UVa wrestles its way into quarters
Cavs earn third win over Hokies, face UNC tonight
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
March 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. - In one of his team's first practices in October, Virginia coach Dave Leitao told his players that they could win a lot of games this season on hustle and grit.
The Cavaliers may not be the most talented team in the ACC, Leitao said, but they could outwork teams.

Leitao went on to use last year's Virginia Tech team as an example of a team that played above its talent level.

Thursday night, some six months later, Virginia found itself matched in the first round of the ACC Tournament against - wouldn't you know it - Virginia Tech.

The Cavaliers were trailing by a point with 7:53 remaining. That's when Leitao reiterated his preseason mantra during a timeout.

"I said that this game was going to be won on guts," Leitao said.

He was right.

Virginia, behind another stellar performance from guard J.R. Reynolds, defeated its in-state rival for the third time this season, 60-56.

The Cavaliers (15-13) snapped a three-game losing streak and advanced to the quarterfinals. They'll play second-seeded North Carolina today at 7 p.m. (WVIR, Ch. 29).

"We didn't play really well but were able to tough it out," Leitao said. "We bent in a couple of situations but did not break."

Reynolds was once again The Man. Fresh off a season-high 30 points in the team's loss against Maryland on Sunday, the junior guard scored a game-high 23 points.

"We didn't do a good job on J.R.," said Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg. "He came off screens, made some big shots, and we have to give him credit for that."

Reynolds did his damage from the inside and outside. In the first half, he had four strong drives to the basket that resulted in points.

In the second half, it was another Reynolds drive - which led to two free throws - that put Virginia up 55-54 with 2:24 remaining.

Virginia Tech's Zabian Dowdell answered with a 3-pointer, but a drive and dish by T.J. Bannister to freshman Lauris Mikalauskas gave Virginia the lead for good.

Virginia Tech's last gasp came with 11 seconds to go when A.D. Vassallo missed a 3-pointer that could have tied the game.

"The game came down to free throw situations where we didn't rebound the basketball," Greenberg said. "They got two big rebounds and extra possessions, and that was like a microcosm of our season."

Virginia would not have won without solid contributions from its role players -Mikalauskas in particular.

The Blue Ridge School product played tough defense on Virginia Tech's Coleman Collins all night.

Mikalauskas, who got the start in place of Tunji Soroye, had 11 points and 12 rebounds - including seven offensive rebounds, which drove Greenberg nuts.

Singletary said being patient with the younger players has been key this season.

"We are positive with them and tell them to keep a level of focus," Singletary said. "We tell them to play with more heart than the other team and try to outlast them. Whoever plays with more heart will outlast the other one."

Reynolds has also embraced his role as a team leader.

"We try and get them to believe in us as a team," he said.

Sophomore Adrian Joseph chipped in with 10 points and four rebounds. He got Virginia off to a strong start by hitting 3-pointers on the team's first two possessions.

Singletary, bothered by a hip injury, played his fourth straight sub-par game. He finished with just eight points on 2-of-10 shooting but had four assists.

Leitao said the victory wouldn't have been possible without his co-captains, Reynolds and Singletary.

"Thank goodness we have these two guys," Leitao said, "because they played their hearts out - as they have done all season long.

"J.R. continues to play lights out basketball, not just scoring. What goes unnoticed is his floor game. Sean wasn't at full strength but is one of the gutsiest guys I've ever met. He didn't let [a sore hip] get in his way."

Leitao said he hadn't given much thought to facing North Carolina. Virginia won the first meeting between the schools in Charlottesville on Jan. 21

but was hammered 99-64 on March 1.

"Obviously we wanted to get through tonight, because if we didn't, there would be no tomorrow," Leitao said. "We played them well at our place, but laid an egg down there.

"I told the guys after the game we didn't have a lot of fun doing anything up there, and [today] if we can promise ourselves one thing - it's that we're going to have a lot of fun and see what happens.

"You can throw all the good things or all the bad things you've done during the season out the window. Now it's possession for possession. You win the game because you're better for that day. You don't have to be better for a month or better for a week. You have to be better for that day."

 

Virginia gets inside-outside contribution
By Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress staff writer
March 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C.
Before J.R. Reynolds stepped foot in Charlottesville, the basketball postseason was pretty much a myth to Virginia.

The Cavaliers hadn't won a single game in postseason, including the ACC Tournament, NCAA or NIT, in eight long years, dating all the way back to 1995. Talk about a complex.

Reynolds well remembers Virginia's reputation when it came to postseason.

"Losers," Reynolds said Thursday night in the victorious Wahoo locker room after the Cavaliers had just swept their third straight game from state rival Virginia Tech this season, 60-56 in the opening round of the ACC Tournament.

Even more importantly, it was the third straight year that UVa had won its first round game in the conference shindig, as it shook the losers tag that the Cavaliers' junior guard had mentioned.

A win for the ages

This one was a big one in so many ways for the Wahoos. In the short term it gave them 15 wins in 28 games and advances them to tonight's quarterfinals against second-seeded North Carolina.

Even though UVa had beaten Tech twice already this season, it entered the tournament meeting as a 2 1/2-point underdog to the Hokies.

They say that to survive and advance in postseason it's all about guard play. Certainly part of that was true in this game where Reynolds has been on a tear. His game-high 23 points fueled Virginia's efforts, particularly on a night when backcourt mate Sean Singletary struggled (2 of 10 from the field and six points).

Let's get physical

But the Cavs got a huge contribution from one of its most unlikely heroes, 6-foot-8, 245-pound Lauris Mikalauskas, who ruled the paint like a bear rules its territory in the wild. An unexpected starter, the burly freshman plowed his way through the Hokies and played the game he is most comfortable with - physical.

The more physical, the better. The wide-bodied Lithuanian isn't wearing a facemask for fun. It's a result of an elbow to his nose a few weeks ago in Tallahassee.

Coach Dave Leitao decided to start Mikalauskas instead of the rail-thin Tunji Soroye in order to give Virginia a more physical presence in the middle, particularly against Tech's Coleman Collins. The move paid dividends like a stock splitting right before Leitao's eyes.

Banging the glass

Mikalauskas held his own in the first half, but dominated in the second and was a key difference in a tight game. In the end, he recorded the first double-double of his career with 11 points and 12 rebounds in 29 minutes.

Usually not much of an offensive presence, Mikalauskas made good on three of five field goal attempts, bulldozing his way to the hoop. He was enough of a presence in the middle that Tech sent him to the line time and again and he converted five of eight attempts.

"I was happier than anybody on this team because I knew what Lauris was capable of doing," praised Reynolds. "I have kept pushing him and trying to boost his confidence because I knew he hadn't been playing well the last couple of games. I had a little talk with him."

Mikalauskas confirmed the little chat.

"J.R. tells me before every game that I can play better and that I have to play better," Mikalauskas said. "No matter how well I play, he says I can play better. I'm trying to do my best."

The big Virginia rookie is a likeable soul. He was first discovered at a basketball camp in his native Lithuania by former Cavaliers coach Jeff Jones, who told the then junior high player he should consider coming and playing for his American University team in D.C.

When it came time to play high school ball in the States, Mikalauskas did all the paperwork and applied at several private schools.

The first one to answer back was Blue Ridge School, about a half hour drive from the UVa campus.

"I remember they told me they played good basketball and was near D.C.," Mikalauskas said with a wide grin. "When I got there, I found out that it wasn't near D.C.

"Oh, and they forgot to tell me there weren't any girls there, either," Mikalauskas laughed.

But he loved his four years at Blue Ridge where he manhandled most opponents his final year with the Barons and made Virginia's new coaching staff smile when they witnessed his work ethic first hand.

When Mikalauskas plays the way he did against the Hokies, it allows Reynolds and Singletary and third guard T.J. Bannister to go inside more, which opens up the court more for the mobile guards.

They can penetrate, slice and dice and shishkabob opponents.

"I just tried to play my normal game tonight," Mikalauskas said. "Get a few rebounds, a few shots and be in the right place at the right moments. Sean and J.R. are our team leaders but they can't make every shot. So, that way I can get a few offensive rebounds and make a few baskets and put-backs."

How about seven offensive rebounds?

Don't get in this man's way. It's like standing between a fat man and a pie-eating contest.

"He either fouls out in five minutes or gets seven offensive rebounds," said Hokies coach Seth Greenberg. "Unfortunately tonight, he got the seven offensive rebounds."

While Mikalauskas was trying hard the first half, he only had one basket and one rebound. Frontcourt mate Jason Cain wasn't being a difference-maker either and both drew the wrath of Leitao during the halftime rant.

"Yeah, I didn't play the best I could," Mikalauskas confessed. "Coach said I could get more rebounds that I did. We were up by five, but we should have been up by 15."

Mikalauskas definitely got the message and set out to do something.

"The second half was more physical, more my type of game and that favors our side because we play more physical," he said.

No sooner than it was all over, the hulkish rookie was bombarded with microphones, TV cameras, and tape recorders.

"I've never seen so many media people in my life," Mikalauskas said. "This is exciting."

Virginia is not for losers anymore, at least not on the first day of this ACC version of Russian Roulette. However, the next goal is to stay the weekend. UVa hasn't won on Saturday in more than a decade.

In order to do so, they'll have to march through one of the hottest teams in the country in North Carolina's

Tar Heels, a team that destroyed Virginia by 45 points on March 1.

"It's going to be a war," Mikalauskas promised. "They are beatable, but we have to bring our 'A' game."

Anything less will mean another Saturday night trip home.

 

Cavs call on quarters
J.R. Reynolds leads Virginia to a third victory over the Hokies this season.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- J.R. Reynolds claims to have a short memory, but he knows what kind of reputation Virginia had in the ACC men's basketball tournament before his arrival.

"It was a reputation for losing," Reynolds, a junior guard, said.

The Cavaliers lost their opening ACC Tournament game for eight straight years from 1996-2003, but, thanks to Reynolds, the Cavaliers are forming another kind of reputation.

Reynolds, averaging close to 21 points in five ACC Tournament games, hit for 23 Thursday night as Virginia held off Virginia Tech 60-56 at the Greensboro Coliseum.

It marked the third year in a row that the Cavaliers have opened the tournament with a victory and put seventh-seeded Virginia (15-13) in the quarterfinals at 7 tonight against a North Carolina team (21-6) that demolished UVa 99-54 nine days ago in Chapel Hill, N.C.

That was the middle game in a three-game losing streak that put the Cavaliers in a role as 212-point underdogs Thursday night against 10th-seeded Tech. UVa had won its two previous meetings with the Hokies, 54-59 in Blacksburg and 81-77 in overtime in Charlottesville.

If you saw any of the three Tech-UVa games, you saw them all.

"If you look at the three games we played, there were two or three possessions either way that could have swung the tide," first-year UVa coach Dave Leitao said. "We get credit for three wins and they don't.

"We got our 15th game, we won another tournament game, we advanced and hopefully that means that we'll be able to continue playing past this tournament. [That] will be good for our overall program. Ultimately, you're judged by what you do in the postseason."

Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg had thought the Hokies needed to stop UVa's first-team All-ACC point guard, Sean Singletary.

And while Greenberg wasn't sure the Hokies had accomplished that, Singletary did go 2-for-10 from the field and finished with eight points.

Singletary had ended a 17-game double-figure scoring streak Sunday, when he had nine points in a 71-70 loss to Maryland in the final game at University Hall. Reynolds had a season-high 30 points in that game, but the Cavaliers did not have another double-figure scorer.

It was a slightly different story Thursday night, when freshman forward Lauris Mikalauskas had his first career double-double, finishing with 11 points and 12 rebounds. Sophomore forward Adrian Joseph, who made 3-pointers on his first two shots of the night, finished with 10.

"Mikalauskas either fouls out in the first five minutes or he gets seven offensive rebounds," Greenberg said. "Unfortunately for us, tonight he had seven offensive rebounds."

Leitao wanted a more physical presence from the opening tip and gave Mikalauskas his first start since Jan. 2. Mikalauskas picked up an offensive foul on a moving screen with 18:41 left, quickly gave way to Tunji Soroye, and had two points and two rebounds by the half.

"I was pulling for him to come through more than anybody because I knew what he was capable of doing," Reynolds said. "He was down a little bit and I just tried to boost him up."

Mikalauskas said, "I didn't play the best I could. [Leitao] saw openings where I could have gotten more rebounds and I missed a ball one time. Just fumbled it. I was angry. We were up by five and we could have been up by 15."

The Cavaliers built their lead to 10 at 38-28 with 18:14 left and 42-35 with 14:48 to go, but the Hokies (14-16) came storming back, just as they had in Charlottesville, where they trailed by 15 points in the first half and as many as 12 in the second half.

Tech had the lead with under 212 minutes remaining in all three games.

"This was kind of like a microcosm of our season," said Greenberg, whose team scored four points -- a pair of two-point field goals -- in the final seven minutes.

Tech was in the double bonus after Virginia committed its 10th foul of the second half with 9:51 remaining, but the Hokies did not go to the line after Shawn Harris missed a pair with 8:08 left.

Harris, who had played in only nine of the previous 11 games, finished with a season-high 12 points but made only one of five free throws. The Hokies were 8-of-16 from the line as a team.

The Cavaliers weren't much better, going 17-for-29 (58.6 percent) from the line after hitting 75.4 percent before Thursday.

"I can't remember missing four free throws before," said Reynolds, who was 5-for-9.

The Cavaliers had 17 turnovers, compared to 12 for Tech, but they outrebounded the Hokies 38-31.

"J.R. continues to play lights-out basketball," Leitao said, "not just offensively, but what goes unnoticed is his floor game. He played terrifically."

 

Another near miss for Tech
The Hokies lose their 12th game of the season by six points or less, including three to UVa.
By Mark Berman
981-3125

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Coleman Collins sat in front of his locker in tears. Jamon Gordon sat with a towel over his head.

Another close loss provided a frustrating but typical end to Virginia Tech's season.

The Hokies made just three baskets in the final 10:45 of a 60-56 loss to Virginia in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday night at the Greensboro Coliseum.

"It was kind of like a ... microcosm of our season," Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. "When we had to get a rebound, when we had to get a 50-50 ball, when we had to make a free throw, we just weren't able to do it."

It was the 12th time this season Tech (14-16) lost by six points or less.

"I felt like we had the experience this year to be able to close out close games, but unfortunately the record doesn't indicate that," said Zabian Dowdell, who had 15 points. "It definitely hurts to go out like this."

Next year "we've just got to get tougher mentally and physically and just close out the games," said Deron Washington, who had only three points.

The 10th-seeded Hokies took a 56-55 lead on a Dowdell jumper with 2:24 left but never scored again. UVa took the lead for good at 57-56 on its final basket, a Laurynas Mikalauskas bucket with 1:50 left.

"We just couldn't get stops at the end of the game this year," said Gordon, who had just four points.

The Hokies, who shot 37.9 percent from the field in the second half, missed five field-goal attempts in the final two minutes. Dowdell missed two, and Collins, Gordon and A.D. Vassallo each missed one.

"We thought we [were] going to pull it out," Gordon said. "I missed a ... good open look. A.D. had a good shot at the end that could have tied the game up. That's how the season's been this year."

Tech lost to UVa for the third time this season. UVa has been responsible for two of the five games this season in which Tech was held to 56 points or less.

The Hokies had their usual problems. They were outrebounded 38-31, were just 2-of-11 from 3-point range and were only 8-of-16 from the free-throw line.

"We just gave them too many extra possessions," Dowdell said. "Once again, we let them get offensive rebounds. ... That's been the story all season."

Collins, whose father died last month, was 2-of-9 from the field. He had five points, five turnovers and two rebounds.

"Collins gave us everything he had," said Greenberg, who suffered his first losing season in his three years at the school. "It's remarkable that he's even been with this team for the last two months."

Down 38-28, Tech went on a 19-7 run to take a 47-45 lead with 9:52 left. The offense then sputtered.

"We slowed it down," Washington said. "We were just trying to hold the lead, sit on the lead."

Shawn Harris, who usually doesn't play much, had five of his 12 points in the 19-7 run. His Tech finale was one of his best games, but Greenberg didn't play him for about the final seven minutes.

"It's not frustrating because I'm a role player," he said.

Tech lost for the sixth time in seven games; the Hokies scored fewer than 60 points in three of those defeats.
 

Hokies needed Harris in the last minutes
Aaron McFarling

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- You want to grab him and shake him and tell him to wake up. It's OK to be upset, Shawn. Really.

"I wasn't upset," he says.

But surely, given how you were playing, you wanted to be in there, you tell him.

"Of course, of course," he says, nodding. "But you've just got to go with what the coach says."

But to watch that finish from the bench. ...

"I'm a role player," he says.

Shawn Harris isn't going to do it. He's not going to take the bait.

He's not going to say he should have had a chance to play Thursday in the final seven minutes of Virginia Tech's 60-56 loss to Virginia in the opening round of the ACC tournament.

Fine.

Allow me.

This is a sentence I never thought I'd write, but I write it with conviction: Shawn Harris was the Hokies' best player Thursday night, and he should have been on the floor at the end of the game.

And I'm not just saying this because the Hokies lost. Honest.

I was saying it every time Tech broke the huddle without him, every time the horn sounded and somebody other than Harris trotted off the Hokies' bench and onto the court.

Normally, this was not a time you'd be watching the bench, waiting for the insertion of Harris. The Hokies weren't leading comfortably, nor were any of their top players injured.

But Thursday was different. Harris -- a senior captain who had played nary a minute in nine of Tech's 11 final regular-season games -- was having the night of his life against his school's archrival.

With about seven minutes left in the game, he had 12 points on 5-of-6 shooting, three steals, a rebound and an assist.

Thanks in large part to his help, Tech led 47-45.

Then, he disappeared. He spent the final seven minutes of his career where he'd spent the majority of the rest of it -- on the bench, watching.

And Tech couldn't do anything right without him.

Look. We all know Tech coach Seth Greenberg has more basketball knowledge in his right pinky toe than I have in my entire body. He had his reasons for benching Harris.

When Tech was leading, Greenberg says he wanted to get Markus Sailes, a strong on-ball defender, into the game. And when Tech fell behind, he wanted A.D. Vassallo -- who is a top threat from the perimeter -- in there to catch-and-shoot a dagger.

Fine. I get all that. But here's the thing: We've seen how the story ends with these guys. It's happened over and over and over again, close loss after close loss.

More than anything, Tech just needed something different, something special that could turn things around.

And that something Thursday was Shawn Harris. Never had he felt this good in a game.

He scored seven points in the first half, including a 3-pointer that gave the Hokies the lead.

He scored five more in the second half, helping Tech rally from a 10-point deficit.

He stole passes.

He defended.

He led.

"Shawn Harris was magnificent tonight," Greenberg said, and then he went on to explain his reasons for not playing him.

"If I was Kreskin and could predict the future and knew he'd make a play," Greenberg said, "I would have put him in."

You don't have to be Kreskin. You just have to be a bit of gambler, willing to stay at the hot craps table, willing to keep a guy averaging 1.7 minutes a game in there even if it's a foreign situation for him.

Didn't happen. And the Hokies are left in a familiar situation, trying to cope with another slim defeat.

When it was all over, Shawn Harris was asked to sum up his four-year career.

"Pretty much mediocre," he said.

Maybe. But for the first 33 minutes of Thursday's game, he was something much greater than that. It's too bad we didn't see what he could do in the final seven.
 

Former UVa stars hope new building serves as a bridge
Stith: 'You feel a lot more comfortable coming around'
Doug Doughty

One of the clear signals to come out of Sunday’s “Last Ball at U-Hall” was the disconnection that former players have felt with the Virginia men’s basketball program.

And, that was from the players who WERE there.

I’m not convinced that the turnout of former players was as impressive as Terry Holland and others suggested, but I’ll take their word for it.

“I’m hoping this day will be a significant day in UVa basketball and will tie the ex-players to the current and future players in some form and will get the program back on track to what it once was,” said former three-time national player of the year Ralph Sampson.

Nobody would suggest that the program is close to where it once was, when the Cavaliers twice played in the Final Four (1981 and 1984).

“The past is the past,” Sampson said. “You can’t bring it back. What’s done is done. Things that have been done in the past have hurt the program significantly. If you’ve got the right pieces in place – from coaches to the administration and teachers, fans and friends – I think you can bridge that gap.

“No matter what has transpired in the past 10 years, things that may have been said or done, I once walked that campus and played basketball, a sport that I loved. When they first started this [reunion] thing, I was like, ‘It’s all good to come back, but are we coming back to shake hands and wave?’

“That’s politically correct and all fun and dandy, but if you come back next year and everything’s the same, what good has it done? There’s been no connection for 10 or 15 years. If you want the opportunity to be better than the Dukes and the [North] Carolinas of the world, there’s no better time than right now, with the new building going up.”

The exact nature of the disconnection is unclear. Sampson probably would have liked a spot on the UVa staff at some point, but on a more general level, former players felt they could not relate to Pete Gillen, the Cavaliers’ head coach from 1998-2005.

Gillen is a good guy, a genuinely nice person, but he is shy. That might not have been apparent to outsiders who listened to his one-liners on the nightly news or ESPN’s SportsCenter, but the longer I was around him, the more I looked at those as a defense mechanism. Gillen did not readily create room for the old guard into his inner circle.

Dave Leitao has a shy way about him, too, but he made the effort to meet with the former players on the eve of the “Last Ball” and was available after the game.

“I wish I was about 15 years younger,” said Bryant Stith, a 2,500-point scorer at Virginia from 1988-1992. “That’s an awesome [new] facility. I’ve been in many facilities across the country and across the world and there’s nothing like it.

“It’s going to give the university a tremendous advantage as far as recruiting. I think coach Leitao has the team headed in the right direction. So, the combination should equal success, immediate success.”

Stith was accompanied by his wife, two of his four children (his boys were at an AAU basketball tournament) and his father, Norman, a retired long-distance trucker who is rebounding from a stroke one year ago. Bryant and Norman were at the Cavaliers’ recent home game with Boston College.

“That was the first game he had attended here since I graduated,” Stith said. “It’s a different feeling [with Leitao] than we had in the previous years. You feel a lot more comfortable coming around. You feel part of the basketball family. I don’t know if we could say that honestly about the past.”

LEITAO ADMITTEDLY found it difficult putting on a happy face after a 71-70 loss to Maryland. He took the microphone and addressed the crowd, then stood at the end of a line of former players who ceremonially passed him the ball before he smiled, waved and took it across the street to the John Paul Jones Arena.

“It wasn’t easy for me,” Leitao said. “There is that term, ‘professionalism,’ that has to be used. I remember going to a Bulls-Heat game many years ago and Pat Riley walked out after the game, after they had lost to Chicago, and he looked like he had lost his best friend. Meanwhile, everybody else in the gym was happy because it was an enjoyable game to watch.

“Sunday’s game was probably similar to that in that our coaches were the only people in the building who wanted to dig a hole and crawl in it. The purposes of the day were two-fold – obviously, to win, but also to honor the memories of a building. [Smiling] was something that needed to be done. Sometimes, I don’t smile after victories.”

A LITTLE-KNOWN aspect of Sampson’s decision-making in going to Virginia was his affection for the Caravan, a since-razed establishment on U.S. 29 North that was famous for a roast-beef sandwich known as the Humpburger.

“I went to University Hall when I was in elementary school or early junior high to watch my cousins play for the state championship.” Sampson said. “It was the early ‘70s. I remember University Hall as a clam-shaped building, yes, but there was a restaurant on 29 North called the Caravan.

“I remember that like it was yesterday. When we were coming over to Charlottesville, we always looked forward to going there, then getting on Rte. 33 and heading back over to Harrisonburg.”
 

Cavaliers beat Tech for 3rd time, play North Carolina
By ED MILLER , The Virginian-Pilot
© March 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. — Everyone knew the deal coming in.

Virginia and Virginia Tech don’t play smooth, pretty basketball games. They play games befitting state rivals — in which bodies hit the floor and the outcome comes down to a loose ball here or an offensive rebound there.

Thursday night’s ACC tournament game, their third meeting this season, was no exception. Once again, the Hokies and Cavaliers scrapped and clawed for 40 minutes. Once again, Virginia came out on top, squeezing out a 60-56 win at the Greensboro Coliseum.

“We get credit for three wins and they don’t,” Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. “The reality is, it comes down to a couple of plays.”

This time, those plays carried more heft. The loss ended Virginia Tech’s season. Virginia (15-13) lives on to play North Carolina in a quarterfinal tonight.

Virginia Tech finished 14-16. Coach Seth Greenberg wasted no time leaving the court, shaking hands quickly with Virginia coaches and players and then walking briskly to the tunnel, with a security guard struggling to keep up .

Greenberg had seen too many similar games this season. The loss was the Hokies’ 12th by six points or fewer , or in overtime.

“It was kind of a microcosm of our season,” Greenberg said. “We couldn’t come up with a rebound when we needed to. We missed some opportunities at the free throw line.”

Tech had a chance to tie the game after a time out with 15.6 seconds to play . A.D. Vassallo’s 3-point attempt missed and Virginia’s J.R. Reynolds squeezed the rebound. His free throw with 8.8 seconds left put the Hokies away.

Reynolds scored 23 points, continuing his hot shooting . He had 30 in the regular season finale against Maryland and is averaging 23.2 over his last five games.

Reynolds benefited from the defensive attention paid to point guard Sean Singletary, as well as backup guard T.J. Bannister’s passing and ballhandling. He played 20 minutes, most as part of a three-guard lineup.

Bannister’s ballhandling took pressure off Reynolds and Singletary to create shots. Virginia Tech had trouble matching up, particularly in the second half.

“We knew they couldn’t guard us off the dribble,” Bannister said.

The Hokies also had trouble inside, particularly with Virginia freshman Laurynas Mikalauskas. He scored 11 points and grabbed 12 offensive rebounds, his first career double-double and his best offensive effort since he scored 12 points against Miami on Jan. 24.

“He pushed us around,” Greenberg said.

“At the start of the second half, the refs let us play more physical,” said the 6-foot-8, 255-pound Mikalauskas. “It was more my type of game.”

It wasn’t Tech’s type of game, but for the Hokies, it was disturbingly familiar . Tech had Virginia reeling , but was unable to put the Cavaliers away.

The Hokies got an unexpected boost off the bench from senior Shawn Harris, who, at 6- 4 and about 240 pounds, plays a rather unconventional game for a guard.

Harris, who averaged 1.7 points in the regular season, scored seven quick points in a 9-0 first-half run. Midway through the second half, he posted up the 5-9 Bannister and scored on a finger-roll layup to tie the game at 45.

Harris missed 4 of 5 from the free throw line, though. The Hokies made just 6 of 14 in the second half.

“We had chances, but we just let the chances go,” Greenberg said.

The loss ended a difficult season for the Hokies off the court as well, one that saw the deaths of relatives of four players.

“I think that the stress of the season and the emotional tear on the season has left a lot of scars in that locker room right now,” Greenberg said. “Some of our players will now have a chance to grieve and they probably need that.”
 

Cavs get late spark
Lauris Mikalauskas comes up big in the middle as Virginia holds off Virginia Tech to advance to the ACC quarterfinals.
BY MELINDA WALDROP
247-4634
March 10, 2006

Add another talent to the many J.R. Reynolds displayed Thursday night: motivational speaker.

Reynolds scored a game-high 23 points as Virginia defeated Virginia Tech 60-56 in the first round of the ACC tournament. But he was prouder of the play of his protegee.

Freshman center Lauris Mikalauskas scored 11 points and pulled down 12 rebounds, and gave the Cavaliers a late infusion of energy as they outscored the Hokies 10-2 over the final 6:08 to beat their in-state rival for the third time this season.

"I've probably been waiting for this game to happen more than anybody," said Reynolds, a junior. "I stay on him all the time. I knew sooner or later he was gonna come through for us, and today was his day. He did a good job."

Mikalauskas earned the start Thursday after an impressive week of practice, and lived up to Reynolds' expectations.

"He tells me before every game that I can play better and I have to play better," Mikalauskas said. "No matter how well I play he says I can play better, so I'm trying to do my best. I'm trying not to let him down."

U.Va. will play No. 10 North Carolina at 7 today in the quarterfinals. Virginia hasn't won an ACC quarterfinal game since 1995, but 30 minutes after the buzzer sounded Thursday, coach Dave Leitao still was focused on the significance of his team's most recent victory.

"In the long term, to be able to say that we got our 15th win, we won another tournament game, we did advance, and hopefully that means that we'll be able to continue playing past this tournament, will be good for our overall program," Leitao said. "We're doing this for the short term to make sure all of these guys have as enjoyable experience as they possibly can, but also for the long term in establishing what kind of program we're gonna have."

Seventh-seeded Virginia (15-13) led from the 6:25 mark of the first half until Shawn Harris' spinning baseline finger roll tied the game at 45 with 10:40 to play. Harris, who hadn't played in nine of Tech's last 11 games and had scored 24 points all season, contributed 12 on Thursday as the 10th-seeded Hokies (15-13) tried to rally.

But Mikalauskas wouldn't let them, going to work with Tech ahead 56-55 with 2:20 left.

His layup put the Cavs ahead 57-56 with 1:49 left, and after two scoreless Hokies possessions, he came up with a key rebound of a Reynolds miss. Mikalauskas was fouled, emerging from a scramble underneath the basket with both arms raised high to indicate his innocence of any contact, and made one of two free throws to make it a 58-56 lead with 36.2 seconds to play.

Zabian Dowdell missed a runner in the lane, and Adrian Joseph made one of two free throws to give Virginia a three-point lead with 19.6 seconds to go.

Reynolds added another free throw for the final margin, with Dowdell missing another 3-point try at the buzzer.

The victory solidified the Cavs' NIT hopes, and meant yet more heartache for the Hokies. A season that saw the deaths of Harris' grandmother, center Coleman Collins' father and A.D. Vassallo's guardian and the worsening of forward Allen Calloway's cancer ended in typical, oh-so-close fashion.

"It was kind of like a microcosm of our season, that game," Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. " ... We just couldn't make the play when we needed to. We had chances, and we let the chances go."

U.Va. gets another go vs. Tar Heels
Virginia faces streaking North Carolina in today's ACC tournament quarterfinals.
BY DAVE FAIRBANK
247-4637
March 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- From the glass-is-half-full perspective, Virginia has beaten each of its first two opponents in the ACC tournament this season. That's about where the similarity ends.

After toughing out a 60-56 first-round victory Thursday for a three-game sweep against state rival Virginia Tech, the Cavaliers draw No. 2 seed and 10th-ranked North Carolina in a quarterfinal today (7 p.m.) at the Greensboro Coliseum.

The Tar Heels (21-6) have won seven in a row and 10 of 11. Included in that streak is a victory at top-ranked Duke and a 99-54 crunch job against the Cavaliers nine days ago, the most lopsided win in the history of the series.

"We played them well up at our place," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said, referring to the 72-68 win in Charlottesville on Jan. 21, "and really laid an egg down there.

"I told the guys after the game (Thursday), we didn't have a lot of fun doing anything up there (in Chapel Hill) and tomorrow if we could promise each other one thing, is that we're going to have a lot of fun and see what happens."

Carolina had all the fun on March 1 at the Smith Center, turning Senior Night into something that looked more like Midnight Madness back in October.

The Tar Heels ran out to a 49-24 halftime lead. They made almost 60 percent of their shots and hit 55 percent of their 3-point attempts. They had a 45-28 rebound edge as Virginia shot its second-lowest percentage of the season (.324).

"We have to play with energy, focus and intensity," Virginia center Jason Cain said. "We went up big at home and they came back, but we stayed together. At Carolina, they went up big and we weren't able to come back."

The Tar Heels appear to be peaking. Their only loss since Jan. 25 came against then-No. 2 Duke. Nine of the 10 wins during their present run were by double figures. Their average margin of victory during that span is 19.9 points.

Virginia, meanwhile, came into the ACC tournament having lost three in a row and four of five. But Thursday against the Hokies, J.R. Reynolds supplied the necessary scoring (23 points) and Lauris Mikalauskas the energy (11 points, 12 rebounds).

"They're beatable," Mikalauskas said. "We have to make shots and play defense."

Leitao and his undermanned team that goes only eight deep understand they have a mountainous task ahead. But he also knows that today is a one-shot deal.

"You can throw all the good things and all the bad things you've done during the season out the window," Leitao said. "Now, it's possession for possession. You win the game because you're better for that day.

"You don't have to be better for a month or better for a week, but you have to be better for that day. We'll get some rest and try to be the team that will be better for tomorrow."

Cavaliers move on, face UNC
By NOLAN HAYES : The Herald-Sun
nhayes@heraldsun.com
Mar 10, 2006 : 12:33 am ET

GREENSBORO -- Dave Leitao knew he wouldn't have much time to enjoy the third consecutive victory over an in-state rival.

Virginia's first-year coach was right.

His reward for leading his team to a four-point victory over Virginia Tech on Thursday night was the opportunity to talk about last week's 45-point loss to North Carolina.

"We wanted to get through tonight because if we didn't, there would be no tomorrow," Leitao said after his seventh-seeded Cavaliers beat the 10th-seeded Hokies 60-56 in the first round of the ACC Tournament at the Greensboro Coliseum. "We played them well in our place and really laid an egg down there.

"But I told the guys after the game that we didn't have a lot of fun doing anything up there. And tomorrow we promised each other one thing, and that's that we're going to have a lot of fun and see what happens."

The No. 10 Tar Heels (21-6), the tournament's No. 2 seed, will be waiting with fresh legs. UNC is

1-2 in the tournament under Coach Roy Williams and hasn't won the championship since 1998.

After losing their ACC Tournament opener to Georgia Tech two years ago and having to rally past Clemson in their first game last year, the Tar Heels are taking nothing for granted.

"We're going to try to go over there and win the ACC Tournament," said Williams, whose team has won 10 of its last 11 games, including seven in a row. "The way you win the ACC Tournament is to win your first game. Then if they tell you that you can stay around and play again, then try to win the second game.

"That's the way I've approached this team from Day 1. We didn't talk the first day about winning 21 games or going second in the league. We talked about playing the best we can today, and that's the way we're going to approach it."

The Cavaliers (15-13) reached the quarterfinals despite having only one half of their dynamic duo playing up to potential. J.R. Reynolds scored 23 points on 8-of-17 shooting, but backcourt mate and first-team All-ACC selection Sean Singletary managed just eight points on 2-of-10 shooting while playing 37 minutes through hip soreness.

Center Laurynas Mikalauskas, who gave UNC fits in the teams' first meeting, bullied his way to 11 points and 12 rebounds against the Hokies.

"He either fouls out in five minutes or he gets seven offensive rebounds -- one or the other," Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. "Unfortunately, today he got seven offensive rebounds."

The game was an appropriate ending to the season for the Hokies (14-16), who trailed 32-27 at halftime. Virginia Tech's season has been marred by close losses and near misses, and Thursday provided both.

The Hokies led 54-50 with six minutes remaining but managed just one field goal the rest of the way. The Cavaliers weren't much better, shooting 33 percent in the second half and making only three field goals during a 14-minute stretch after halftime, but they got the victory.

The Hokies, meanwhile, get a break. Their season finally is over, meaning they can take some time to let their wounds heal. The team has endured several illnesses and injuries -- a bout of cancer for senior center Allen Calloway and the death of Coleman Collins' father are among several difficulties -- and never had a chance to cope properly during the rigors of the ACC schedule.

"The stress of the season and the emotional tear of the season have left a lot of scars in that locker room," Greenberg said. "I'm going to be honest with you. Some of our guys will finally have a chance to grieve, and they probably need that.

"Coleman is not doing very well right now, and I think he needed that. He's kept it inside him for too long. Quite honestly, I feel good that he's letting it out finally. I think it's something that he needs."

On a much smaller scale, the Cavaliers need to keep winning. Thursday's victory put them in good shape to earn an NIT invitation, but they have higher hopes for the rest of the weekend.

Junior forward Jason Cain admitted after Thursday's game that the Cavaliers gave up on themselves in Chapel Hill last week, allowing the Tar Heels to run away with an easy win. Mikalauskas pointed out that the Tar Heels have several weapons -- senior forward David Noel scored a career-high 26 points in the last meeting with Virginia, for example -- but he's not afraid.

"They're beatable," he said. "They are really beatable."

Mikalauskas is correct, as evidenced by Virginia's 72-68 win over the Tar Heels on Jan. 19 at University Hall, but UNC is a different team now than the one that shot 36 percent that night. A performance similar to the one they gave Thursday -- poor shooting and 17 turnovers to go with seven assists -- likely will earn the Cavaliers their second consecutive blowout defeat at the hands of the Tar Heels.

The good thing for Virginia is that the game is 40 minutes long, not four months.

"You can throw all the good things or all the bad things that you've done this season out the window," Leitao said. "Now it's possession to possession. If you win the game, it's because you're better that day. You don't have to be better for a month or better for a week. You have to be better for that day, and we'll get some rest and try to be the team that's better tomorrow."


 

U.Va. finishes sweep of Tech
Virginia steps up at gut-check time, claims third victory over Tech
BY JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- The third meeting between Virginia and Virginia Tech was as closely contested as the first two this season. The outcome was painfully familiar to Tech, too.

U.Va., which swept the Hokies during the regular season, ousted them from the ACC tournament last night. In a first-round game at the Greensboro Coliseum, the seventh-seeded Cavaliers rallied to beat 10th-seeded Tech 60-56.

With about 6 minutes left, Virginia coach Dave Leitao recalled afterward, he told his players that "this game was going to be won on guts. True to form it was. We didn't play really well, but we were able to tough it out."

In the final 6 minutes, Virginia outscored the Hokies 10-2.

U.Va.'s three wins over Tech came by a combined 13 points. The Wahoos led by five at halftime and by 10 with 18 minutes left last night, but the Hokies fought back and went up 54-50 on junior guard Zabian Dowdell's jumper with 6:07 left.

"Every time, we have the lead and down the stretch somehow they end up winning," said Tech guard Markus Sailes, a Varina High graduate. "Everybody's playing hard, I can't really pinpoint one thing we didn't do well. It felt like they're making that one play that separates the game every time."

The victory boosted U.Va.'s hopes of earning an NIT invitation. Virginia (15-13) meets second-seeded North Carolina (21-6) in today's 7 p.m. quarterfinal. U.Va. split with the Tar Heels during the regular season, winning by four points at University Hall in Janu- ary and losing by 45 at the Smith Center on March 1.

Last night's game was the first in the ACC tournament for Leitao, who came to U.Va. from DePaul last spring. It also was the first for Virginia's Laurynas Mikalauskas, but the surroundings didn't faze the 6-8, 242-pound freshman from Palanga, Lithuania.

Mikalauskas finished with 11 points and a career-high 12 rebounds, seven of which came at the offensive end. His effort delighted one of his biggest fans and biggest critics: teammate J.R. Reynolds.

"He tells me before every game that I can play better and I have to play better," Mikalauskas said with a smile. "No matter how well I play, he says I can play better. I'm trying to do my best. I'm trying not to let him down."

Mikalauskas put Virginia ahead for good with 1:50 left, scoring off a pass from reserve point guard T.J. Bannister to make it 57-56. With 36.2 seconds left, after hauling down his final offensive board, Mikalauskas was fouled and sank 1 of 2 from the line to make it 58-56.

After Dowdell missed a runner, U.Va. swingman Adrian Joseph made 1 of 2 free throws with 19.6 seconds remaining. Hokies freshman A.D. Vassallo missed from beyond the arc. Reynolds was fouled on the rebound and made 1 for 2 from the line with 8.8 seconds left to close out the scoring.

A third-team all-ACC pick, Reynolds led all scorers with 23 points, the third time in his past five games that he's scored at least 23. Joseph added 10 points, a significant contribution on a night when sophomore guard Sean Singletary, a first-team all-ACC selection, shot 2 for 10 from the floor and scored only eight points.

Dowdell was one of two Hokies to score in double figures. Seldom-used senior guard Shawn Harris was the other. The former Matoaca High star, who scored 24 points during the regular season, had 12 last night.

"Shawn Harris was magnificent tonight," Greenberg said.

Virginia finished the regular season ranked third among ACC teams in free throw shooting. Last night, however, the Cavs missed 10 free throws in the second half alone and were 17 for 29 (58.6 percent) overall. Even Reynolds (5 for 9) struggled.

"I don't think I've ever missed four free throws in a game before," he said, shaking his head.

 

Virginia advances
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
March 10, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. - If ever two dichotomous seasons were summed up in one five-minute stretch, it had to be the end of Virginia's 60-56 win over Virginia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday.
There was Virginia, scrambling for loose balls to extend possessions, scrapping its way to the free throw line, simply finding a way to pull out a win where artful basketball was in short supply.

Then there was Virginia Tech, whistled for traveling violations that just as easily could have been called fouls, watching shots barely rim out, unable to get that one rebound or defensive stop that would have tipped the scales the other way for a change.

"It was kind of like a microcosm of our season," Virginia Tech coach Seth Greenberg said. "I thought we played hard, I thought we competed hard on the defensive end. We just couldn't make a play when we needed to."

So sums up the seasons of the state's two flagship basketball programs. The seventh-seeded Cavaliers (15-13), led by J.R. Reynolds' 23 points and Laurynas Mikalauskas' 11 points and 12 rebounds, beat the 10th-seeded Hokies for the third time this season, a feat accomplished just once in the history of the rivalry by UVa during the 1953-54 season.

Virginia's three wins over Virginia Tech (14-16) this season were by a combined 13 points.

The Cavaliers, who advance to play second-seeded North Carolina today at 7 p.m., relied on Reynolds early and Mikalauskas late. Reynolds, who scored a career-high 32 points in an opening-round ACC Tournament victory last season against Miami, scored 15 of his 23 points before halftime on Thursday.

Reynolds topped the 20-point mark for the seventh time this season, picking up the scoring slack of Sean Singletary, who was limited by a sore elbow and scored just eight points on 2 of 10 shooting.

"The postseason, that's something that I look forward to," said Reynolds, who is averaging 23.2 points over his last five games. "Because no matter how good you play or how bad you play during the season, once it comes down to the tournament time, it's a different ballgame."

Despite Reynolds' scoring burst, Virginia Tech, behind Zabian Dowdell's 15 points and Shawn Harris' season-high 12, rallied from

a 10-point deficit to take the lead late in the second half. But as has been the case with the Hokies all year, they couldn't hold it.

The Cavaliers outscored Tech 10-2 in the last five minutes, getting six of their points from the free throw line. In a game in short supply of field goals in the latter part of the second half, Virginia out-scrapped Virginia Tech, getting seven offensive rebounds from Mikalauskas.

Mikalauskas, a freshman who got his first start since January to give UVa a physical presence in the post, put the Cavaliers ahead 57-56 with a layup on an assist by T.J. Bannister with 1:50 remaining. Two possessions later, the 6-foot-8 bruiser ripped down a rebound after Reynolds missed a layup with 36.2 seconds to go. Mikalauskas was fouled and made 1 of 2 from the line to give UVa a two-point lead.

"This game was going to be won on guts," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "True to form, it was."

On a team so reliant on the guard play of Reynolds and Singletary, Mikalauskas' contribution was a welcome boost.

"I've probably been waiting for this game (from Lars) to happen more than anybody," Reynolds said. "I stay on him all the time. I knew sooner or later he was going to come through for us. Today was the day."

Virginia Tech never had an answer. The Hokies missed their last five shots, including a floater by Dowdell that would have tied it with 26 seconds left. After UVa made a free throw, A.D. Vassallo's potential game-tying 3-pointer with 11 seconds left was too strong.

The Cavaliers, who finished third in the ACC in free throw shooting, made just 17 of 29 (56.5) from the line on Thursday, but they hit enough down the stretch to put the game away.

The win snapped Virginia's three-game losing streak and all but assures it of at least a spot in the NIT Tournament, which begins next week.

"It will be good for our overall program," Leitao said. "We're doing this for the short-term ? but also for the long-term and determining what kind of program we're going to have. Fortunately or unfortunately, programs are judged by what you do in the postseason."