Young Cavs can't match UNC's depth
Jerry Ratcliffe / Daily Progress sports editor
March 11, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. - Unlike the actor who asks what's his motivation for the role, Virginia knew exactly why it wanted to beat North Carolina in the quarterfinals of Friday night's ACC Tournament.
The Cavaliers had 45 reasons, all stemming from their worst loss ever to the Tar Heels nine days ago in Chapel Hill. But all the motivation in the world couldn't overcome the difference in the two basketball programs.

Carolina, though stripped of its top seven scorers from last year's NCAA championship team, still found its cupboards stocked with enough talent and depth to make a run through the ACC ranks even when it wasn't supposed to. Virginia, picking up the pieces from a former regime, more resembled a group of misfits, if you will, in trying to hold on until reinforcements arrive.

The effort was predictable. So was the outcome.

"Yes, the game in Chapel Hill was a motivating factor," said UVa freshman Lauris Mikalauskas after Friday night's 79-67 loss to the Tar Heels. "We remembered what happened nine days ago."

And that's what UNC coach Roy Williams expected.

"I didn't want to play Virginia [in the tournament] because of what happened nine days ago," Williams said. "If somebody had beat me by 45, I'd be fired up. But I told [the Tar Heels] in the locker room that [game in Chapel Hill] made it 1-1. This was the rubber match."

If Virginia had anything to do with it, it was going to be a war of basketball proportions. The Cavaliers would fight for every inch of the floor. There would be no backing down against the No. 2 seed Tar Heels, perhaps the hottest team in the country.

"[Virginia] came out hitting us right in the face the first half," said Tar Heels forward Rayshawn Terry, who proved to be a dif-ficult matchup for the Cavs to handle. "You have to give credit to those guys."

The Cavaliers came to play. They jumped to a 14-4 lead seven minutes into the game and tried to hold their ground. Even in spite of a 20-2 Carolina run that made it 24-16 Tar Heels, UVa wasn't about to fold.

Coach Dave Leitao figured that with his two guards, Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, his team always had a chance to win. By halftime, the two had scored 28 of UVa's 34 points in a five-point deficit.

But like in most wars, the side with the best weapons usually wins. Carolina had a lot more options in its stockpile with per-haps the nation's best freshman in center Tyler Hansbrough (17 points, eight rebounds); Terry (24 points, seven rebounds); sen-ior David Noel (10 points, 11 rebounds) and guard Wes Miller (who didn't miss a shot in scoring 15 points).

Leitao didn't have that luxury. Although Singletary (29 points, 10 rebounds), and Reynolds (20 points) put up a fight, they didn't have a lot of help.

The Cavs scored only six field goals the second half, although they did make 18-straight free throws until missing at the end.

Like Leitao said, "we have to put Band-Aids on our offense sometimes."

While his backcourt can keep the Cavs in most games, it doesn't guarantee a win. It requires much more.

"We've lost 14 games and there's a lot of reasons why," Leitao said. "Sometimes we break down defensively. But from Adrian [Joseph] we need what he averages if not more. From Jason Cain, we need close to a double-double. And we need what Mo [Diane] can give us."

That's why Carolina won this rubber match even though the Cavs did manage to remain within two possessions of the lead as late as 2:15 remaining.

Joseph delivered a big goose egg, Oh-for-8 from the field, zero points. Cain had two points, six boards. Diane did manage eight points. Mikalauskas, who helped keep Hansbrough in check, had six points and five rebounds.

Not enough to keep the Tar Heels out of today's semifinals.

But the way they fought left Leitao feeling good about his basketball team, especially if at 15-14, they make the NIT.

"After the 80 minutes of basketball we had on this stage, we can walk away knowing that we competed hard enough, while also learning lessons that will hopefully help us when we are at this point again," Leitao said.

With six new recruits adding the much needed depth the coach referred to and a possible extension of the season for the cur-rent scholarship players, all of whom return, Leitao can't but help be encouraged for Virginia's future.

 

J.J.'s season shines light on Staples
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- J.J. Redick's assault on the Division I career 3-point record was not without benefits for the previous record-holder, Curtis Staples from Virginia.

Staples was the youngest of 12 former "legends" recognized at halftime of the first semifinal game Saturday at Greensboro Coliseum.

There was one honoree from each team, including Dell Curry, who ended his Virginia Tech career as the Hokies' all-time leading scorer. He later was passed by Bimbo Coles.

"If you ask me, I'm a little young to be a legend," said Staples, who turns 30 in July, "but I'll take it as a compliment."

Staples' record of 413 career 3-pointers stood from 1998 until it was broken by Redick in February.

Keydren Clark of St. Peter's also broke the record this season and briefly passed Redick before Redick moved into a tie, 435-435, before Saturday's game. Redick had three 3-pointers against Wake Forest.

St. Peters has completed regular-season play and, at 17-15, is no postseason lock.

"J.J. has helped draw attention to my old record and it's been good for my family," said Staples, who lives in Bedford County. "My son's just getting old enough to realize what went on when I played.

Corrigan honored

For the first time since the ACC initiated the annual Skeeter Francis Award in 1990 for service to the media, the winner, former commissioner Gene Corrigan, has Virginia ties.

Even before he served as Virginia athletic director from 1971-81, Corrigan had worked as sports information director at UVa. He subsequently was hired by the ACC as the first director of its media-relations office, a job later manned by Francis for many years.

Corrigan, a Duke graduate, also spent two years as the athletic director at Washington and Lee, six years as the athletic director at Notre Dame and a decade as ACC commissioner. Now retired, he lives outside Charlottesville and continues to work part-time as a consultant.

Priorities in order

Nobody could accuse Virginia sophomore Sean Singletary of settling for second-best after a 79-67 loss to North Carolina effectively ended the Cavs' NCAA tournament hopes.

"It really doesn't matter what type of game that I had," said Singletary, who scored 29 points against a team that had beaten the Cavaliers by 45 points only nine days earlier. "We lost. Our season is over."

Did he know something? Has UVa (15-14) elected not to accept an NIT bid, if offered.

"What Sean said and you didn't hear him say was, regular season," coach Dave Leitao said.

"One of the purposes of a program is to play as long as you can, but [a bid] would also set us up to get more tournament experience as we continue to build toward what we want this program to be."
 

Cavs await their fate
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
March 12, 2006

GREENSBORO, N.C. - After upsetting 11th-ranked Boston College on Feb. 21, Virginia was in prime position to earn its first bid to the NCAA Tournament since the 2000-01 season.
The Cavaliers had a 7-6 conference record with three games left, but lost their last three games and finished 7-9.

After Friday night's 79-67 loss to North Carolina in the quarterfinals of the ACC Tournament, Virginia officially took off its dancing shoes. There will be no trip to the Big Dance for the Cavaliers.

That predicament would be demoralizing for a lot of teams around the country, but not for Virginia, which surpassed almost everybody's expectations this season.

After the loss to North Carolina, UVa players were upbeat about the possibility playing in the NIT. The Cavaliers will find out tonight if they received a bid to the 40-team tournament.

"It could definitely be a stepping stone and building block for the program," said Virginia sophomore Sean Singletary. "It would be good for the future."

Despite losing four of its last five games, junior guard J.R. Reynolds said he's seen improvement in the team. He wants that to continue.

"As long as we keep playing, I don't care what [tournament] it is," Reynolds said. "It's good for this team to keep playing. The more games, the better we can get and jell together as a team, and just get better and get ready for next year."

Virginia playing in the NIT in four of seven seasons under former coach Pete Gillen was considered a disappointment. However, that wouldn't be the case for this year's team - which featured just eight scholarship players and came within a win of doubling its ACC win total from last season.

Virginia coach Dave Leitao said the NIT would be a good thing.

"I've said if from Day 1 that we're coaching this team to the best of our abilities, to get the most out of this group," said Leitao, who took his former team, DePaul, to the NIT in two of his three seasons at the helm. "But at the same point in time, I came here to build a program, and part of building a program is continuing to play as long as you can.

"I think not only would it be a feather in these guys' caps and a reward for working as hard as they worked all year long, but I think it sets itself up to continue to get more experience in this kind of tournament action - to be able to build toward what we want this program to be. It's always a good thing when you keep playing and other teams are not playing."

Despite the new NIT selection guidelines this year, which give automatic bids to all regular-season conference champions, Virginia would seem to have a strong resume.

Although the Cavaliers didn't finish the season strong, they do have good wins over North Carolina and Boston College. They also finished seventh in the 12-team ACC, one of the top conferences in America.

Do Virginia players believe they have done enough to make the NIT?

"Definitely," Reynolds said. "We played a lot of the great teams around, and I think our record is decent."

Added Singletary: "We were just on the brink of going to the NCAAs, but we weren't able to finish the season off strong."

Freshman Lauris Mikalauskas said nobody wants to stop now.

"We deserve to be in the NIT, definitely," Mikalauskas said. "We don't want our season to be over."

 

UVa has to slow things down vs. Princeton
By Whitelaw Reid / Daily Progress staff writer
March 12, 2006

In its last game, the University of Virginia men's lacrosse team played a Syracuse squad that was kind of like that the Loyola Marymount basketball team from the early 1990s that used to score over 100 points regularly.
In an offensive show at Klockner Stadium last Saturday, UVa prevailed 20-15.

Today, Virginia (5-0) hits the road for a nationally televised game at Princeton. The Tigers' style of play is the exact opposite of Syracuse.

"Princeton has a much more deliberate pace," said Virginia coach Dom Starsia. "You think of Princeton basketball, well there are a lot of similarities to how their lacrosse team goes about their business.

'They are a team that values the possession of the ball. They're willing to spend the time to get the option they want, even if they have to run through the sequence a couple of times."

Princeton went just 5-7 last season but has won its first two games this year, including a win at Johns Hopkins, which snapped the Blue Jays' 37-game home winning streak.

Starsia said his team will have to play a completely different style of lacrosse against Princeton.

"There will be less possessions in the game, and so you need to maybe take a little bit better care of the ball, so you don't waste those opportunities," said Starsia, whose team beat Princeton, 11-7, in Charlottesville last season. "It lends itself to a lower scoring game.

"You can't go into a game like this setting a goal of scoring 15 goals. Your goal is to be successful and win the game."

Patience, Starsia said, will be paramount.

"They slide to everything," Starsia said. "It's almost as if they're playing a zone, even though it's really man to man. You have to work to get good opportunities.

"If you want to step down and take shots from 15 yards, they'd be very happy if you did that all day. You have to be able to mix it up and be effective inside."

Starsia said the team's practices heading into today's games were completely different than the ones preceding the Syracuse game.

"For Syracuse, we had our guys spread out all over the field and we practiced transition offense and defense," Starsia said. "Those kinds of opportunities will not be there in a game like this. We need to be efficient in the box and create good opportunities against a very good defensive lacrosse team."

Virginia, led by Matt Ward and Ben Rubeor, has the No. 1 offense in the country. The Cavaliers have scored at least 13 goals in every game.

Starsia said certain players will probably have to come up big today.

"They usually take away the initial dodger, so where you need to make them pay is without the ball," Starsia said, "so I think guys like [Matt] Poskay and [Garrett] Billings in particular are guys that have to be a factor for us.

"They're both effective in those kinds of situations, and hopefully we'll be able to take advantage of that."

Virginia senior Michael Culver said the win over Syracuse was a confidence-builder.

"We proved that we are an elite team," Culver said. "I am hoping that the enthusiasm and the confidence, and specifically, the level of play carries over."

OUTSIDE THE CREASE: Princeton officials expect more than 5,000 fans for today's showdown, so the game, which starts at 2 p.m., has been moved to the Tigers football field.

 

Coaches don't believe in Cinderella stories
Non-factors abound in Tech-UVa game
Doug Doughty

There is a reason why coaches make personnel decisions with which fans and reporters frequently disagree.

They see their players every day in practice.

That’s also one of the disadvantages of being a coach. It makes them much less likely to play hunches.

Seth Greenberg’s decision to remove Shawn Harris from the game of his life was handled in detail by Aaron McFarling in his column on the first-round ACC Tournament game in which Virginia slipped past Virginia Tech 60-56.

There was a similar situation Sunday at the much-hyped “Last Ball in U-Hall,” where Maryland thwarted Virginia’s stirring comeback, 71-70.

The crowd at U-Hall fed off of walk-on guard Billy Campbell, the team’s only senior. Campbell made his first shot of the game, a 3-pointer, and he made his last shot of the game, another 3-pointer, that enabled the Cavaliers to close to 59-54 with 9:07 left.

Earlier, Campbell had ripped a ball away from James Gist on a play that resulted in a Mamadi Diane jumper.

After his galvanizing 3-pointer, Campbell stayed on the floor till the 6:51 mark, returned with 3:16 remaining, then left for good with 3:11 left. As you watched Maryland collapse around Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds on the game’s final play, it was easy to visualize how Campbell might have been open for the kind of wing jumper he had knocked down twice earlier.

I could never be a coach. I believe too much in karma.

I IMAGINE that relief is one of the emotions being experienced in Blacksburg this morning, relief that a 14-16 men’s basketball season is over and the healing can begin.

When reporters reached the Tech locker room Thursday night, they were informed that junior center Coleman Collins would not be doing any interviews. Collins had lost his father to cancer earlier in the season but had accommodated the media whenever possible.

“I think we had good practices and energy,” said Greenberg after the game. “I think that the stress of the season and the emotional tear of the season has left a lot of scars in that locker room right now, to be honest with you.

“I think that some of our guys will finally have a chance to grieve and they probably need that. Coleman’s not doing very well right now and I think he needed [that outpouring]. He’s been keeping it inside too long. I feel good that he’s letting it out finally.”

COLLINS PLAYED 31 minutes but posted few impressive statistics, other than three blocked shots. He missed seven of nine shots from the field, most from close range; missed two of three free throws; had zero defensive rebounds and only two total rebounds, and five of Tech’s 12 turnovers were his.

Wynton Witherspoon’s mother has been dealing with cancer and he, too, has been struggling. In a six-week span at midseason, Witherspoon started 10 of 11 games, including nine in a row. On Feb. 11, he played 35 minutes in the Hokies’ 81-77 overtime loss at Virginia. In six subsequent games, he has averaged fewer than 12 minutes per game.

Witherspoon had two points and no rebounds in a six-minute stint Thursday against Virginia and starter Deron Washington, another high-flying wing who frequently plays in the post for the Hokies, had three points, three assists and five fouls in 31 minutes.

When Washington hit a 3-pointer that put the Hokies ahead 52-50 with 7:24 left, I thought it might have been the shot of the game. Little did I realize that it was his only 3-pointer of the game.

THE NON-FACTORS weren’t limited to the Tech end of the floor. Virginia coach Dave Leitao held 6-11, 212-pound sophomore Tunji Soroye out of the starting lineup for the first 17 games and while replacement Lauris Mikalauskas furnished with his first double-double, Soroye did nothing to improve his stock on his insertion.

Soroye played a season-low eight minutes, did not attempt a shot, did not block a shot, committed two turnovers and had four fouls. He had one rebound and one steal, but, within five seconds, the steal was converted into a Cavalier turnover, one of 17.

Soroye played only two minutes in the second half, when the Cavaliers made extensive use of a three-guard alignment in which junior T.J. Bannister joined Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds.

I’ll come clean and admit that I’m not a huge Bannister fan, but I thought he did a good job until he missed both ends of a two-shot free-throw opportunity with 3:00 remaining and the Cavaliers trailing 54-53.

Tech freshman A.D. Vassallo grabbed the rebound but immediately turned it over. Washington then fouled Reynolds, who made two free throws in one of the key sequences of the game.

Bannister demonstrated remarkable restraint and made his only shot from the field. He also had three assists, compared to one turnover. On his drives into the lane, he twice found masked-man Mikalauskas, who had nine points and 10 rebounds in the second half alone.

It was a night for the UVa role players as leading scorer Sean Singletary went 2-for-10 from the field (1-for-6 on 3-pointers) and had four more turnovers, giving him a 12-20 assist-turnover ratio in the last four games. He’s 5-for-22 from the field in his last two games.

Frankly, I was surprised by the ease with which Singletary made the all-ACC first team – the first Virginia player to be so honored since 1992. Maybe I had seen him too much, compared to other voters who were judging him from a distance on his full body of work.

When I look at some of the UVa players who have been overlooked, most notably Junior Burrough when he put the Cavaliers on his shoulders for the final six weeks of the 1995 team, I realize the importance of creating a favorable impression in the first half of the season.
 

Wait is over: Former U.Va. player makes contribution
Isaiah adds dimension to Bandits' air attack with ground game
BY JERRY LINDQUIST
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER Mar 12, 2006

His football career at the University of Virginia went unfulfilled. But Brandon Isaiah hasn't given up on his dream.

"I'm still living it," he said. "I'm playing professional football, aren't I?"

The answer is yes and, well, it isn't the NFL, NFL Europe, CFL or AFL, but the AIFL, a growing but struggling minor-league indoor circuit. At this point, Isaiah, who came to U.Va. as a much-heralded running back from Winston-Salem, N.C., can live with that.

"I'm just glad to be playing," he said. "My ultimate goal is to make it in the NFL, but you have to be realistic."

Notice the present, not the past tense. The 6-0 230-pounder doesn't give up easily, although he understands how unlikely it might appear.

Then again, if the 23-year-old is anywhere near as good as his new coach says he is, who knows? Isaiah made a smashing debut with the Richmond Bandits and, in the process, set a league record for the longest touchdown run from scrimmage.

"He's special. He gives us a mixture of a true fullback and true tailback - and it's scary," said Bandits coach Brent Williams. "He's such a good athlete; he's going to cause defenses to play us a little bit slower. He's going to change our offense."

In other words, in a game that's all about throwing the ball, Isaiah suddenly gives the defending AIFL champions an added dimension. Most teams rely on the big, bruising back who will block a lot and run a little. In his first game with Richmond, Isaiah ran for 84 yards and three touchdowns, including the record-breaking 44 yarder as the Bandits plundered Florence 81-40.

"He came to me after he scored the first touchdown: 'Coach, I feel so good; I've been waiting to do this for five years,'" Williams said. "He had a look in his eyes."

Isaiah came to Virginia holding numerous high school records. As a senior, he ran for 2,303 yards, averaging 10.5 a carry. He was a late qualifier, signed with the Cavaliers, then was withheld as a true freshman.

In the first game of his redshirt freshman season (2001) under new coach Al Groh, Isaiah suffered a serious knee injury returning a kick. By the time he rehabed and was back on the field the following season, there were a number of prized running backs, including Alvin Pearman and Wali Lundy.

Isaiah's role at U.Va. was destined to become that of an offensive fill-in and special-teams player. Switched to fullback, he ran 15 times, none as a senior. He had 27 kickoff returns. He caught four passes for 29 yards and two touchdowns.

"I got mixed up in the wash," Isaiah said. "I never really got cut loose."

When Isaiah touched the ball Saturday in Florence, S.C ., it was the first time in a game since the 2004 season.

The record run was a called toss sweep to Isaiah. With three wideouts to the short side of the field, he got a perfect block from 6-10, 325-pound lineman Patrick Heard on the other side and was long gone, untouched "until the guy chasing me kind of pushed me in the back after I got in the end zone," Isaiah said. "I was taunting a little bit. I should apologize but it had been so long, and it felt so good."