Cavs need more support
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
March 9, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. - A good deal of the time, articles that appear in preseason publications or on web sites are based on guesswork.
Some can wind up looking pretty silly.

However, not too many people missed the boat on Virginia this season.

It was pretty much a consensus that the backcourt of Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds was one of the best in the ACC. It was also a consensus that in order for Virginia to have any real success, it would have to find somebody else to consistently put the ball in the basket.

Some six months later, that analysis is still right on the money.

Tonight, Virginia plays Virginia Tech - a team it has already beaten twice this season - in the first round of the ACC Tournament. If the reeling Cavaliers - they've lost three straight - have any hope of defeating a deeper, more athletic Hokies' team for a third time, they can't rely solely on Singletary and Reynolds.

If they do, their season will end in disappointing fashion, despite the fact that they've surpassed almost everyone's expectations.

"When we've played well and have had some success, we've gotten great performances from our alternative guys," said Virginia coach Dave Leitao. "Whether it's [Adrian Joseph or Mamadi Diane], Jason Cain or Laurynas [Mikalauskas], somewhere along the line a couple of those guys have to have big games to put us in position to win."

Of the above players, Joseph has the potential to make the greatest impact in the scoring column. The 6-foot-7 sophomore wing player is the only one of the quartet to score over 20 points in a game this season.

In Virginia's win over Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Joseph hit the game-winning 3-pointer with a minute left.

Joseph, who has been pretty inconsistent this season, said it was the biggest shot of his life. On Wednesday, he sounded poised to play the biggest game of his life.

"A lot of people have mentioned that I'm the X-factor on the team," said Joseph, who is averaging 9.9 points this season. "I'll try and do what I've been trying to do all season - be that third-leading scorer on the team."

Joseph said he wasn't feeling any pressure.

"Not at all," he said. "I've been here [to the ACC Tournament] before. I didn't play as much as I do now, but I have the experience to understand the situation."

As you would expect, Mikalauskas and Diane - both freshmen - have been sporadic.

Diane has struggled away from University Hall, shooting just 26 percent (compared to 43 at home). Mikalauskas is averaging just 5.8 points.

However, he has been much more aggressive on the offensive end of late.

After being benched for the majority of the Clemson and North Carolina games, Cain had nine points against Maryland.

Virginia Tech guard Jamon Gordon knows the importance of shutting down Virginia's third option.

"You can't really stop Singletary and Reynolds," Gordon said. "They're going to score their points because most of the plays are going to them, so you have to try and take out people like Joseph and Cain and the rest of their supporting cast.

"If you stop them, and then let Singletary and Reynolds do their thing, you can probably win, but when those other guys start chipping in - that's when they're a really good team."

No matter what kind of contributions Virginia gets from its complimentary players, Leitao said the task of beating any team three times - let alone one as talented as Virginia Tech - isn't easy. He said there is a psychological component to the challenge that revolves around becoming complacent.

"If you watch both films, it was one or two possessions either way that was the difference between victory and defeat," Leitao said, "and we have to approach it that way."

It's been a trying year for Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, whose team has had more than its fair share of tough luck - on and off the court.

The Hokies lost their ACC season opener to Duke on a last-second heave by Sean Dockery.

Coleman Collins, the team's best big man, recently lost his father to cancer. Three other players have lost relatives this season.

"It's been an emotional drain," Greenberg said. "Our off-the-court situation, I think, has taken away a little bit of our players' spirit, and that's just human nature. You don't know what's in someone's heart. Everyone responds to tragedy in different ways. We've now had four funerals in the last five weeks. I think it's taken away a little bit of our spirit at times. By taking that away, I think it's affected our ability to win those games down the stretch.

"Sometimes the ball just doesn't bounce your way, but we've got a clean slate right now. We've played well enough to have a chance to win almost every game, and I think that's a tribute to our kids - that despite everything else going on they've found a way to stay in there and scrap and claw."

On Wednesday, Collins looked drained as he answered question after question about his team's off-the-court setbacks. He seemed delighted when the subject returned to basketball.

Collins recalled Joseph's big 3 back in Blacksburg.

"He hit the big 3 in our place," Collins said. "They've got a lot of different guys that can hurt you. First and foremost, you have to stop Singletary and Reynolds, but their supporting cast hasn't been too shabby."

Singletary said he has had private conversations with Joseph, Mikalauskas, Cain and Diane. During those talks, Singletary said he has emphasized the importance of their contributions.

"Everyone knows what they have to do," Singletary said. "We just need production out of everyone. That's the only way we'll win games."

DUNKS: Reynolds on the importance of containing Collins: "He's a tremendous player and does a great job for them. I think if he gets going early, it will be a tough game for us."? Leitao on his first ACC Tournament: "It takes you back to some of the great games and some of the great performances from the great players over the course of history - David Thompson, Len Bias, Michael Jordan. It lets you know that you're in a very special place and that you have to make sure to prepare your team to play at a very high level."? Leitao said he won't tell Singletary to play any differently on the defensive end in light of his foul problems against Maryland on Sunday. "He's one of the league leaders in steals," Leitao said, "so if I tell him not to go for steals, I'm taking away something he knows that is good for him and the team. At the same point in time, when you get caught and pick up fouls that are relatively unnecessary, there's a very fine balance."

 

Tough love the way to go for Cavs
Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 9, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C.
Coaches walk a psychological tightrope at this time of year, trying to determine how hard to push their basketball teams heading into postseason play. One wrong move can kill a team's chances just as easily as a major physical problem.

Maybe that's why Dave Leitao was joking around with Adrian Joseph and Mamadi Diane during a 3-point shooting drill at the end of Wednesday's practice session at the Greensboro Coliseum. Sometimes it's as important to know when to ease off the pedal as to go full speed ahead.

Joining N.C. State as the only teams to enter today's ACC Tournament on a three-game losing streak, Leitao must also play amateur psychologist to make sure the buttons he pushes for tonight's game against state-rival Virginia Tech are working properly.

"You have to [lighten up] in terms of how you prepare and how you practice," Leitao said after a light workout. "You really can't go at it the way you have earlier in the season because you're protecting bodies more than anything else."

That's particularly true with Leitao, who has fewer bodies to protect than anyone else. The Cavaliers are razor thin in depth with only eight scholarship players on the roster. Billy Campbell, a senior walk-on with experience, is about the only other player the coach can lean on.

Leitao trying to ease up

Still, the coach knows that the ACC Tournament presents a simple math problem. Either prepare a certain way and advance, or go home.

If this is a race, then his team is just hitting the backstretch, and as much as Leitao would like to use the whip hand more, instinct tells him to hold back.

"I can't brow beat them or yell or scream or prod and push, because if I do so, I'm beating down bodies that are already sore," the coach said in an interview just off the coliseum floor. "But at the same time, we can still challenge them to be how they have been all year long."

Practices have gotten shorter and drills go by a lot quicker than earlier in the season. Leitao doesn't want to push his team too hard. Instead, he's trading time for perhaps adding a little more detail to the preparation.

He has already pushed this team perhaps beyond its limits in terms of physical play and mental preparation. In fact, it appeared his young team simply hit the proverbial wall more than a week ago at Clemson, followed by a lopsided loss at North Carolina last Wednesday night.

Dishing out some praise

Maybe that's one reason that Leitao went out of his way after Sunday's heartbreaking one-point home loss to Maryland to praise his team publicly. That is something the new Virginia coach hadn't done all season long prior to that point.

That's when he said that this was the hardest working group of kids he had ever been around.

He jokingly told the capacity crowd on hand for the last regular season game at University Hall that he had held out on telling his team so up until then because he was afraid they'd get soft on him.

The Cavaliers would be the first to tell you that practices have been hard all season long, but they would also inform you that's exactly what this team needed. Staunch discipline.

"He would have never let us know that to our faces," said Campbell. "But to hear him say that makes it all worth it ... the 6 a.m. lifting, running and conditioning. What he said puts it all in perspective. All the hard work was worth it for a reason."

It wasn't easy for Leitao to come out after losing a one-point game after coming back from 18 down, to walk out onto the University Hall floor and put on a happy face for the die-hards. Campbell said that the Leitao addressing the crowd wasn't the same one he saw in the locker room minutes before.

"Coach was upset with the loss more than anything," said UVa's only senior. "That's the way he is, regardless of ceremonies. This loss is what it came down to for him and I think that's the way you should take it as a coach. I appreciated that as a player."

Leitao, who really doesn't do a lot of smiling after wins, let alone losses, said he once attended a Chicago Bulls win over the Miami Heat, and when he saw Miami coach Pat Riley emerge from the locker room, "Riley looked like he had lost his best friend." Meanwhile, everybody else in the building was happy because it was an enjoyable game to watch.

"I thought that Sunday's game was similar to that in that our coaches were probably the only ones in that building that really wanted to dig a hole and crawl into it after the loss," Leitao said.

Yes, it was a great comeback. No, his team never gave up. Yes, it was a great ceremony for the farewell to University Hall. But if you're the coach, it's more than that. It's your life. It's what you do and how you're judged.

So, before Leitao praised this team as the hardest working group of players he had ever been around, he wanted to be confident that was the case. Remember, he coached one national championship team as an assistant at UConn.

"I started to think about all that when we started practice this season, back on Aug. 27," Leitao said Wednesday. "I don't know if misfits is the right term, but we didn't have an identity. We didn't know what to expect. These guys were coming off something physically and perhaps emotionally in the offseason that's hard to deal with - a change in leadership.

"But these guys have worked their tails off ever since then and that's when I thought we could get better," Leitao said. "They've continued to get better, especially the two guys we named captain [Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds]. They've given to the point where it hurts them. Sean is as banged up as anybody, but he never wants to admit it."

However, it's exactly that type of attitude that Leitao perceived as a signal that it's OK to push until it hurt. Even though he knew taking a young, inexperienced team into ACC play would be a challenge, he felt like he had a fighting chance.

"I quickly realized that we had two pretty good guards, not just in the talent base, but they had an understanding of what it takes to be good or to get better," Leitao said. "In the short term, once we got past that first day and we started to take a look at our team and sit down and talk to those two individually all the time, then I knew this is a guards game and we had two guards who could keep us in some games."

Those two guards can keep the Cavaliers in tonight's game against Virginia Tech as UVa tries for a three-game sweep of the Hokies in the first round of the ACC Tournament. But in order to win tonight, Leitao would like a little help from the rest of the team.

 

Heading to Greensboro 1 more time
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 7, 2006

Scattershooting around the ACC for perhaps the last time this season, while heading to Greensboro for this week's tournament ...

Softer approach

We hate to boast, but we did call the All-ACC team here last week and Coach of the Year.

UNC's Roy Williams locked it up last week with a strong finish. His Tar Heels were picked to finish sixth in the league after losing their top seven scorers from last season, yet the Heels are 21-6 and 12-4 in the ACC. They're easily the hottest team in the league right now, having won 10 of their last 11 games, including seven road wins this season (their only road loss came in Charlottesville).

Senior David Noel said that the fiery Williams took a different approach this season basically because he had no choice.

"I wouldn't say he's changed his coaching style, but he's changed his pattern," Noel said. "He's not yelling at us all the time because he's grown a lot more patient, especially with this freshman group and two guys that were walk-ons."

New Policy?

If the ACC doesn't have some sort of post-game security policy now, it might want to think about getting one.

When Florida State's students rushed the court with 1.7 seconds remaining in the Seminoles' upset of Duke last Wednesday, resulting in Coach Mike Krzyzewski sending his star players to the locker room before the final buzzer, it was a frenzied scene.

FSU Athletic Director Dave Hart said that the school will re-examine the way it handles crowd control, which could prompt the entire league to look closer at the issue.

It was so wild that Tallahassee police had to recover the game ball from the parking lot.

"Fans were driving around with [the ball] in a car, holding it out the window," said police spokesman John Newland.

J.J. leaking oil?

No sooner had the league's all-time scoring king, Duke's J.J. Redick, missed 15 of his last 16 shots, then critics began insisting that he's hit the wall.

In UNC's upset win over the Blue Devils, Roy Williams smartly rotated four players against Redick, always keeping a fresh defender in his face.

But Redick insists heading into the ACC Tournament that he's not tired. He averaged 37 minutes of playing time during the season and played 39 against the Tar Heels.

"As far as getting worn down, I'll challenge anybody in the country to a race for distance and I guarantee I'll win," Redick said. "I'm not worn down physically at all. I feel great. Certainly those two weeks when all the record stuff was going on was a bit distracting. I'm glad all that stuff's over with. I feel as fresh as I've felt all season right now."

Forget about it

That's something Wake Forest coach Skip Prosser has always had a tough time with, forgetting about losses.

"I wish I didn't take the losses as personally as I do," Prosser said. "People have told me in 34 years of coaching not to take these things too seriously. Coach [Pete] Gillen tried hard to talk me out of it when I was an assistant to him."

But Prosser couldn't overcome it.

"I've given up that fight a long, long time ago," the Wake coach said. "I'm just competitive. I love winning, but as much as I abhor losing. I personalize it. I wish I didn't. I've been told by people a lot more intelligent than I am that I do take it too personally. But I'm 55 years old now. I'm probably not going to change."

Quote of the Week

Gary Williams on his Maryland team playing in the final game in University Hall:

"I played ball the first year this place opened," Williams said of the 41-year-old facility. "The way I look at it, I outlived this building."

Barring a change in plans, U-Hall will come tumbling down sometime in the future and a new field house will be built for all of UVa's field teams to practice in during bad weather.

Limping Wolfies

N.C. State's basketball team might look like it stepped out of a M*A*S*H unit when they arrive at the Greensboro Colisum for the ACC Tournament.

Arguably State's best player, Cameron Bennerman pulled his hamstring during the recent loss to Boston College and according to team officials, he would not have been able to have played two days ago.

Meanwhile, Ilian Evtimov is battling a strained ligament in his foot that has prevented him from practicing the past two weeks.

If that wasn't enough, then Gavin Grant may show up with a mask after suffering a broken nose during the loss to Wake Forest over the weekend. Grant's nose caught a stray elbow from Deacs senior Trent Strickland.

Old habit

Boston College senior guard Louis Hinnant was asked what's next for the team after the Eagles beat Virginia Tech last Saturday.

Hinnant, who is accustomed to playing in the Big East Tournament at New York City's Madison Square Garden, must have forgotten what conference he's in now.

"You know, we're going to go down to New York and try to make some noise," Hinnant said.

It didn't take long for reporters to ask him if BC had gotten a special invitation to play in the Big East.

"They reminded me that we were going to go down to North Carolina," Hinnant chuckled.

Free throws ...

...Sean Singletary was the first Virginia player to make the All-ACC first team since Bryant Stith in 1992. ...Miami comes into the tournament having lost six of its last seven games this season. ...Turning pro? Hurricanes' junior guard Duillermo Diaz is likely gone after the season. According to one NBA scout, Diaz is probably a late first round pick or a "steal" in the second round. ...Diaz isn't alone. It appears that Florida State's 6-9 junior center Alexander Johnson may opt for the draft. He has legitimate concerns that his age may work against him if he stays. Johnson is already 23 years old. ...Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, who has drawn four technical fouls this season, said that he will donate $2,000 to the Hokie Club for every technical foul he gets from this point onward. ... Watch out for Clemson in the tournament. The Tigers have scored at least 86 points in their last three games for the first time in school history against conference competition. ...We told everybody that naming Miami's three-pronged attack "Lethal Weapon III" was a bad idea. And what happened? While Diaz and Robert Hite have held up their end of the bargain, starting point guard Anthony Harris has sprung a leak. Harris had no points and four shots against FSU, and during Miami's recent skid of six losses in seven games, Harris has gone only 22 for 65 from the floor (33.8 percent), 5 of 22 from 3-point range (22.7 percent), scored only 63 points (9.0 a game) and had 28 turnovers to 23 assists.

 

Cavaliers eager to end three-game skid, give NIT food for thought
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 9, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- For the University of Virginia men's basketball team, there's more at stake tonight than bragging rights.

No. 7 seed U.Va. (14-13) meets No. 10 seed Virginia Tech (14-15) at 7 p.m. in an ACC tournament first-round game. The Cavaliers, who swept their regular-season series with Tech, haven't advanced to the NCAA tournament since 2001. Barring a miraculous run at the Greensboro Coliseum, they're not headed there this year.

But Virginia remains in contention for an NIT bid, and a victory tonight would bolster the credentials of a team that closed the regular season with three straight losses.

First-year coach Dave Leitao hasn't publicly addressed the subject of U.Va.'s postseason possibilities. Still, he knows an NIT bid would represent an accomplishment for his team, which was picked to finish last in the ACC.

The Cavs "want to each and every year put ourselves in a position to continue to play as long as we can," Leitao said yesterday. "Our first year will be no different. But I haven't talked about it, and right now we're talking about having to win four games in four days and approaching the Virginia Tech game the same way we would if it were a regular-season game."

The NIT, which the NCAA now oversees, will announce its 40-team field Sunday night. If the Cavaliers don't win the ACC tournament, they'd happily accept an invitation to the NIT.

"I know that even though it's not said, there's sort of like a tacit understanding that we need to do whatever's necessary to continue playing for as long as possible," said guard Billy Campbell, the Cavs' only senior.

U.Va.'s ranking yesterday on collegerpi.com was No. 76.

 

U.Va.-Tech: plenty at stake
Tech postseason bid second-to-last laugh against state rival
BY MIKE HARRIS
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 9, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. Pride before postseason.

That's the attitude Virginia Tech will take into its first-round ACC tournament matchup tonight against the University of Virginia.

The Hokies still are a blip on the postseason radar, if barely. Tech takes a 14-15 record into the 7 o'clock matchup against Virginia (14-13). Should the Hokies lose, they know there's zero chance it will be asked back to the National Invitation Tournament.

More galling would be the fact that it would be the third loss this season to Virginia.

"The first two times, it was a hit on our pride. To lose to those guys three times in one season, man, it would just be devastating," guard Zabian Dowdell said.

Swingman Markus Sailes said, "This is real important to us. This is our rival team. They hate us, we dislike them school-wise. We're not only playing for ourselves, we're playing for our university. We get another shot at them, we get a chance to advance, we don't want to have a losing season.

There's a lot of factors that make this game big for us."

Tech lost 54-49 to Virginia in Blacksburg on Jan. 15, losing a late five-point lead. Virginia then won 81-77 in overtime in Charlottesville on Feb. 11.

"The first game came down to a few offensive rebounds. We gave up a few key possessions at the end of the game," Dowdell said. "The second game, we let those guys get too many wide opportunities.

"We have to come out and rebound the ball, be aggressive."

Opinions vary in the Tech camp about how many games Tech needs to win here to make the postseason. Even though the NIT will now take teams with losing records, Tech doesn't think it will be selected with one.

 

Eyes on Singletary
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- This is one time that Sean Singletary would be well-advised to read his press clippings.

Although numbers would suggest that Singletary is in a slump as he enters the ACC Tournament, seldom have his approval ratings been higher, based on his selection Monday to the All-ACC first team.

"That cat is good," said Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg, whose 10th-seeded Hokies are a 212-point favorite over seventh-seeded Virginia in a first-round game at 7 p.m. at the Greensboro Coliseum.

Virginia (14-13 overall, 7-9 ACC) already has two victories over Tech (14-15, 4-12) this season, but the Cavaliers have lost their last three games, two of them by 26 and 45 points.

Singletary has had 16 turnovers, compared to eight assists, over that span. On Sunday, he was 3-for-12 from the field and finished with eight points in a 71-70 loss to Maryland.

Before that, Singletary had scored in double figures in 17 consecutive games.

"I was really disappointed in the game that I played," said Singletary, Virginia's first All-ACC first-team selection since Bryant Stith in 1992. "Being that it was the last game in our gym, I wasn't able to put my best foot forward.

"It was a great honor to be named first-team All-ACC, but I would rather have gone out on a winning note."

Despite foul problems that limited him to a season-low 21 minutes, Singletary, a 6-foot, 174-pound sophomore, has played a team-high 33.6 minutes per game. He's tired but he doesn't plan on taking much of a break.

"I'm really excited about the spring and the summer," he said. "I've never really had a summer to work on my game because I was either going to [shoulder] surgery or playing football. I'll have a chance to sharpen up on some things."

Nobody really expected Singletary to cut short his college career -- at least not at this point -- but stranger things have happened.

"I never debated that," Singletary said. "Now that coach [Dave] Leitao has come in, I want to be part of a winning program, so I'm going to stay. I'm definitely here till I graduate."

Clearly, Singletary would like to cut down on his turnovers (92). Although he has been hailed as the ACC's top point guard by several rival coaches, his assist-turnover ratio (1.20-to-1) does not rank among the top 10 in the ACC.

Singletary has not fouled out of a game this year, but he picked up four fouls in both of UVa's games with Maryland. In the first one, the Cavaliers squandered a 14-point, first-half lead before falling 76-65 in College Park, Md.

"It's not something you coach during practice," Leitao said. "You talk about it. A lot of times, he gets his hands caught in the cookie jar while he's trying to steal the basketball, something he's very good at.

"If I tell him not to go for steals, I'm taking away something that's good for him and good for the team. At the same time, you can pick up fouls that are relatively unnecessary. It's not something I worry too, too much about."

In a perfect world, Leitao would have the kind of depth that would enable him to sit a player like Singletary after he had picked up two fouls in the first half.

He got burned Sunday when Singletary picked up his second foul with 10:11 left, returned to the game at the 7:52 mark, then picked up foul No. 3 with 4:59 left before halftime.

"It's all situational," Leitao said. "If the score had been a little different, we would not have put him back on the floor."

When Singletary does not play well, the Cavaliers struggle.

Greenberg, however, has not seen anything on film that would suggest teams have discovered any secrets.

"He might have had a bad day," Greenberg said, "but it's not because of anything that anyone has done. He's got a toughness about him. He's got strength. He goes through people. If we've got any chance down the stretch, we've got to contain the little fellow."
 

UVa-Tech ... Take 3
The Hokies still are trying to figure out the Cavaliers.
By Mark Berman
981-3125

BLACKSBURG -- Despite losing both meetings with Virginia this season, the Virginia Tech men's basketball team isn't fretting about the third time around.

Tenth-seeded Tech meets seventh-seeded Virginia in the first round of the ACC Tournament at 7 p.m. tonight at the Greensboro Coliseum (ESPN).

"We're kind of glad we're playing a team that we've already played twice," Tech guard Zabian Dowdell said earlier this week. "We're a lot more familiar with that team and pretty much know everything they're going to try to do. We know their key players. ... We couldn't ask for a better matchup."

"We match up good against them and they match up good against us, so it should be a good game," backcourt mate Jamon Gordon said.

The Hokies (14-15, 4-12 ACC) have lost 11 games by six points or less this season, including two to UVa. The Cavaliers (14-13, 7-9) won 54-49 in Blacksburg on Jan. 15, and 81-77 in overtime in Charlottesville on Feb. 11.

"Even with the way we rebound the ball and the way we shoot free throws and all of our negatives, we still feel like we can beat any team," Dowdell said.

Tech is ranked 11th in the ACC in free-throw percentage (64.9 percent). The Hokies were 12-of-23 from the line in last Wednesday's 86-81 loss to Clemson and 6-of-13 in last weekend's 59-57 loss at BC.

"We obviously know we have to knock down some free throws," Dowdell said. "That's been one of our major problems this year."

Tech, which ranks last in the ACC in rebounding margin, need a good game from center Coleman Collins. He had only five points and three rebounds at BC, and Tech's post defense wasn't impressive in that game.

Tech coach Seth Greenberg played Collins only 11 minutes in the second half, when BC kept going inside and shot 62.5 percent from the field.

"We've got to compete at a higher level," Greenberg said. "We've got to get more from a Coleman Collins, and I don't know if we're capable of doing that right now. ... He was much more at peace last year at this time than maybe he is right now."

Collins' father died of lung cancer last month.

"Coleman's going to do the best he can do," Greenberg said. "No one knows what's going through Coleman's heart and head right now."

Tech could also use better production at small forward, where A.D. Vassallo, Wynton Witherspoon and Markus Sailes see time. Vassallo has scored in double figures just once in the past five games, Witherspoon hasn't scored in double figures since Feb. 4, and Sailes hasn't scored in double figures since December. That is a big reason Tech ranks last in the ACC in 3-pointers (4.7 per game).

"We've got to get more in terms of consistent competitive spirit from that small forward position," Greenberg said.

Dowdell and Gordon, who both made the ACC all-defensive team this week, will try to contain guards Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds. The UVa duo combined for 42 points in the teams' last meeting.

"We just have to keep hands in their face, not let them get any open looks," Dowdell said. "That hurt us the two previous times. We have to make them score over someone."

UVa is on a three-game skid. The Hokies have lost five of their past six games, with the win coming against Florida State on Feb. 25.

"We need to start being aggressive on both ends," Dowdell said. "That's what I think we did well the Florida State game."

If the Hokies lose tonight, they will finish with a losing mark for the first time in Greenberg's three seasons at the helm.

Tech actually should have one more win that it does, though. Tech lost to Bowling Green in November on Vassallo's accidental tip-in at the buzzer. In a Virginian-Pilot article this week, ACC supervisor of officials John Clougherty said the basket shouldn't have counted because in that situation, the rule states that the ball has to clear the net before the buzzer sounds.
 

Teams running on fumes
David Teel
March 9 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The commonwealth contingent doesn't figure to stick around long here at the ACC basketball tournament.

Virginia and Virginia Tech collide in a first-round game tonight, with the survivor advancing to play North Carolina in a Friday quarterfinal.

Good night and good luck.

The Cavaliers have lost four of their last five, the Hokies five of their last six. Long story short: Two teams running on fumes will empty their tanks tonight, rendering the winner virtually helpless against the Tar Heels less than 24 hours later.

Sorry to be so bleak, but how else do you envision this going down? Do you really believe Tech or Virginia, still recovering from their grindfest the night before, can hang with well-rested and Reese Witherspoon-hot North Carolina?

The upside - and there is an upside, believe me - to the Cavs and Hokies hitting the wall is that it shows how much they've invested in seasons they could have discarded as lost causes. Virginia's Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds; Tech's Jamon Gordon and Zabian Dowdell: Few if any ACC players gave more of themselves under trying circumstances.

You know the deal. Tragedy clubbed the Hokies - four players have buried family members since the new year - relentlessly after senior Allen Calloway announced during the offseason that he is fighting a rare, soft-tissue cancer first discovered in his leg. The Cavaliers, meanwhile, adjusted to new coach Dave Leitao with little ACC-caliber talent other than Singletary and Reynolds.

They arrive at tonight's common destination from disparate directions.

Tech (14-15, 4-12 ACC) is one of two conference teams - Duke is the other - that has not lost a game by 15 or more points. The Hokies' two "lopsided" defeats were by 13 points to Duke and at Ohio State, teams contending for No. 1 regional seeds in the NCAA tournament.

"Maybe a blowout loss would have been better for us," Tech coach Seth Greenberg said, "more cleansing."

Tell that to Virginia (14-13, 7-9). The Cavaliers have absorbed an ACC-high three beatings of at least 20 points, the latter two in consecutive outings at Clemson and North Carolina.

Cleansing? Not hardly. So brutal was the 99-54 defeat at North Carolina a week ago that Leitao refrained from reviewing the tape with his players.

"I really did not want to beat them up mentally more than the game had," Leitao said Wednesday after his team's practice at Greensboro Coliseum. Oh, Virginia has played six games decided by four points or fewer, losing three. But Tech has played nine and lost seven, including the regular-season finale at Boston College and an overtime decision at Virginia last month.

"You lose by 40 and walk away," Hokies center Coleman Collins said. "You lose by one or two and everyone on the team agonizes over what they could have done."

Collins, a 6-foot-9 junior, should have a distinct advantage against Virginia's anemic frontcourt. But this gracious and bright young man has been preoccupied by his father's bout with terminal lung cancer, which ended last month.

"We just hope that we see (the real) Coleman Collins tomorrow," Greenberg said. "That's the biggest thing. Something good needs to happen to that kid."

Collins managed only 20 points and seven rebounds combined in two regular-season losses to Virginia, but Greenberg called Wednesday's practice Collins' best in two months, and Collins insisted: "We've got a lot left, man. ... I'm just trying to finish on an uplifting note. We haven't had a losing season since I've been here, and I don't want to start a new trend. This is a reprieve for what we failed to accomplish in the regular season."

While conceding that some of his teammates are at rope's end, Reynolds was similarly optimistic about the Cavaliers.

"I think it's in us," Reynolds said of a second wind. "We've just got to go deep inside ourselves and find where it is."