think league refs do a poor job and for the most part he approves of their work. But he thinks changes need to be made in the way they are handled and employed.
“We have officials that are really professional, but we have no control over them,” Williams said. “One guy leaves a game here, goes back to the hotel, goes to bed, gets up the next day and flies to another place and does another game. Sometimes he doesn’t ever look at the game tape.”
It’s an old argument among ACC coaches that refs can’t be at their best when they are doing several games a week and traveling all over the place.
Williams would like to see a more NBA-like policy where refs are required to file reports on games they call and are limited in the amount of games they officiate over specific periods of time. The Carolina coach believes ACC refs work too many games by working for other leagues.
“They’re not accountable,” Williams said. “Do we have a way of getting that done? Absolutely not.”

More frustration
Georgia Tech coach Paul Hewitt lost it recently after his team played Wake Forest. He claimed the ACC refs were calling games so tightly that his team couldn’t play its style of aggressive defense.
“I think we play as good a defense as anybody in this league, but honestly, I’m tired of getting saddled with fouls,” Hewitt complained.
ACC senior associate commissioner in charge of officiating, Fred Barakat, said he watched tape of the Tech-Wake game and saw things he was both happy with from the officiating and also some things his referees could do better with. He did not agree with Hewitt that the Jackets were being penalized for their aggressive defensive style.
“A lot of teams press,” Barakat said. “You can’t foul when you press. I think both of those teams went after each other pretty strong. It was physical. The more physical it gets, the more decisions the referees have to make.”

Danny Ford’s return
Clemson athletic director Terry Don Phillips has dipped back into the Tigers’ past to help boost attendance at basketball games.
He asked Danny Ford, who coached the Tigers’ football program to a national championship and ACC prominence, to do radio commercials to promote Clemson hoops. Ford still lives on a farm outside Clemson.
Phillips asked Ford if he would attend last weekend’s game against Georgia Tech and Ford, a close friend of Phillips, agreed. He had not been to a Clemson basketball game since 1989.
Ford didn’t say if his appearance was an indication of that he might become more
visible around Clemson athletics. He was forced out as the Tigers’ football coach in 1989 in a controversial decision.

Changes at Duke. The Blue Devils team that you will see in the ACC Tournament will not be exactly like the one that has led the conference all season. Some changes have been made by Coach Mike Krzyzewski as the team prepares for March Madness.
Freshman forward Luol Deng is playing more on the wing than inside now and Nick Horvath has joined the big men’s rotation.
“It might cause a little problem when we’re putting a change in but you have to be able to do that in game conditions,” Coach K said. “They’re not put in frivolously. As a result with what we’re doing, we’re getting a little deeper and more accustomed to each other.”
Moving Horvath inside enables Deng to play more like a guard on the wing.

Free throws ... Clemson is back in the ACC Tournament play-in game for the fourth consecutive season. In fact, if you count the two years when the event played two opening-round games, the Tigers are playing on Thursday night for the sixth straight year. ... SchoolSports.com recently ranked St. Anne’s-Belfield shooting guard Jose Garcia as the No. 35 overall senior basketball prospect in the Class of 2005. ...Clemson is planning to build 2,000 club-level seats in the west end zone after the 2004 season. ...The Tigers’ basketball has finished winless away from home for the first time in 60 years after dropping their last chance to get a regular season road win. ...They lost their 50th straight at Chapel Hill.
...Every time Duke suffers a losing streak, guard Chris Duhon loses his voice. ...Virginiapreps.com has become the ultimate web site in the state to check out high school sports. After joining the powerful Rivals national network, Virginiapreps topped 20,000 user registrations.
 

Surge may save 1 coach, hamper other
By Doug Doughty

Remember when Pete Gillen took a basketball team with six scholarship players and finished 14-16 in his first season at Virginia?

There's a similar story unfolding down the road in Blacksburg.

Six years into Gillen's tenure, some people believe that his first season represented his best coaching effort. In time, Seth Greenberg's debut at Virginia Tech may be viewed in the same light.

Greenberg twice won more than 20 games, as well as a pair of Big West Conference championships, in his six seasons at Long Beach State. His 2001-02 South Florida team won 19 games, but he has never been happier with a team than he was Wednesday night after a 71-70 victory over Rutgers.

"I told the kids after the game, 'This is as proud as I've been of a basketball team,'" Greenberg said. "It would have been very easy to pack it in when we lost five league games in a row. It would have been very easy to pack it in when we got 14 down to Rutgers."

Along the same lines, it would have been easy for Virginia to "pack it in" this year when the Cavaliers lost five straight ACC games to drop to 12-9 and 2-8 in the ACC. I wrote then that it would take a turnaround of Tommy Bowden proportions for Gillen to keep his job.

Four victories in five games, three over top-15 teams, meets those specifications.

Clemson was about to run off Bowden as its football coach after a 45-17 loss to Wake Forest. From that point, the Tigers won four games in a row, including victories over archrival South Carolina, No.3 Florida State and No.6 Tennessee. Bowden got a three-year contract extension prior to the 27-14 Peach Bowl victory over the Vols.

In a teleconference with reporters Friday, Gillen said he and athletic director Craig Littlepage had not discussed his status for next year.

It's hard to believe that the recent surge hasn't saved his job.

Anything short of a complete collapse - losing big Sunday at Maryland, losing in the ACC Tournament play-in game and then losing in the first round of the NIT - and I think Gillen will be back.

It's still mind-boggling the way he uses his timeouts, but, for the first time in several years, the Cavaliers have gotten better at the end of the season and there hasn't been a hint of off-court trouble.

"I'm rooting like hell for Pete Gillen," said Greenberg, whose Gillen ties actually predate the one season Greenberg spent on Terry Holland's basketball staff in the mid-1980s.

Greenberg and Gillen once worked together at the Five-Star Basketball Camps, where Greenberg always worried about being heard when Gillen got wound up at a nearby station.

"He's got an unbelievable heart," Greenberg said. "Pete is genuine. Pete is Pete. Anyone who doesn't think Pete is as real as it gets hasn't taken the time to get to know him. Whether it's questioning his timeouts or substitutions or recruiting, until you walk in his shoes, you really don't understand it."

Privately, Greenberg couldn't have believed that the Hokies would win more than 10 games this season. They've already clinched Tech's first trip to the Big East tournament and a victory today at Georgetown would be their fourth win in five games - a turnaround of, shall we say, Pete Gillen proportions.

There are other similarities between the teams, primarily the way they have protected the ball of late. After averaging more than 19 turnovers during a six-game span at midseason, the Cavaliers haven't had more than 15 in any of their last seven games.

Tech had a season-low five turnovers Wednesday against Rutgers, the Hokies' fourth game with fewer than 10 turnovers, including three straight in an earlier Big East stretch.

Greenberg might learn from Gillen that when you overachieve in your first season, a subsequent rise in expectations can prove to be a curse. Of course, after 13 years as a Division I head coach, Greenberg probably knows that.

"I'm just waiting for the call from coach [Bill] Foster," said Greenberg, referring to the former Hokies' head coach who was his boss at Miami. "He's going to tell me, ''Berg,' you screwed up. You won too many too soon.'"

 

Bannister makes one writer eat crow
Joseph displays outside touch
By DOUG DOUGHTY
Exclusive to roanoke.com by 5 p.m. Thursdays

At some point in the not-so-distant past, I probably have written that Virginia freshman point guard T.J. Bannister is an ACC-caliber player but not an ACC-caliber starting point guard.

Maybe I need to revisit that opinion.

Isn't it funny that UVa coach Pete Gillen chose not to bring back Majestic Mapp for a sixth year, out of fear that the Cavaliers might not be able to sign Sean Singletary, and now it turns out that Singletary will receive competition from elsewhere in the program.

From all indications, Singletary is Virginia's point guard of the future, but the Cavaliers can't hand him the position, not after what Bannister has accomplished over the past six games.

While I was not originally impressed by Bannister and kept waiting for the day when he dribbled the ball up his droopy pants legs, I think he has earned the chance to compete for the starting job.

After all, he'll be the incumbent.

When Bannister had 15 points and seven assists in an 82-80 upset of then-No. 15 Georgia Tech, it was my feeling that he could go four years and never have a game to match it. However, I'd have to say that his nine-point, 12-assist, one-turnover performance Tuesday against Wake Forest was close.

In each case, he was opposed by one of the ACC's elite point guards, Jarrett Jack for the Yellow Jackets and Chris Paul for Wake Forest.

The most interesting thing I heard after the Wake Forest game was when Bannister said he had played against Paul in the Nike camp. That has come up a few times now and speaks to the kind of experience that Bannister brought to UVa. A week at the Nike camp tends to reduce the intimidation factor.

A Singletary-Bannister combination would be too short for a regular rotation, but, if Bannister's free-throw mastery continues, there will always be a place for him at the end of games. Bannister is shooting 78.7 percent from the free-throw line, including 85.2 percent (23-of-27) in ACC games.

IT WAS HARD not to feel bad for Mapp on Tuesday, when he was accompanied by his former Bronx (N.Y.) St. Raymond's coach and current University of Richmond assistant Gary DeCesare in pre-game ceremonies.

An announcement was made to the effect that Mapp's parents, his brother and sister had been held up in traffic and were unable to make tip-off for Mapp's second start of the season and possibly his last home appearance.

Seldom-used seniors have been known to have spectacular Senior Day performances, witness Mark Newlen in 1977 and Jason Rogers last year, but Mapp had no such luck. He was 1-for-5, missing all three of his 3-point tries, and had a turnover before exiting after five minutes. He did not re-enter, mostly because Bannister was playing so well.

LARGELY UNRECOGNIZED at the recent Virginia-North Carolina game was former Cavalier Lance Blanks, now a scout and part-time television analyst for the San Antonio Spurs.

Blanks, from The Woodlands, Texas, arrived at Virginia in the fall of 1985 as a Parade All-American but lasted only two years at UVa before transferring to Texas. He helped take Texas to the NCAA Tournament in 1990, after which he was selected by Detroit in the first round of the NBA Draft.

Blanks was recruited by Virginia as a point guard but his skills were similar to another Parade All-American signed in the same class, Salem's Richard Morgan. Morgan became a first-team All-ACC player and a career 1,500-point scorer, but Blanks was not a point guard and was playing small forward by the time he became a big scorer at Texas.

Blanks' UVa career has been somewhat reminiscent of another Parade All-American, Derrick Byars, who has struggled in ACC play the past two years, although he had 15 points and five rebounds in 21 minutes against Wake Forest. Byars has shot 14-of-17 from the field and averaged 16.5 points in two games against Wake, compared to 3.4 in his 13 other ACC games.

A drop in Byars' playing time has been deserved, in my opinion, but playing time isn't plentiful for wing players on a team that includes Devin Smith, Gary Forbes and J.R. Reynolds.

If not for Smith's herniated disk, which prevents him from starting, there wouldn't be as much time to share as there is.

"A great talent," Gillen calls Byars.

A FOURTH WING TYPE, 6-7 signee Adrian Joseph from Brewster (N.H.) Academy, had five 3-point field goals Feb. 21 in a 102-92 victory over New Hampton Prep after making four 3-pointers and “several crowd-pleasing monster dunks” Jan. 28 in a 99-84 win over the South Kent School. Brewster won its fifth straight game and raised its record to 21-5 when it beat South Kent again Wednesday night in the quarterfinals of the New England Prep Schools tournament.

BY THE TIME polls closed on last week's UVa Insider question ("Do you want Pete Gillen to return as coach in 2004-2005?"), there had been 769 respondents, with 401 (or 52 percent) voting "no." That was down -- or up, for Gillen -- in the first 24 hours after the poll was posted, at which point 58 percent wanted him out.

 

U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch Mar 5, 2004

LOST WEEKEND: After returning home from his lacrosse team's disastrous trip to Colorado, Virginia coach Dom Starsia got a phone call from his brother.

"He wanted to know if I still had a job," Starsia recalled yesterday.

U.Va., the defending NCAA champion, traveled to Denver for last weekend's Pioneer Classic. The visit started on a low note Saturday, when unheralded Air Force stunned U.Va. 7-6, and got worse Sunday. The Cavaliers lost All-America defenseman Brett Hughes to a serious concussion in the second half and fell 9-7 to Denver.

"How quickly the mighty have fallen," said Starsia, whose team plummeted to a tie for 15th in the latest U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association rankings.

"Confidence with these college kids is a fragile thing. We got our world rocked a little bit."

U.Va. has no time to feel sorry for itself. The Cavaliers (1-2) meet third-ranked Syracuse (1-0) tomorrow at 1 p.m. at Klockner Stadium. The Orangemen have advanced to the NCAA tournament's final four each of the past 21 seasons, winning eight national titles in that span.

Virtually everyone expected Starsia to carry a 3-0 record into this game, and the Cavs want no part of a 1-3 start. Still, Starsia said, if U.Va. loses tomorrow, "it's not the end of the season. We have to keep it in perspective. Our job right now is just to get better."

He had to replace several standout midfielders and defensemen from last year's team, but inexperience at those positions "doesn't adequately explain what happened [last] weekend," said Starsia, who has guided U.Va. to two NCAA titles. "At the end of the day I have to take the blame for it. It's my job to get the team ready to play."

Hughes "really wants to play" against Syracuse, Starsia said, but the senior from Upper Arlington, Ohio, didn't practice Wednesday and is questionable for tomorrow's game.

ON THE COURT: The least heralded of Virginia's basketball recruits for 2004-05 might be the most intriguing. Tunji Soroye, a senior at perennial power Montrose Christian in Rockville, Md., has been playing hoops for only a couple of years, but he stands 6-10 and is considered an exceptional run-jump athlete.

The 210-pound Soroye, who's from Nigeria, averages 11 points, 10 rebounds, 6 blocked shots and 3 assists for Montrose (22-4), which has won 17 consecutive games. U.Va.'s coaches compare Soroye to Marcus Douthit, the starting center for 12th-ranked Providence.

Douthit, a 6-10, 235-pound senior, scored only four points but grabbed seven boards, blocked six shots, passed for four assists and made two steals Jan. 3 in the Friars' 84-69 win over U.Va. at University Hall.

Soroye plays for Stu Vetter at Montrose Christian. Vetter has coached at several schools, and his former players include ex-U.Va. stars Cory Alexander and Curtis Staples.

IN THE WEIGHT ROOM: Former U.Va. football player Eric Fears recently was named the Miami Dolphins' assistant strength and conditioning coach. The move reunites Fears, who'd been the University of Georgia's strength coach since 1996, with John Gamble.

Gamble, the Dolphins' strength coach, held that position at U.Va. from 1984 to'93. Fears was an assistant under him there from 1984 to'87. He later returned to U.Va. and succeeded Gamble as strength coach in 1994. Fears left for Georgia two years later.

Fears lettered three times at running back for Virginia in the early 1980's.

ON THE DIAMOND: Virginia's baseball team is soaring under first-year coach Brian O'Connor. The Cavaliers are 10-1 heading into their three-game series with visiting Central Connecticut State. An 11-1 start, U.Va. officials believe, would be the best in the program's history. The Cavaliers also won 10 of their first 11 games in 1998, when they finished 28-26-1.

Game times for the series: 3 p.m. today, 4 p.m. tomorrow and 1 p.m. Sunday.

IN THE POOL: Next up for the Virginia coach Mark Bernardino's swimming-and-diving teams are the NCAA championships.

Bernardino's men, who have captured a school-record six consecutive ACC titles, will compete March 25-27 in East Meadow, N.Y. The U.Va. women, who have won two straight ACC championships, are headed to College Station, Texas. The NCAA women's meet will be held there March 18 to 20.

Sixteen men from Virginia earned all-ACC honors: divers Pete Amstutz and Andrew Barber and swimmers Ryan Berg, Fran Crippen, Bo Greenwood, John Haag, Rick Hancock, Stefan Hirniak, Greg Imboden, Adam Kerpelman, Ethan McCoy, John Millen, Ian Prichard, Michael Raab, Vanja Rogulj and Luke Wagner.

Crippen, a sophomore, was named the ACC's most valuable male swimmer.

Seven women from U.Va. were named all-ACC: swimmers Amy Baly, Corey Berg, Rachael Burke, Katie Gordon, Kimi Kelly, Rory Schmidt and Brielle White.

ON THE GRIDIRON: Two more additions to U.Va. football coach Al Groh's staff: graduate assistants Joel Makovicka and Chad Wilt.

Makovicka, a former Nebraska star, played fullback for the Arizona Cardinals. He'll work with the Cavaliers' offense.

Wilt will help with the defense. A former William and Mary assistant, he spent the past three seasons as defensive-line coach and special-teams coordinator at Central Connecticut State. Wilt played for his father, Steve, at Taylor University in Indiana. - Jeff White

 

BUBBLE: Cavs, Terps, Seminoles sweating
By Lenox Rawlings
JOURNAL COLUMNIST

Bubble baths and other notes:As the days before Selection Sunday evaporate, the lobbying campaigns intensify. Maryland and Virginia strengthened their weak cases this week, and their surges sucked Florida State back into the pit of uncertainty.

Something has to give, because the NCAA pickers seem disinclined to embrace all three wavering teams since they're evidently bound for sixth, seventh and eight place in the standings.

FSU, which based its nonconference diet on dog food, can resolve the bubble issue by winning at Georgia Tech. Otherwise, the Seminoles will finish 6-10 and hang everything on home wins against Wake Forest, North Carolina and Georgia Tech. They haven't won an ACC road game since Al Gore.

Maryland can avoid the ACC play-in game and finish sixth at 7-9 with a home win over Virginia. That might suffice, given the Terps' early victories over Wisconsin and cameo No. 1 Florida.

Last week, a reporter asked Coach Gary Williams if Maryland had peaked too soon.

"I don't think that we've peaked this year," he said. "There's no peaking this year."

Williams might alter that assessment in the wake of the 70-69 win at N.C. State, which rescued the Terps from the heap and stuck another pin in Coach Herb Sendek's deflating balloon.

The Cavaliers need another win, despite the pleas of ACC-leaning announcers, coaching cohorts and analysts who can't count to 65. Virginia beat Wake Forest, Carolina and Georgia Tech at home, mounting a familiar case. However, a loss at Maryland will leave Coach Pete Gillen 6-10 and a potential victim of his own flabby scheduling hand once again.

The weekend scramble offers a weird conundrum. The selection committee undoubtedly will frown on the eighth seed, but a win over No. 9 Clemson in the Thursday play-in scrum is still a win. That's more than the Nos.6 and 7 can count on in the quarterfinals.
 

For the D.C. Area, It's March Misery
By Michael Wilbon
Saturday, March 6, 2004; Page D01

As if the fall and winter weren't bleak enough around here, the spring was close to being even worse. The one time of year this area has been able to produce, without fail, on the big-time sports stage is March. It's a pretty impressive run for the Division I schools here -- Maryland, Georgetown, Virginia, George Washington, George Mason, Navy and Howard.

Collectively, the D.C. area basketball programs haven't been shut out of the NCAA tournament since 1978, back when the field was only 32 teams. Ever since, while Maryland and Georgetown have done the heavy lifting, at least one of those schools has qualified for the tournament, usually two, and sometimes three or four.

That run was clearly in jeopardy earlier this week when Maryland and Virginia were confronted with must-win games to stay alive for at-large invitations. Because they came through, Maryland at North Carolina State and Virginia against Wake Forest, the 26-year streak ought to continue. The biggest event on the local winter sports calendar -- Virginia at Maryland on Sunday night -- should earn the winner an at-large berth to the tournament.

Because the ACC is by miles the best basketball conference in the country this season, and because a conference like the Pac-10 deserves to send no more than two teams, a 7-9 conference record for Maryland and Virginia will be impressive enough. But I don't subscribe to the theory that the loser will get in, too, not when the loser might very well have to participate in the ACC tournament play-in game with the league's last place team next week.

It can't be automatic that a team can go from the play-in game to the NCAA tournament. Maryland has four victories against top 25 teams, six against top 50 teams and ranks 32nd nationally in RPI. Victories over Wisconsin and Florida, which was ranked No. 1 in the nation at the time, definitely catch the eyes of the selection committee members. But . . . if Maryland loses to Virginia on Sunday, then loses its first-round ACC tournament game to finish at 15-13 overall, that can't make the Terrapins a lock for an at-large bid. The smartest thing coming out of College Park this week is Gary Williams saying, "We feel we have to win that game."

The irony is that if Maryland does get into the tournament, it's a team that would be particularly dangerous, especially against a high seed that doesn't have the benefit of Maryland's tough regular season schedule or its recent NCAA tournament experience.

Virginia (16-10 overall), 46th in RPI behind teams such as Richmond and Rutgers, has even less room for error. A loss in College Park on Sunday ends Virginia's NCAA hopes, even though the Cavaliers have won four of their last five games, all in the conference and three of them (Wake Forest, North Carolina, Georgia Tech) over nationally ranked teams.

Luckily for basketball fans around here, at least the Maryland-Virginia winner will get in because nobody else is, not without winning its conference tournament.

George Washington was looking pretty bubble-licious a couple of games ago at 16-8 with a 10-3 record in the Atlantic 10, but a home-court loss to Richmond and a blowout loss the other night at Xavier leave GW with an RPI number of 75. George Mason is 19-8 overall but has no victories over top 25 or even top 50 teams, and an RPI of 92. GW, Mason and American (16-12 overall, 10-4 in the conference) have all had nice seasons but not great seasons and not the kind of regular season success that make us think they can win their league tournaments to get automatic bids.

Stunning in its absence from consideration is Georgetown -- not because the Hoyas aren't going to the tournament but because the program isn't even competitive, because it's so far off the radar. Almost unthinkably, the Hoyas need a win today to make the Big East tournament. Never was a 10-0 record more misleading. Georgetown didn't play any opponents of note before the Big East season started, which is why its non-conference strength of schedule ranks 264th out of 326 Division I schools. Binghamton, Brown and Winthrop, just to name a few, had tougher non-conference schedules than Georgetown. Winning the MEAC and the Southland Conference don't impress the selection committee, and apparently playing those schools doesn't prepare you for a major conference schedule.

Did you see how many points the Hoyas scored in the first half the last two games? Fourteen and sixteen? They haven't scored 60 points in the last five games. The powers that be have issued a vote-of-confidence for Coach Craig Esherick, but I also wonder how committed those powers are to continuing what John Thompson built and sustained for so long.

You go through the tournament brackets back to 1979, and the early constant is Georgetown. Georgetown and Maryland, Georgetown and Howard, Georgetown and Virginia, Georgetown and James Madison and Maryland, Georgetown and Navy and Maryland. The Hoyas were always there, especially in 1984 when they beat SMU, UNLV, Dayton, Kentucky and Houston to win it all.

It's the 20th anniversary of that team and its championship, a team that changed the way college basketball was played. Teams had to handle the ball and pass it differently and shoot from different spots because Georgetown's defense was so much more suffocating than anything played before . . . And at the very least that team should have been more publicly celebrated this year.

As it is, probably only one team will move forward to represent an area so accustomed to greater participation in the national tournament, and we don't have to wait beyond Sunday night in College Park before that drama begins.
 

Terps And Cavs See One Way In
Win on Sunday May Mean Berth
By Barry Svrluga
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, March 5, 2004; Page D08

So now, it comes to this seemingly simple little equation. If Maryland beats Virginia on Sunday night, it will almost certainly advance to the NCAA tournament for the 11th straight time. If the Terrapins lose to the Cavaliers, they could end up in -- gulp -- the play-in game of the ACC tournament.

Enough pressure for you?

"We feel we have to win that game," Coach Gary Williams said. "I'm sure Virginia does, too."

There is little question about that, because the Cavaliers (16-10, 6-9) and the Terps (15-11, 6-9) are staring at the same scenarios: NCAA berth or ACC play-in game, which pits the eighth- and ninth-seeded teams against each other for the right to face top-seeded Duke in the quarterfinals of the tournament.

The conventional wisdom is that an ACC team with a 7-9 league mark -- be it Maryland, Virginia or Florida State -- will get serious consideration for the NCAA tournament because the league has been rated as the best in the nation all season.

Of those three teams, Maryland has perhaps the best case for inclusion. The Terps have four wins -- home against Wisconsin and North Carolina and at Florida and North Carolina State, the latest coming Wednesday night -- against teams ranked in the top 25 in the Ratings Percentage Index standings, which considers strength of schedule.

According to the Web site www.collegerpi.com, the Terps' RPI yesterday was 32, and their schedule is the third toughest in the nation. The highest-rated team in the RPI to be left out of the tournament was Oklahoma, which was ranked 33rd in 1994 but did not receive a bid.

"I think seven [ACC] wins is necessary," Williams said. "But I think with the RPI and the strength of schedule, if we do get to seven wins, I don't see how that couldn't be good enough. But that's not my decision. It's the committee's decision."

In contrast, Virginia's RPI was 46th yesterday, its strength of schedule 29th, and it had beaten three top 25 teams in the RPI standings -- North Carolina, Georgia Tech and Wake Forest. Florida State's RPI was 45th yesterday, and it has three wins over top 25 teams in the RPI against the same three opponents Virginia beat. The Seminoles' strength of schedule was 26th.

The ACC's picture entering the final weekend of the regular season is as muddled as that of Maryland and Virginia in relation to the NCAAs. Only two seeds in the conference tournament -- Duke as No. 1 and Clemson as No. 9 -- are locked up. N.C. State will almost certainly finish second, even if it loses to Wake Forest on Saturday. But there is a scenario in which the Demon Deacons could leapfrog the Wolfpack with a win -- if North Carolina wins at Duke and Florida State wins at Georgia Tech as well.

Other portions of the breakdown:

• Maryland finishes sixth if the Terps beat the Cavs and FSU loses to Georgia Tech.

• Maryland finishes seventh if the Terps beat the Cavs and FSU beats Georgia Tech. In that case, Virginia would fall to the eighth seed and face Clemson in the play-in game.

The Terps can also finish seventh if they lose to Virginia, but Tech beats FSU. In that case, the Cavaliers would finish sixth and the Seminoles would fall to the play-in game.

• Maryland is in the play-in game if Virginia beats the Terps, and FSU beats Georgia Tech.

A month ago, when the Terps beat the Cavs in Charlottesville -- part of a five-game losing streak by Virginia -- it would have seemed ludicrous to think that these two teams would be playing with so much on the line.

"It's going to be very crucial for each of our teams," Maryland point guard John Gilchrist said. "We're going to go out, and it's going to be a heck of a ballgame."