U.VA. NOTES
Richmond Times-Dispatch Mar 3, 2006

SEVERAL SCENARIOS: Virginia's loss at North Carolina knocked first-year coach Dave Leitao's club out of contention for the No.5 seed in the ACC men's basketball tournament, which starts Thursday in Greensboro, N.C.

The Cavaliers will be seeded sixth, seventh or eighth, depending on what happens this weekend.

With the regular season almost over, Florida State (8-7, 18-8) is in fifth place. Three teams - U.Va. (7-8, 14-12), Miami (7-8, 15-13) and Maryland (7-8, 17-11) - are tied for sixth.

Clemson (6-9, 17-11) plays host to Georgia Tech (4-11, 11-15) tomorrow afternoon. Florida State plays at Miami on Sunday at 1 p.m. Later that afternoon, U.Va. entertains Maryland.

Should FSU and U.Va. win Sunday, the Seminoles would be seeded No.5 and the Cavs No.6. Should Clemson win tomorrow, and FSU win and U.Va. lose Sunday, the Cavaliers would be among three teams at 7-9 in ACC play. But Virginia would win the tie-breaker for the No.7 seed.

If Miami and U.Va. win Sunday, three teams would finish with 8-8 records. Miami would be seeded fifth, FSU sixth and U.Va. seventh under the ACC tie-breaking system.

If Miami wins and U.Va. loses Sunday, the Cavaliers would be seeded eighth, even if Clemson wins tomorrow.

LONG-RANGE PLANNING: After this season, the U.Va. men's and women's basketball teams will move out of University Hall and into the John Paul Jones Arena.

So what becomes of U-Hall? Eventually, the building will be torn down, to be replaced, in all likelihood, by a field house that would allow the football team (and others) to practice indoors in bad weather.

For now, though, U.Va. may try to modify the court level and install surfaces that would allow some of its teams to practice in U-Hall.

"At the very least, we think it might provide some short-term relief for the Cage," Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said. "We have a portable floor that certainly could be put down at any time."

The Cage, which is inside Onesty Hall, never will be confused with a first-class indoor facility.

OFF AND RUNNING: Virginia has its first football commitment for 2007. Jared Detrick, a junior from Woodside High in Newport News, chose the Cavaliers this week.

A 6-2, 235-pound inside linebacker, Detrick also is a track standout at Woodside. His older brother Jason starred in basketball for Oklahoma.

U.Va.'s lead recruiter for Jared Detrick is defensive coordinator Mike London, who also played in the Peninsula District, at Bethel High in Hampton.

IN THE CREASE: In men's lacrosse, Virginia (4-0) has outscored its opponents 66-22 this season.

The competition is about to get tougher. U.Va. plays host to perennial power Syracuse (1-0) at 3 p.m. tomorrow at Klockner Stadium.

The Orange's lineup includes two players who know their way around Klockner: attackman Joe Yevoli and midfielder Nathan Kenney. Both began their college careers at U.Va.

Yevoli, who was a three-year starter for the Cavaliers, had two goals and two assists last weekend in Syracuse's 14-10 win over Army. Kenney had a goal.

U.Va. edged Syracuse at the Carrier Dome last year but trails in the series 11-8. The Cavaliers haven't beaten the Orange in Charlottesville since 1996.

SPLIT LOYALTIES? Not only is Steve Bernstein a former Virginia Tech assistant, his wife, Carolyn Maddy-Bernstein, has a Ph.D. from Tech. Their son and daughter-in-law live in Christiansburg and have degrees from Tech, too.

Bernstein, whom football coach Al Groh hired last month to oversee Virginia's secondary, isn't worried about his new job straining family relations.

"My wife said she'll support whoever employs me," said Bernstein, who coached at North Illinois in 2004 and'05. "So she's a Cavalier. She's real happy to be here. She's been a football coach's wife for 25 years now, so she understands where her allegiance lies."

Bernstein, 61, had never worked with Groh before taking the U.Va. job. But Bernstein's former colleagues - among them Bill Dooley, Gary Darnell, Danny Rocco and John Mackovic - include some of Groh's best friends in the business. Also, Bernstein coached in 2004 with Levern Belin at Northern Illinois. Belin joined Groh's staff at U.Va. in 2005.

"It's all kind of intertwined," Bernstein said. - Jeff White
 

Cavaliers starting to hit the wall
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
March 3, 2006

In the wake of the most embarrassing loss of his brief tenure - a 99-54 trouncing at North Carolina - Virginia coach Dave Leitao made a telling comment about his players.
"[We're] trying to draw more from these guys," Leitao said, "and right now they're not giving."

With one game left in the regular season, the question is: Does Leitao's team have any more to give?

In the last two losses against Clemson and North Carolina, Virginia players have looked like kids who went on an amusement park's roller coaster one too many times.

"We're getting tired," admitted Virginia sophomore Sean Singletary, "but it's more of a mental thing. We have to be strong mentally and we haven't been."

In essence, the team - with just eight scholarship players - has been playing short-handed all season.

Since he doesn't have a full bench, Leitao has had to play every player on his roster much more than he would have liked.

Of the six returning scholarship players from last season, only T.J. Bannister hasn't received an increase in playing time - and that's because he's been battling an injury.

Singletary played nearly 30 minutes per game last season. This season he's averaging 34.

Tunji Soroye has gone from 6 to 20; Jason Cain from 12 to 27; Adrian Joseph from 14 to 30.

J.R. Reynolds has had the smallest increase, 32.3 to 33.

While players will never complain about more playing time, the extra minutes could be taking a toll.

"Definitely the whole team is fatigued," Joseph said. "Our legs are tired at this point of the season, but that shouldn't be an excuse."

The lack of depth has also hurt in practice. On occasion, Virginia has barely had enough healthy bodies to scrimmage full-court.

The bright side? With six incoming recruits, it shouldn't be a problem next season.

In Leitao's doghouse

Earlier this season, Virginia's Jason Cain was clearly not in the good graces of Leitao. The 6-foot-10 junior was constantly being berated during games following mistakes.

However, after a stretch of pretty solid play - that included a string of double-doubles - it seemed that Cain had escaped Leitao's doghouse.

Unfortunately for Cain, he's back in it.

The Philadelphia native, who is the team's leading rebounder, has played just 15 minutes in the last two games.

Against Clemson, he appeared to exchange words with Virginia assistant coach Steve Seymour after being taken out in the first half. Cain, who had started, was benched at the beginning of the second half.

Cain got the start against North Carolina. He scored on his only shot attempt, grabbed three rebounds and blocked two shots in six minutes.

But after committing a foul with 8:20 left in the half, he didn't play the rest of the way.

"Coach's decision," said Leitao, when asked about Cain's limited court time.

 

The shot that put UVa on the map
This is the first in a three-part series on the most
Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 3, 2006

Maybe it wasn't the shot heard round the world, but Barry Parkhill's 12-foot jumper that beat second-ranked South Carolina on Jan. 9, 1971, raised more than a few eyebrows around the ACC.
The upset over Frank McGuire's high-and-mighty Gamecocks served notice that Virginia was for real. Many believe that night, that shot, served as the true birth of Wahoo basketball.

Gene Corrigan, who later went on to serve as athletic director at UVa and Notre Dame prior to becoming commissioner of the ACC, believes that single game was the most significant moment in the history of the Cavaliers' program. He's not alone.

"That game got it all started," said Dan Bonner, a former teammate of Parkhill's and now a television basketball analyst. "Without that win over South Carolina, then nothing that happened afterwards would have been quite the same."

Virginia had been in University Hall for only six seasons - none of them winning seasons - when Parkhill & Co. took Hoos hoops to a different level under the direction of Bill "Hoot" Gibson.

"Coach Gibson used to talk about turning the corner," remembered Jim Hobgood, who does the basketball color commentary on the Virginia radio network. "I think that [game] was when the Virginia program turned the corner."

A memorable week

A lot of younger Wahoo fans aren't aware of the stunner over South Carolina, but even more experienced UVa supporters probably aren't aware of what else transpired that week. Virginia knocked off Clemson on a Saturday night at U-Hall, then shocked the Gamecocks on a Monday, beat Wake Forest on Wednesday, then topped Georgia Tech three days later.

That's four straight home wins in a span of eight days. For its efforts, Virginia earned its first-ever national ranking in basketball, debuting at No. 19 in the Associated Press poll of Jan. 19. The Cavaliers were idle the next week due to exams but moved up to No. 15 en route to a 15-11 record, 6-8 in the ACC, snapping a streak of 17 straight seasons without a winning record.

Corrigan said the four wins, primarily the South Carolina one, was a giant step in moving the entire UVa athletic program forward.

Recreating a memory

Fast forward 35 years to a near-empty University Hall a couple of weeks ago when this columnist and a photographer revisited that special moment with the legendary Parkhill on the aging arena's court.

As humble today as he was when named to the All-American team during his playing days, we had to twist Parkhill's arm to relive the historic play. Beginning on Sunday, you can view photos of him re-enacting the shot with his own narration on our web site: www.dailyprogress.com, as part of a spectacular slide show dedicated to the highlights of University Hall's final days as a basketball arena.

Now the associate athletics director for development for the school he loves so dearly, Parkhill closed his eyes and rewound his memory to that night in 1971.

McGuire and his roughhouse Gamecocks came rolling into U-Hall expected to win in a walk. But the Wahoo fans were ready for an upset. The first pre-game sellout in the arena's short history jammed every nook and cranny, at least 9,000 of them, which made for an intense atmosphere.

Rubber chickens were thrown onto the court as the fans were on McGuire from the get-go.

Virginia decided to shorten the game, which meant that Parkhill, who at 6-foot-5 would even be tall for a point guard today, would spend minutes dribbling the ball (there was no shot clock in those days). At one point in the game, the floppy-haired UVa star would dribble the ball for six consecutive minutes as the other nine players looked on.

"We were down three points (49-46) with a little over three minutes to play (USC scored its last points at the 7:24 mark)," Parkhill remembered. "I don't know how I got the ball back (it came on a pass from Tim Rash, who had stolen the ball), but I went in and got fouled, I was grabbed from behind (by Kevin Joyce)."

Parkhill made both free throws to cut it to 49-48 with 3:09 to play.

"Somehow we got the ball back (after Joyce was called for traveling at 2:10). We came down and called time out with 56 seconds to go. We ran clock and called timeout again with 19 seconds showing."

What happened next carved itself into Cavalier basketball lore. Gibson told Parkhill that if South Carolina came out in man-to-man, which it did, he was to just go one-on-one.

"I took it out, passed it and got it back," Parkhill said.

Here we were, two journalists watching a legend recreate history as Parkhill, donning a Virginia sweatshirt, took a basketball and began dribbling the ball. With no one else in the building each dribble echoed all over the empty arena.

"I was working the clock," he said, continuing to dribble to the right of the key. "Then somewhere about right here, I shot a fade away."

Just as that night with Joyce guarding him, Parkhill launched the fade away jumper from about 12 feet with six seconds to go.

SWISH.

Nothing but net, now as was then.

Parkhill's jumper sent U-Hall into complete pandemonium that night. Students stormed the court and hoisted him upon their shoulders in a victory ride off the court.

Hobgood remembers that South Carolina actually got off a better shot (Rick Aydlett) than it should have, but missed at the buzzer.

"[Aydlett] took four steps when he caught it, but that was a moot point," Parkhill said.

Not only was the game important because it put Wahoo basketball on the map, but it got the community excited and it kept coming back. In those days, it was first come, first served for seats, so as Hobgood put it, "the place would be rockin' by the time the varsity game started."

Parkhill clearly remembers the shot, but has a constant reminder in his basement, a photo of the play. As a gag gift, he sent a copy of that photo to Joyce, who he has stayed in touch with, a few years ago at Christmas time.

Hobgood said that subsequently, Virginia went on to win the ACC tournament championship in 1976, landed players such as Wally Walker, Bobby Stokes, Marc Iavaroni, Steve Castellan, then followed with Jeff Lamp, Lee Raker, and Ralph Sampson.

"Those guys reached heights we couldn't attain," Hobgood said. "But we demonstrated in our time that the program could be successful."


 

UVa Roundup
Lacrosse teams set for big tilts
From staff reports / Charlottesville Daily Progress
March 3, 2006

Men's college lacrosse fans up and down the East Coast are eager to see what will happen Saturday afternoon at Klockner Stadium when third-ranked Virginia (4-0) plays host to fifth-ranked Syracuse (1-0) at 3 p.m. following a women's game between the two schools.
Many different Cavaliers have combined to score 66 goals in their first four games for Coach Dom Starsia and his staff. The Orange defeated Army 14-10 last Saturday in its season opener at the Carrier Dome.

Syracuse and Virginia will collide for the 20th time in the series, which the Orange leads 11-8. Last year, the Cavaliers won 12-11 at the Carrier Dome. Starsia's 2003 team also won by a one-goal margin (16-15) at Syracuse.

UVa senior co-captain J.J. Morrissey said he and his teammates are eager to get into "the meat" of their 2006 schedule. On March 12, the Cavaliers travel to seventh-ranked Princeton.

Saturday's game also marks a Charlottesville return of two former standouts for the 2004 Cavaliers who now play for Syracuse - Joe Yevoli, a senior attacker for the Orange, and Nathan Kenney, a senior defenseman.

WOMEN'S LACROSSE: The Cavaliers aim to bounce back Saturday when they play host to Syracuse at noon at Klockner Stadium.

Virginia (2-1) lost 8-7 at Richmond on Wednesday. Tyler Leachman scored four goals for UVa, which lost to the Spiders for the first time in more than 20 years.

Leachman's four goals give her 186 career points and move her into the No. 6 spot for career scoring in Virginia history.

Richmond (1-1) led 3-2 at halftime. Ashley Friend scored the last three goals for the Spiders. The Cavaliers led 20-13 in shots.

WOMEN'S GOLF: The No. 15 Cavaliers will start competition today in the Louisiana State Classic in Baton Rouge. The 54-hole tournament includes 18 college teams, using LSU's par-72, 6,338-yard layout.

Other ACC teams entered are Florida State, North Carolina and North Carolina State. No. 5 Auburn owns the highest national ranking in Golf Week magazine.

The Cavaliers are paired with the College of Charleston and Florida State for today's 18 holes. Sunday's final round features a shotgun start at 9:30 a.m.

Leah Wigger, who is ranked 28th by Golf Week, is Virginia's No. 1 player for this event. She was the runner-up in Virginia's first spring outing, placing second at Miami's Papa John's Collegiate with a 5-over 221.

SOFTBALL: Hoping to improve on their four-game winning streak, the Cavaliers travel to Marietta, Ga., this weekend to compete in the 14th annual Atlanta Marriott Buzz Classic, which ends Sunday at the Al Bishop Sports Complex.

Virginia (6-2) will challenge Oklahoma State (2-9) and St. Joseph's (Pa.) in pool play today. On Saturday, UVa faces South Dakota State and Evansville.

Thirteen of the 25 teams advance to bracket play, which begins Saturday night. The title game starts at 1 p.m. on Sunday.

VOLLEYBALL: Two Virginia recruits - Lauren Dickson of Austin, Tex., and Tara Hester of Naperville, Ill. - were listed among 21 finalists for PrepVolleyball.com's 2005 National Senior of Year.

In addition, both future Cavaliers were among 150 players named 2005 PrepVolleyball.com High School All-Americans. Dickson and Hester signed with the Cavaliers in November and will begin playing for Virginia in the fall.

Dickson, a 6-foot-1 outside hitter, helped lead her high school team to back-to-back 5-A state championship finals in Texas. An academic All-State selection, she owns the Westlake High career record for kills with 1,002. Dickson is 44th on PrepVolleyball.com's top 100 recruits for 2006.

Hester, a 5-11 outside hitter, was a three-year starter on Naperville Central's volleyball team and helped win the Illinois Class AA State Championship. She was named to the 2005 Chicago Tribune All-State first team.
 

Undefeated Cavs face formidable foe Saturday
Although Cavaliers have racked up double-digit scores in all games so far, No. 4 Syracuse will be most competitive opponent to date
Ben Gibson, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

For their first four games this season the Virginia men's lacrosse team has been virtually unstoppable. The Cavaliers have downed their opponents by a combined score of 66-22 and seem to have proven they are among the nation's elite teams. However, the third-ranked Virginia Cavaliers (4-0) will face their toughest test by far this season when they take on the fourth-ranked Syracuse Orangemen (1-0) on Saturday at Klöckner Stadium. Virginia has won 14 consecutive games at home, one shy of the school record. In order to pick up the elusive number 15, Virginia will have to be prepared for a more intense level of play.

"It's always special when Syracuse comes to town," senior midfield Drew Thompson said. "You know it's going to be high-scoring and fast-paced."

Last year, the Cavaliers picked up one of their biggest wins of the year with a 12-11 victory over Syracuse at the Carrier Dome. Senior attacker Matt Poskay was the hero in that game, coming off the bench to score a team-high four goals, the last coming late in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 10-10. This year Poskay has continued to show off his offensive prowess as a senior, and is currently fifth on the team in points. Senior captain Matt Ward had two goals in last year's contest. In Virginia's outing against VMI, Ward scored his 106th career goal to tie for seventh all-time at Virginia. The seniors' experience against Syracuse will be a huge advantage on Saturday and one the Cavaliers will look to capitalize on.

Face-offs have been a category where Virginia has dominated so far this season. On the season Virginia is 60 of 98 on face-offs, a .612 winning percentage. When facing a team as loaded as the Orange are, a game can be decided by who gets the ball into their offense's hands.

"Face-offs can help deflate a run or help you go on a run," Thompson said. "It's something you can control. Possession is the key in any sport you have the ball -- you have a chance to win."

Defensively, the Cavaliers had to balance youth and experience and it appears they have done that. Opponents have had 96 shot attempts against Virginia all season, compared to the total 232 shots the Cavaliers have taken against opponents. The strong defense has made life easier for junior goalkeeper Kip Turner, and will look to do the same on Saturday.

Syracuse has a wide range of offensive threats, including Joe Yevoli, who is currently tied for the point lead on the team. Yevoli played three years at Virginia before transferring amid controversy. Barring a meeting in the NCAA tournament, this will be the only time Yevoli will play his former team. Junior defender Ricky Smith has shut down some high-scoring threats already this year and looks to do the same against Yevoli and the Orange.

"We match up pretty well defensively against them," Smith said. "If we can shut down their transition game, which they've always been good at, and get them six-on-six then we should be fine."

When Syracuse and Virginia play lacrosse, sparks will fly. This series has been a nail-biter year after year. Three of out of the last four meetings have been decided by two goals or fewer. For a team that has not had to play with much pressure all year, it might seem a concern that with so many new faces no one knows how the freshmen might deal when a game is on the line. For the experienced seniors, however, it's just another day at work.

"This is what we look for when we come here, Virginia v. Syracuse," Smith said. "We've been here before."
 

Absence of Cain isn’t helping Cavs
Groh discussed off-field philosophy
Doug Doughty

One of the most impressive aspects of Dave Leitao’s Virginia coaching debut is that he invariably seems to have the best lineups on the floor, which might not be the hardest thing when you’ve got only eight scholarship players.

That said, I can’t understand what’s going on with junior forward Jason Cain.

Given that the Cavaliers have suffered consecutive 26- and 45-point road losses with Cain respectively playing nine and six minutes, I think it’s safe to say that UVa is not benefitting from his absence.

I’d go so far as to say, for a two-month period beginning with his first start Dec. 17 at Gonzaga, Cain was the Cavaliers’ third best player behind guards Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds.

Even in his limited engagement Wednesday night, Cain had three rebounds. That’s only one fewer than UVa’s co-leading rebounders, freshmen Lauris Mikalauskas and Mamadi Diane, had in a respective 34 and 21 minutes.

Tunji Soroye, the Cavaliers’ starting center, had one rebound in 14 minutes.

UVa blocked two shots in the game, both by Cain.

So, what’s up?

Cain played 22 minutes Feb. 21 in a 72-58 victory over Boston College, but he was in foul trouble for most of that game and eventually fouled out – his first disqualification in five weeks. Before that, he had played at least 33 minutes in five of six games, with the lone exception coming in a 91-56 blowout of Longwood.

Things started going awry in the opening minutes Saturday at Clemson, where Cain had three turnovers – two the apparent result of miscommunication with J.R. Reynolds. Cain threw one ball over Reynolds' head and threw another ball into the corner as Reynolds was cutting toward midcourt.

When Cain came to the bench following a substitution, he apparently said something that caught the attention of assistant Steve Seymour, who quickly vaulted out of his seat and confronted Cain on the sideline.

Cain did not start the second half against Clemson and he didn’t even play in the second half at Carolina.

On the ACC coaches’ teleconference earlier this week, I asked Leitao how important it was to get Cain on the “same page” as he had been for the previous two months.

“Shucks, we have to have everybody on the same page,” Leitao said.

Apparently, I hadn’t seen the same Cain that Leitao had seen.

“If you look at it, he has been both consistent and inconsistent, as all of our guys have been this year, which is why we’re 7-7 in the league,” Leitao said Monday.

“I don’t think I can look at it the way you stated, in that everything’s been fine and wonderful for six weeks and, in a matter of a week or whatever, it’s gone south.

“We’ve been hot and cold with a lot that we’ve done all season long and he in particular.”

When a team has eight scholarship underclassmen and has taken six commitments, while continuing to recruit players like Bridgton Academy guard Keaton Grant, one wonders how the Cavaliers are going to meet the 13-scholarship NCAA limit?

Media gadfly Jeff White said it wouldn’t make sense for Leitao to nudge Cain toward the door, although at least one e-mailer has made that suggestion to me today.

The more I think about it, the Cain situation is not unlike Leitao’s treatment of back-up point guard T.J. Bannister. Three times this season, Bannister has been sidelined for extended periods – four games, six games, then four games again – and I’m not sure it was all the result of his September hernia surgery.

A roster with eight scholarship players does not leave much room in the doghouse but I think it’s safe to say that Leitao has one.

THE GADFLY, who spends most of his life scanning message boards, said he agrees with posters who said I applied a double standard last week by citing a unnamed coach who said Virginia’s football team had “a partying problem.”

He may be right, so let me elaborate. The coach is not from Virginia Tech and says he got his “take” on UVa from a recruit.

In a Tuesday phone conversation with head coach Al Groh, I asked if he would address – or has addressed – his players about their off-field conduct.

“Constantly,” Groh said. “For five years! I think we have pretty exacting standards on a 24-hour basis – academically, how you dress, how you play, how you behave on the field, all these different things.

“With well over 100 people involved, every day’s not going to be a perfect day. That doesn’t mean that we lower the standards. The easy way to have no issues is to have no standards. The more exacting your standards are, the more you leave yourself out there to be vulnerable.

“If you have no standards, there’s never anything to report. When there are things that need to be dealt with, as much as possible we deal them internally. I don’t think it’s right to hang players on the team out there for scrutiny over certain things that other people would not be put out there for.

“You can make a public display of people to make yourself look good – 'Oooh, look what he did' -- but that’s not the purpose.”

Groh dismissed sophomore walk-on Bryan Lescanec after he was arrested for assault and battery involving female, “but that was a very public issue and an entirely different issue from what these other issues might be,” Groh said.

“The team is well aware of the fact that issues of that nature are going to be addressed pretty directly and pretty quickly.”