Virginia lax teams travel to Syracuse
By Andrew Joyner / Daily Progress staff writer
March 5, 2005

The fortunes and expectations of both Virginia lacrosse programs stroll into upstate New York today.

The defending national champion Virginia women’s team will face Syracuse in its season opener today at noon. The Virginia men will then face Syracuse in the night cap of the doubleheader at 3 p.m. Both games will be played at the Carrier Dome.

The Virginia men enter the game 2-0 after victories over Drexel and Manhattan. The Cavaliers were supposed to play Denver on Monday but the game was postponed by snow. The two teams have rescheduled that game for April 17.

While the UVa men have the advantage of playing two games already compared to this being the opener for the women, today’s contests likely serve as the first real tests for both.

“I think we are all looking forward to it. I think there was a letdown losing Monday’s game. We were definitely ready to play,” Starsia said. “I think it’s fortunate we’re coming back with a game like Syracuse. It gets us immediately focused.”

Virginia enters the game No. 6 in the Inside Lacrosse rankings while Syracuse is No. 2 in the same poll. Syracuse won last year’s meeting in Charlottesville 18-12 but the Cavaliers won in the Carrier Dome two years ago, 16-15. The rivalry has become one of the best in the sport as nine of the last 12 meetings have been decided by just one or two goals.

“I want the players to enjoy it. This is a game we look forward to on the schedule. Are we ready at this point to play Syracuse? I have no idea but as an athlete you have to enjoy this opportunity,” Starsia said. “Over the years, the players that have played in this game have thoroughly enjoyed this rivalry.”

Starsia’s rotating goalie system will have Kip Turner starting in goal today after Bud Petit started last Saturday’s game against Manhattan. This game and its challenges may present Starsia with the opportunity to either stick with Turner for the full game or have Petit relieve him. The game’s situations and circumstances will obviously determine that.

“Are we less likely to make a halftime change in this upcoming game? The answer to that is probably. … I don’t want to predetermine a change at halftime. It continues to be a fluid situation. We still have to take it a little bit at a time,” Starsia said. “It may be better served to see these guys play a whole game and we may see that [today].”

The rivalry on the women’s side is more of a budding one. The Cavaliers are the defending national champions but their senior class has never beaten Syracuse, including a 14-13 loss last season in Charlottesville. It was one of just three losses in the Cavaliers’ 19-3 campaign.

“I think it is good we are playing Syracuse at the start just because of our history with them. No one on the team has ever beat them before and it’s kind of exciting to get the season started like that,” said senior defender Molly Urlock.

The Virginia women’s team was driven last season by the memories of losing to Princeton in the 2003 NCAA final. Last year, the Cavaliers exorcised those demons by defeating Princeton for the national title.

The Cavaliers now have the motivation of defending their title as they shift from being the hunter to being the hunted.

“We have been aware of that and our coaches have really pounded that into our heads. We know we are the team to beat now. There is no room for slacking,” senior Ashleigh Haas said. “No matter your status going into the season, it’s hard to keep that intensity throughout. It’s always a goal of ours to be intense every game and that should help us this year.”

Virginia coach Julie Myers won’t be there to pound those thoughts in her players’ heads today. Myers gave birth to a yet unnamed boy Wednesday and will not make the trip to Syracuse. Assistant coaches Colleen Shearer and Heather Dow are expected to handle the coaching duties today.

“We are really happy for her. She actually came to practice Wednesday and then we found out she was having the baby. We will miss her but she has put her two cents in for the past six weeks and we can still hear her,” Haas said.

Geography big in Hannah’s decision
Walk-on candidate picks UVa
By Doug Doughty
THE ROANOKE TIMES

Jonathan Harrah, the All-America tight end who signed with South Carolina after committing to Virginia Tech, said decommitting was “the single-most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make.”

It has been reported that Harrah committed to as many as four schools, but he said Thursday that Tech was the only school to whom he ever committed and that he didn’t commit to South Carolina before sending a signed letter-of-intent to the Gamecocks.

Hannah announced that he would sign with Tech on Monday, Jan. 24, nine days before the signing date. A 6-foot-4, 265-pounder from Southview High School in Hope Mills, N.C., he picked the Hokies over a list of suitors that included North Carolina State, where his father had played.

“I was very comfortable with [the decision] to begin with,” Hannah said. “I think it was the Monday [two days] before signing day that I started to have doubts.

“I was just thinking about how far away I would be from my family. I didn’t know how I was going to react to that.”

In Hope Mills, a suburb of Fayetteville, Hannah lives two hours from South Carolina’s campus in Columbia, S.C.

“My dad lives in Spartanburg (S.C.) and my mom will be moving down there,” Hannah said. “That’s an hour and 15 minutes from Columbia. He’s been down there for a while, but it just started to hit me.

“It never really hit me till my mom brought up something that I was going to be four hours away from her, and it just really sunk in right then.”

South Carolina did not start recruiting Hannah seriously until Steve Spurrier was named head coach.

“I grew up a Florida State fan, so I actually didn’t like him when he was at Florida,” Hannah said, “so, it’s kind of funny that I grew up playing for him.

“The first time he called, all that went to the side because a man of his record and prestige throughout college and football … I was very elated when he called and said he thought I could play right away.”

Florida State called Hannah and offered him a scholarship but he wanted to play early and felt “with the team they’ve got coming back, that the chance to play wasn’t that good,” he said.

Hannah lived in the Richmond area for four years, from the time he was in the fifth grade until the end of his eighth-grade year, which may have accounted for some of his interest in the Hokies, “but I was more of a University of Virginia fan,” he said. “We were only an hour and a half from Charlottesville.”

Hannah said he was aware that players commit to schools and change their minds every year but “I’d have never expected to be in that spot, period, and for me to change my mind like that,” he said.

“Not to say Virginia Tech wasn’t a good fit for me, but the more I thought about it, I didn’t think it was THE best fit for me.”

UVA WAS PLEASED to get an oral commitment Friday from Cain Ringstaff, a second-team All-Group AA running back from Richlands who was invited to join the program as a walk-on.

Ringstaff comes from a family of Virginia Tech supporters and will see the UVa campus for the first time this weekend. The Cavaliers originally were attracted by his 3.88 grade-point average and their interest increased after assistant coach John Garrett looked at film.

Garrett, the Cavaliers’ receivers coach, is a former NFL assistant coach and scout who is responsible for doing much of the evaluation that is directly mostly at juniors at this time of year.

Ringstaff (5-10, 194), rated the No. 73 prospect in Virginia by The Roanoke Times, was named the Region IV offensive player of the year after rushing for 1,547 yards and scoring 23 touchdowns as a senior. Also a second-team all-region selection at cornerback, he has been timed in 4.47 seconds for 40 yards on the Richlands track.

AS VIRGINIA TECH beat man Nappy King attempts to get his personal life sorted out in anticipation of a mid-afternoon posting of this week’s Tech Insider, I hope he won’t mind me sharing a Tech football recruiting tidbit.

When the Hokies entertained top South Carolina prospects Hiviera Green and Jamie Robinson on the final weekend of the game, the prevailing thinking was that the Hokies had a better chance of landing Robinson. But, Robinson signed with Florida State and it was Green who picked the Hokies over the two Division I-A schools in his home state, Clemson and South Carolina.

Green said this week that he felt a greater comfort level at Tech and I’m not sure it was widely known that he had made multiple trips to Blacksburg. Even before he attended the Tech-West Virginia football game this past fall, Green had been to Blacksburg with a boyhood friend and Conway, S.C., football teammate, Mychal Hopkins.

Mychal Hopkins, hoping to play Division I-A football after a stint at Independence (Kan.) Community College, is the son of Michael Hopkins, a former head basketball coach at Coastal Carolina in Conway, S.C., and an assistant at Virginia Tech in Ricky Stokes’ last season, 2002-2003.

I’VE NOW HEARD from two sources close to the college basketball coaching community that, if things don’t work out for Pete Gillen following seven seasons at Virginia, that he might be a target of Siena College, a member of the Division I Metro-Atlantic Athletic Conference.

Siena, located in the Albany, N.Y., suburb of Loudonville, had a 6-23 record this season under fourth-year coach Rob Lanier heading into today’s MAAC Tournament game against Iona.

Virginia loses line coach
Cavaliers will shuffle some responsibilities among assistants
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

Mar 5, 2005

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- University of Virginia football coach Al Groh lost two assistants to the NFL last winter. He's losing another one to the pros this month.

Mike London, U.Va.'s defensive line coach for the past four seasons, has accepted a position with the Houston Texans. He'll coach their defensive linemen. Like Virginia, Houston uses the 3-4 as its base defense.

London, also U.Va.'s recruiting coordinator for the past three seasons, will replace Todd Grantham, the former Virginia Tech player and assistant who left the Texans this month to join new coach Romeo Crennel's staff in Cleveland. The Browns are switching to the 3-4.

A graduate of Bethel High in Hampton, London is a former University of Richmond football star and city of Richmond police officer. Before joining Groh's first staff in 2001, London had stints as an assistant at William and Mary, UR and Boston College. He also served NFL internships with the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Jets and helped coach the Patriots' defensive linemen during preseason minicamp in 1998.

London's departure isn't the only offseason development on Groh's staff. To give the Cavaliers "the best possible batting order that we can have," Groh announced this week on www.virginiasportstv.com, he has changed some of his assistants' assignments.

Al Golden, U.Va.'s defensive coordinator, formerly coached the team's inside linebackers as well. In addition to his work as coordinator, Golden now will oversee the secondary, which struggled last season.

Bob Price, formerly the secondary coach, will tutor Virginia's tight ends. Mark D'Onofrio, who coached U.Va.'s tight ends and special teams in 2004, will work with the inside linebackers.

D'Onofrio also will continue to coordinate the special teams, but primary responsibility for each of those units will be divided among the assistants, Groh said.

The responsibilities remain unchanged for the other assistants: Ron Prince (offensive coordinator/offensive linemen), Danny Rocco (assistant head coach/outside linebackers), Mike Groh (quarterbacks), Anthony Poindexter (running backs) and John Garrett (wide receivers). At the time of Groh's announcement, he listed London as the team's defensive line coach.

Virginia finished 8-4 last season after losing in overtime to Fresno State at the MPC Computers Bowl.

U.Va. Notes: Heading south
Richmond Times-Dispatch Mar 4, 2005

HEADING SOUTH: The ACC men's basketball tournament - the first one with 11 teams - starts Thursday at the MCI Center in Washington, and Virginia may end up as the No. 11 seed.

After losing their fourth straight game - N.C. State won 82-72 at University Hall on Wednesday night - the Cavaliers (4-11, 13-13) woke up in 10th place yesterday. In last was Florida State, which took a 3-11 ACC record into its game at North Carolina last night.

Virginia closes the regular season Sunday afternoon at FSU. The Cavaliers beat the Seminoles at U-Hall last month. If both teams finish 4-12 in league play, the tiebreaker would go to Florida State, which has a win over Wake Forest (12-3, 25-4).

If Clemson (5-10, 15-13) loses at Georgia Tech (7-8, 16-10) tomorrow, then Virginia would clinch the No. 9 seed by beating FSU. In the teams' only regular-season meeting, U.Va. edged Clemson 81-79 at University Hall.

The top five seeds get first-round byes in the ACC tourney. In Thursday's games, No. 8 meets No. 9 at noon, No. 7 faces No. 10 at 2:30 p.m., and No. 6 takes on No. 11 at 7 p.m.

INVITATION ACCEPTED: Virginia forward Devin Smith is among the seniors who have committed to play in the 53rd annual Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, April 6-9 at Churchland High.

The PIT showcases college players for scouts from the NBA and other professional leagues. For information, call (757) 393-5327, ext. 5160, or visit www.portsmouthinvitational.com.

SOFT IN THE MIDDLE: Among the standouts U.Va. football coach Al Groh must replace from his 2004 team is Andrew Hoffman, a three-year starter at nose tackle. The post-Hoffman era is off to a rough start.

Keenan Carter, who's expected to move into the starting lineup this season, had his left arm in a sling at U-Hall on Wednesday night. Carter, a rising sophomore, underwent shoulder surgery recently and may miss spring practice.

Another nose tackle, Jon Kirchner, has left the team. Kirchner, a freshman from Rockbridge County High who redshirted last season, is still a student at Virginia, but it's not clear whether he'll stay there after this semester.

Rockbridge coach Billy Mills said U.Va.'s assistant head coach, Danny Rocco, told him that "the door is still open for" Kirchner to rejoin the team. Mills, however, said that he doesn't expect that to happen.

In addition to Carter, returning for Virginia at nose tackle is Melvin Massey, who'll be a fifth-year senior this season. Ends Kwakou Robinson, Brennan Schmidt (who's also recovering from shoulder surgery) and Allen Billyk might get some work at nose tackle, too.

One of the Cavaliers' incoming recruits, Kevin Crawford, is a potential nose tackle, but he may not meet NCAA eligibility standards this year.

ON THE DIAMOND: Less than a month into its season, Virginia's baseball team has lost two starters. Junior left-fielder Tom Hagan and sophomore first baseman Josh Darby each will miss four to six weeks because of an injury.

Hagan, who came to U.Va. as a scholarship football player, broke his left hand Sunday. Darby, who'd been batting cleanup, tore a ligament in his non-throwing arm last week.

"We're facing more adversity right now than we faced the whole [2004 season], really," second-year coach Brian O'Connor said yesterday. "Last year we stayed pretty much healthy all year . . . It'll be a good test to see how mentally tough our guys are."

Sean Doolittle, whose uncle played for the James Madison University team that advanced to the College World Series in 1983, takes over for Darby at first base. The 6-2, 175-pound freshman from Tabernacle, N.J., is hitting .434 with two home runs. Doolittle also has pitched well out of the bullpen.

The new left-fielder is likely to be freshman Brandon Guyer, who's been playing third base. "We need his bat in the lineup," O'Connor said.

U.Va. (8-3) opens ACC play today at Wake Forest (5-7). The teams also will meet tomorrow and Sunday.

IN THE CREASE: For U.Va.'s unbeaten men's lacrosse team, the level of competition increases dramatically this weekend. Virginia, which has routed Drexel and Manhattan, takes on defending NCAA champion Syracuse (1-0) tomorrow afternoon at the Carrier Dome.

"You try to live by the 'no big game' philosophy," Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said yesterday. "That's what we're always espousing. You figure if you're going to sell your soul for this one, what do you tell [the players] Monday when you've got Princeton coming up next?

"But clearly our kids are alive, and this is a game you get excited about playing."

Sophomore Kip Turner will start at goalie for Virginia. Turner and redshirt freshman Bud Petit have been splitting time in the cage this season, but that arrangement may not continue at Syracuse.

"We'll just see how we're doing," Starsia said. "If Kip was to play this whole game, that doesn't mean we couldn't come back with Bud the next game . . . It's a fluid situation." - Jeff White

 

Back in Time: Diane Spurs Top-Ranked DeMatha
By Josh Barr
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, March 3, 2005; Page PG20

Mamadi Diane went through this scenario three years ago, when the legendary Morgan Wootten retired from coaching and Mike Jones took over as DeMatha's interim basketball coach before being named to the position on a permanent basis after the season.

Now, as Diane and his teammates enjoy a most special season -- the No. 1 Stags (25-1) were scheduled to play No. 5 O'Connell in the Washington Catholic Athletic Conference title game Tuesday -- the senior guard again is faced with the potential of playing for a coach he does not know.

In the fall, Diane accepted a scholarship to play for the University of Virginia. While the Cavaliers started this season 9-2 and spent a few weeks in the national rankings, the past two months have been a struggle. With every loss, speculation has grown that Coach Pete Gillen will be fired after the season.

Attending some games and watching others on television, Diane is aware of the situation. He has talked about it with his father, Mori, and Jones. Gillen and his assistants have told Diane they are confident they will be retained, though it would be difficult to imagine them saying otherwise. Still, Diane acknowledged, he has wondered about the possibility of Gillen and his staff being fired.

"That thought has definitely crossed my mind," he said. "I'm not really sure" what would happen.

Although the National Letter of Intent program is binding on both athletes and schools, there is a precedent of players being able to get out of their commitment if a school changes coaches, provided the school agrees to give the player a release from the commitment. However, things could get sticky if the school does not want to release players; such was the case when Gillen was hired by Virginia.

Diane said he and his father will discuss the situation again after this season. Even though schools occasionally call Jones to find out whether Diane did sign a letter-of-intent and check on his status, Jones said he believes Diane will stick with Virginia regardless of what happens to Gillen.

"The way we look at it is he made a commitment to go to Virginia to play for Coach Gillen. That's who recruited him," Jones said. "I think a lot of the draw to Virginia was the school. Mo was going through something very similar a couple years ago at DeMatha. He knows what it's like and what it means to be loyal to somebody."

That was when Diane transferred from Bullis to DeMatha prior to his sophomore year. At that point, Diane was a 6-foot-4, 170-pound power forward. He was willing to play whatever position was necessary to get on the court, but often got pushed around by bigger players.

Two years and countless hours in the gym later, Diane has developed into a premier shooting guard. He is 6-6 and 185 pounds, with the ability to shoot from the outside or take the ball to the basket.

"He's worked really hard," Jones said. "Now, he's a legitimate shooting guard. That's because of the work he's put in, the hours he's put in in the gym, shooting the ball, working on his ball handling. He's really improved as a defender. He's earned everything he's getting. . . . All the guys who want to be good [should] look at what he's done. He's made himself a good player because he's put the time in." Diane, who lives in Potomac, said he often works out at his old school because it is close to his house. He and his dad often go over to the gym, where Diane will practice his dribbling skills and shoot several hundred shots. He also will run on the track or on the stairs in the school's football stadium.

"I'm always thinking about how I want to go to the next level," Diane said. "This is what I'm going to have to do. People are going to be much bigger, faster and stronger."
 

Most ACC Tickets: Booster Seats
Big Donors Will Fill Up MCI Center During Tournament
By Liz Clarke
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 5, 2005; Page A01

Nike will provide the jerseys and hefty-sized sneakers for 10 of the 11 teams in next weekend's Atlantic Coast Conference men's basketball tournament at MCI Center. But the apparel giant's Washington-based lobbyist is on a waiting list for tickets to the event, scrambling for enough passes to satisfy the hoop dreams of Nike's many friends on Capitol Hill.

"It's a very tough ticket -- even for us at Nike!" says Brad Figel, the company's director of government relations.

The Washington-based law firm Arent Fox represented Washington Wizards owner Abe Pollin during construction of MCI Center, but that was not enough to get its partners or its clients into the firm's luxury suite for the four-day event, which starts Thursday. To access its box for the tournament, the firm would have had to pony up $24,000, so Chairman Marc L. Fleischaker demurred. "That's a lot of extra money," he said this week.

When it comes to landing tickets to the tournament, Washington's well-heeled and well-connected are no match for college basketball's biggest boosters -- the Super Rams of North Carolina, the Silver Chiefs of Florida State or the eponymous Iron Dukes.

Tickets to the ACC tournament have been tough to get for decades. There hasn't been a public sale since 1966. Instead, the tickets are controlled by each school's athletic fund-raising arm -- the University of North Carolina's Rams Club, for example, or Duke University's Iron Dukes -- which dangle them as bait to land hefty donations from boosters to fund athletic scholarships, bankroll stadium renovations and, in some cases, sweeten the compensation packages for million-dollar coaches.

But two factors have converged this season to create college basketball's perfect storm, making tickets more prized than usual.

First, the ACC added new members Miami and Virginia Tech, which means tickets must now be split among 11 schools instead of nine. And second, MCI Center is smaller than the venues that typically host the tournament -- it has nearly 4,000 fewer seats than the 23,500-seat Greensboro (N.C.) Coliseum, the 2004 ACC tournament host.

As a result, ACC schools have seen their allotment of tickets slashed by nearly 500. And as any Economics 101 textbook will testify, scarcity drives demand.

For ACC boosters, it has meant having to dig deeper in their pockets. The Iron Dukes raised the minimum donation to qualify for tournament tickets roughly 25 percent this year, to about $10,000. In some cases, donors accustomed to buying four tournament tickets were cut back to two tickets, while some who bought two tickets last year have been shut out altogether.

Stephen Cella of New Bern, N.C., was among those passed over by his alma mater, North Carolina. Cella qualified for two tournament tickets last year; this year, none.

"We were on that cutting edge of where the line was," said Cella, a 1979 graduate and Rams Club member. "When they play in the smaller arenas, there's just not but so many seats. I guess it's one of the prices of expansion."

For Washington area fans, the tournament's return to the region after an 18-year hiatus is cause for celebration. But it has created a third complication for Maryland's Terrapin Club: More of its members want tickets now that the action is in their backyard. "We're getting squeezed on all three of those fronts: The size of the venue, expansion and the fact that it's at home," says Joe Hull, Maryland's senior associate director for external operations.

Says Matthew Haas, a 1993 Maryland graduate whose family has had four ACC tournament tickets for the last 15 years: "The tickets have become so scarce. It's amazing how many new friends I have!"

The ticket shortage came as no surprise to the ACC's most fervent boosters. The clubs started sending out gently worded letters a year and a half ago, letting members know that conference expansion would cut each school's allotment and that minimum donations to qualify for tickets would rise.

"Some people called as soon as we sent out the letters and said, 'What'll it take?' " said John Cherry, associate executive director of North Carolina's Rams Club. "On the other hand, it's hard to measure whether people got discouraged."

In the meantime, ACC officials made nearly a dozen trips to Washington to scour every unused square inch of floor space at MCI Center, looking for places to shoehorn more seats. "They have very huge portals by the tunnels," ACC tournament director Fred Barakat said. "We put seats there, in the corners of the floor, in any opening where there were no seats. We went around and created a lot of seats."

When the final math was done, Barakat delivered the bad news: The nine schools in the ACC last season would each get 1,941 tickets. As new members, Miami and Virginia Tech would get a one-third share (647 tickets each), with the promise of a two-thirds share in 2006 and full share in 2007.

At Virginia Tech, that meant the Hokies' top 200 donors -- those who had given about $100,000 to the athletic program over a lifetime -- were guaranteed tickets. As orders were filled, Hokie Club officials were able to move down their donor list, offering tickets to members who had given in the $50,000 to $75,000 range.

For basketball fans who don't enjoy elite status in an ACC booster group, the search for tournament tickets has led to sticker shock. Brokers are charging as much as $4,500 for a four-day ticket book in the arena's lower deck. A bad seat in the corner of the upper deck goes for as much as $795.

That doesn't mean brokers are getting rich, says Danny Matta, owner of College Park-based GreatSeats.com. Matta buys his ACC tickets (which have a face value of $325) at a hefty premium from boosters who can't use them.

"I'm paying double value just to get anything in the building," Matta says. "For stuff in the lower level, I'm paying five times face value."

Matta thinks the tickets are worth the price, particularly if you spread the cost over 10 games in four days. A Bowie native, he lives and breathes Maryland basketball. And he's emblematic of just why the 2005 ACC tournament has such cachet: The passion of the fans, the proximity of the participating schools, and the fact that regardless of a fan's college ties, the tournament delivers great basketball, with three of the nation's top six teams competing (North Carolina, Wake Forest and Duke).

All of that has made it one of the tougher tickets in memory -- tougher than a Redskins-Cowboys game, tougher than the 2001 NBA All-Star Game, tougher than the Capitals' 1998 Stanley Cup run -- according to the lobbyists who trade in access. With tickets scarce, they're scouring their Palm Pilots for distant relatives of ACC officials, NCAA staffers and MCI Center personnel, while searching for new ways of saying, "Sorry, I can't help you."

Said Nike's Figel, "I know after working the system, it's a short list with a long line."

Sizing up seeds on slippery slope
ACC tournament field depends on outcomes of several games
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER
Mar 5, 2005

Will North Carolina be the No. 1 seed or will it be Wake Forest?

Who's No. 11, the Virginia Cavaliers or the Florida State Seminoles?

Will Virginia Tech get a first-round bye, or, like U.Va., will it have to play on opening day?

The ACC men's basketball tournament begins Thursday at MCI Center in Washington, and numerous questions remain unanswered as the conference heads into the final two days of the regular season.

The top five seeds get first-round byes, and Nos. 6-11 play Thursday: 8 vs. 9 at noon, 7 vs. 10 at 2:30 p.m. and 6 vs. 11 at 7 p.m. Three teams already are assured of having Thursday off: North Carolina, Wake and Duke.

UNC will clinch the No. 1 seed by beating archrival Duke in Chapel Hill or if Wake loses at N.C. State. Both games are tomorrow.

If the Tar Heels lose to Duke, the Demon Deacons can earn the top seed by beating the Wolfpack. Wake defeated UNC in the teams' lone regular-season meeting.

The remaining two first-round byes will go to teams from this group: Virginia Tech, N.C. State, Maryland and Georgia Tech.

Virginia Tech and Maryland meet this afternoon at Cassell Coliseum. The winner will receive the No. 4 or No. 5 seed. If Virginia Tech, Georgia Tech and N.C. State all lose this weekend, Maryland would be seeded fourth. Four teams then would be tied at 7-9, including Miami, and the Hokies would receive the No. 5 seed under the ACC's tiebreaking system.

During the regular season, Virginia Tech went 2-0 against Miami, 1-1 against N.C. State and 1-0 against Georgia Tech.

Where U.Va. is seeded will depend in part on how Clemson fares at Georgia Tech this afternoon. If the Tigers upset the Yellow Jackets, Virginia can do no better than the No. 10 seed. If Clemson loses today, U.Va. would secure the No. 9 seed by winning at Florida State tomorrow.

If the Cavaliers lose at FSU, they will receive the No. 11 seed, no matter what Clemson does in Atlanta. Virginia and Florida State each would finish with a 4-12 conference record. Neither team would gain an advantage in head-to-head competition because they'd have split their season series. FSU, however, would win the tiebreaker by virtue of its victory over Wake Forest.

Virginia hasn't beaten any of the league's top three teams.