Scattershooting from Bonusphere, Day 1
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com
March 14, 2007

Day One in Columbus, home of the Buckeyes.
Just finished my column for Thursday on the very special relationship between Virginia head coach Dave Leitao and assistant coach Rob Lanier, which I believe is one of the most interesting pieces I have written this basketball season.

Some assistant coaches like to be noticed, like talking to the press, like a high profile. I've dealt with several of those over the years in various sports, and that's fine. Lanier, on the other hand, keeps a low profile. He doesn't grant many interviews, if any, and shuns the spotlight.

No doubt that will change eventually because he will probably get another shot as a head coach some day.

Sean Singletary told me the other day in Tampa that Lanier has had a big impact on both him and J.R. Reynolds. Lanier has a lot of working knowledge about playing the guard positions and has enlightened both Sean and J.R. on various aspects.

He's a good teacher and, because Lanier has taught and coached other great guards, such as T.J. Ford at Texas, just to mention one of many, it's easy to gain the attention of other young college guards wanting to improve their level of play.

Lanier is the definition of cool. You've heard people say, "He's cooler than the other side of the pillow," well that's Rob Lanier. That kind of cool, that poise, has definitely rubbed off on Virginia's guards, because they told me so.

That could come in handy for this NCAA Tournament, where cool is the rule.

It's nice to be back covering the NCAAs again. I thought I had been banished from the tournament because it had been so long. I've been covering the NCAAs since I started in the business and covered the 1974 Final Four ... yes, the one where David Thompson and N.C. State stopped UCLA's great run. That remains my favorite postseason tournament of all-time and remains clear in my mind to this day.

I'll never forget standing in the UCLA locker room after talking to John Wooden. For those of you who don't know, Bill Walton would not talk to media in those days.

Imagine that! Bill Walton NOT talking.

Anyways, several writers and myself stood beside Walton at his locker after the Bruins were upset by N.C. State in the Greensboro Coliseum, trying to get some kind of reaction, some kind of quote from the big redhead.

Well, the only thing he said the entire time was when someone asked him what he was reading, and Walton acknowledged the title of the book. Some interview.

It's just refreshing to be covering the real March Madness again and not the NIT, a tournament that I still believe should be done away with and absorbed into an expanded NCAA Tournament.

Share the Madness!

 

Loyalty link UVa's Leitao, Lanier
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com | 978-7251
March 15, 2007

COLUMBUS, Ohio - There have been a lot of great duos throughout history: Abbott and Costello; Martin and Lewis; Batman and Robin; Starsky and Hutch; Cagney and Lacey; Bonnie and Clyde; Butch and Sundance; Bert and Ernie, to name a few.

The driving force behind the turnaround of Virginia’s basketball program can also be traced back to a terrific combo: Leitao and Lanier.

Special bond

While other coaches and players have made major contributions in returning the Cavaliers to the NCAA Tournament, the bond between coach Dave Leitao and assistant Rob Lanier has been a rather special one. Not only was it a challenge for Leitao to pursuade Lanier to come to Virginia in the first place, it was equally demanding keeping him in Charlottesville.

The old coaches will tell you that hiring a top assistant is one of the most important things a head coach will ever do. Great leaders don’t want yes men, they want real men.

And, as Texas coach Rick Barnes once told Lanier, “Hey, I know what I know ... I want to know what you know.”

Just as a coach needs to be comfortable with an assistant, the assistant needs to feel that way, too.

Leitao’s assembly

So, when Leitao began to assemble his new staff at Virginia two years ago, he immediately thought about Lanier. But, he didn’t push right away because he knew Lanier was going through some issues of his own.

Lanier had been fired as Siena’s coach after four years (58-70 from 2001-05).

“I was a little bitter, a little down,” Lanier recalled. “At that point, I was still under contract, so I didn’t really have to do anything else. I just wanted to spend some time with my family. I was sittin’ at home, watching Judge Joe Brown, taking my kids to school, working out every day and one of my best friends was living in Albany. So, I was in no hurry.”

Not a bad life if you can get it, but those Judge Joe shows can get old quickly.

Leitao and Lanier go way back. When Lanier first got into the business (he’s now 38, Leitao is almost 47) and dreamed of becoming a head coach, Leitao was one of the guys he first noticed.

That was around 1992, during Leitao’s first stint as an assistant at UConn. The world of assistant coaches is a small one and certain guys stand out.

Everyone in the business respected Leitao. There was a presence about him. He was a guy you could point to as a likely candidate to become a successful head coach someday.

Lanier and Leitao became friends and that relationship grew when Lanier, who used to take an all-star team over to Europe in the summer, asked Leitao to accompany him to Greece as a co-coach in 1999.

“We spent 12 days together,” Lanier said. “Bus rides, plane rides, all the down time you spend. Coaching and talking basketball philosophy, talking recruiting, family. We had a long time to get to know one another and became solid friends. We found we had a lot of common ground.”

Long story short, when Lanier struggled with his firing, Leitao was there to listen, but not push. The new Virginia coach went about his business of assembling his staff, patiently waiting for Lanier to sort things out. All along, Leitao’s main advice to his pal was, “Do what’s best for your family.”

About Final Four time, Lanier’s phone began to ring off the hook. He was in high demand as an assistant coach candidate and had offers from another ACC school, a Big 12 school and one from the Big East.

“What I wanted, and what I think made it important to Rob, was that I wanted a confidante,” Leitao said. “I wanted somebody I could lean on and trust wholeheartedly for anything.”

Lanier also wanted to be with someone he could trust and someone who would value what he brought to the table. Having been a head coach, used to making decisions, he didn’t want to enter a situation where he couldn’t say what he was thinking.

At the end of the process, Lanier decided there were only two men he could have that kind of professional relationship with, Barnes, whom he had worked for before at Texas, and Leitao, a longtime friend.

He didn’t know anything about Virginia or Charlottesville, but he put a lot of trust in the fact that if Leitao felt comfortable socially and culturally here, and if he believed he could win at Virginia, that was good enough for him.

Still, there were some questions in his mind about what happens in choppy seas? Coaches often disagree during games or in staff meetings on various issues and it can sometimes be a bumpy ride.

“We’ve gotten closer the past two years because we’ve had disagreements,” Lanier said of his relationship with Leitao. “We’ve been able to disagree and not have it affect things. Even when I’m pissed at him, I still like him and vice versa. I was a little nervous about that coming here ... He’s a good man, but what kind of boss is he going to be?

“We get in those office meetings and go back and forth and leave the office mad, but it doesn’t hurt the relationship,” Lanier said. “That’s the test. When you don’t see eye-to-eye. After two years, I’m comfortable with that. He’s moody for a day or so, and I respect it because I’ve been close enough to where his shoes are, that I can understand the ups and downs emotionally. I try to have his back as much as I can.”

That bond essentially is what kept Lanier here after last season. Another Leitao assistant, Gene Cross, had returned to the Midwest to work for Mike Brey at Notre Dame.

This time, Florida was calling Lanier. National champion Florida, that is. Billy Donovan is a very persuasive individual. Did I also say, relentless? When the Gators want something bad enough, they tend to make it very difficult to say no.

That’s the pressure Lanier was facing.

When he went to Leitao, he was a little surprised. Some head coaches are very protective of their staff and won’t allow any wiggle room. They’d say something like, ‘Hey, we’re in the ACC ... why would you want to go there?’

When Lanier informed Leitao to expect a call from Donovan, the Virginia head coach actually complicated the situation.

“I told Dave I wanted to stay here and asked him how he wanted me to handle this,” Lanier recalled. “His answer made it tougher because he said to do what’s best for my family and my career, not what’s best for Virginia or Dave Leitao.”

That opened the door for Donovan, who was giving Lanier two or three phone calls a day, asking Lanier’s wife to call his wife. Florida’s big wheels were in motion.

Ultimately, Lanier’s wife, Dayo, told him to follow his heart and that made it easy.

He flew to Houston for a face-to-face with Donovan, met him at a hotel and told him he was staying at Virginia.

Not many men could have turned down that situation.

“I think for Rob and for me, it’s about being in a good place together,” Leitao said of their relationship. “Sometimes a situation may look a little bit better on paper, but it really isn’t because it takes you away from that comfort zone that you have in working with another person.”

Leitao and Lanier. They’re more than just coaching associates. They are best friends and that’s difficult to duplicate.

“It even goes beyond that,” Leitao said. “It’s having somebody that you really know, not only in the good times, but especially when you really need somebody. He knows that I’m there for him and vice versa, not just from a professional level but from the family standpoint as well.”

That’s loyalty that you just don’t find every day.

 

Woodard has been Tar Heels' 'Mr. Steady'
By Todd Merchant / tmerchant@dailyprogress.com | 978-7236
March 15, 2007

In golf, they call it a “gimme.” In basketball, it’s a “bunny.”

In the North Carolina baseball team’s dugout, it’s known simply as “Friday.”

They all refer to an element of the game that is automatic. It’s when a golfer has a 2-foot putt or when a basketball player has an easy layup or when Robert Woodard takes the mound for the Tar Heels.

During his three-plus seasons in Chapel Hill, N.C., Woodard has developed a consistency rarely seen in the college ranks - and even the pros, for that matter.

The senior righty has compiled a 27-3 record, which means that, literally, nine times out of 10 Woodard will earn a victory.

“It was the one thing that got me in trouble when I was a kid - I’m a very competitive person,” Woodard said. “I hate to lose ... and just the feeling of winning kinda pushes me.”

Pretty soon it may push him into some elite company at UNC. He is just three wins shy of the school’s all-time wins record of 30. And his .900 winning percentage has him currently sitting atop the Tar Heels’ rankings and fourth all-time in the ACC.

If he continues his current pace, he should also finish near the top in innings pitched and career ERA. All this from a guy who has been overshadowed for much of his career.

Even his coach didn’t expect Woodard to have this kind of success.

“Absolutely not,” said UNC coach Mike Fox. “A lot of times in the recruiting process, you don’t get to see the heart and the desire until a kid gets here. Robert is a relentless worker. And you don’t really know what you’re getting until they arrive on campus.”

Last year, Woodard was part of a rotation that included Andrew Miller and Daniel Bard, both of whom were taken in the first round of the last summer’s amateur draft. Meanwhile, Woodard wasn’t selected until the 46th round when the St. Louis Cardinals took him with the 1,390th overall pick.

The discrepancy among the pitchers, Fox said, had to do with physical makeup.

“Basically just velocity. Andrew and Daniel throw a lot harder, and they’re bigger and taller, which is what pro people look for,” Fox said. “From our standpoint in college there wasn’t a lot of difference because Robert seems to win every time he goes out.”

Woodard is currently riding a nine-game win streak, and he has lost just once in his last 23 decisions.

A major key to his success has been his ability to locate pitches.

The former state chess champion has pinpoint accuracy and can confidently throw any of four pitches at any time in the count.

“He really, really knows how to pitch and expand the plate,” said Virginia coach Brian O’Connor, whose team faces Woodard and the Tar Heels this weekend in Chapel Hill. “He mixes his pitches, he throws any of his pitches in any count and it is a challenge as a hitter. He keeps you off balance.

“We will have a fight on our hands Friday night. I am sure about that.”

 

Out for respect
Cavs' J.R. Reynolds believes he was shortchanged after falling short of making the All-ACC first team.
Doug Doughty

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- "It hurts," Virginia senior J.R. Reynolds said earlier this week.

He wasn't talking about his injury, whatever it is.

Depending on the source, Reynolds has either a hip flexor, an abdominal strain or a pulled groin.

"Who told you it was an abdominal strain?" UVa coach Dave Leitao asked Monday.

Actually, it was Reynolds who indicated he had an abdominal strain, but he'd rather not talk about that.

What really hurts is his relegation to second-team All-ACC.

"It hurts," Reynolds said, "and it kind of motivates you at the same time."

Reynolds was the sixth-leading vote-getter in All-ACC balloting, with many of the voters casting their votes following the games of March 3-4.

With a chance to win outright the ACC's regular season championship, Virginia lost at Wake Forest 78-72 as Reynolds went 3-for-14 from the field.

"I never thought one game could determine how your whole season is judged," said Reynolds, a 6-foot-2 12 guard from Roanoke. "I know that people still don't give me the respect that I deserve. Sooner or later, I'm going to get that respect."

He'll have an opportunity at 12:15 p.m. Friday, when fourth-seeded Virginia (20-10) meets 13th-seeded Albany (23-9) in an NCAA South Regional game in Columbus, Ohio.

It will be the first NCAA appearance for Reynolds, who said before the season that a trip to the NCAA tournament would supersede any individual honors.

How far the Cavaliers advance in the postseason could hinge on a return to form by Reynolds, who, in his past three games, has shot 3-for-15, 3-for-14 and 3-for-15.

"That No. 3," he said. "It's stuck with me, right?"

Reynolds isn't making too many predictions about Friday's game, but he feels confident he will have more than three field goals.

"More than three," Reynolds said. "Definitely."

Leitao reiterated Monday that Reynolds has a hip injury, although it hasn't cut into his minutes. The only reason Reynolds played only 31 minutes Friday in a 79-71 ACC Tournament loss to N.C. State was early foul trouble.

"It's hard to get in a rhythm when you're not practicing as much," Reynolds said.

If his outside shot isn't falling, Reynolds continued, there are other ways to score. He can turn to his mid-range game or attack the basket off the dribble. He has been to the free-throw line 185 times this season and shot 82.7 percent.

Besides, it's not all about offense. Reynolds is likely to spend time on 6-1 Albany guard Jamar Wilson, the two-time America East player of the year.

Reynolds hasn't asked Leitao if he can cover Wilson because Leitao "already knows," Reynolds said. "He knows I always want to guard the other team's best player."

On the day that he was named ACC coach of the year, Leitao's first reaction was that he had "mixed emotions." That was also the day that the All-ACC teams were announced.

"In my mind, there are six first-team All-ACC players in the league," Leitao said, "so who do you leave out? I've been in other leagues -- the Big East, Conference USA -- where they pick more than six.

"Arguably, at one stretch, you could have made a case for [Reynolds] as the best player in the league."

Reynolds goes into the weekend with 1,629 points, needing 18 points to surpass John Crotty for 10th place on UVa's all-time list. Reynolds already ranks 10th in assists with 316, including a career-high 116 this year.

The injury may have altered his practice regimen, but Reynolds still goes into every game believing that his shot is going to fall.

"I've got tons of confidence," he said.

Reynolds was one of only two players in the ACC -- Florida State's Al Thornton was the other -- to average 20 or more points in regular-season league play. If he could return to his midseason form, Virginia could have an extended NCAA tournament run. If not ...

"Oh, I'll get it back," Reynolds said. "I'm going to get it back."
 

Cavs seeded too highly
David Teel
March 15 2007

Now that everyone's filleted the NCAA tournament selection committee for excluding Drexel, how 'bout some barbs for the NIT?

Seriously, did you see what the Scrooges running the National Invitation Tournament did to poor North Carolina State? They assigned the Wolfpack, which Sunday completed a remarkable four-games-in-four-days stretch at the ACC tournament, to a Tuesday game. At Drexel!

Talk about brutal. A fifth game in six days? Against America's angriest basketball team?

Much to its credit, State won, the reward for which is a three-day break before a Friday encounter with Marist.

But enough about the NIT. Presumably you didn't enter an NIT office pool (anyone who did qualifies for pro bono counseling). You did, however, invest Junior's college fund in an NCAA pool, and you will spend much of the next three-plus weeks chained to the couch - cooler and catheter within reach.

So some observations on the only bracket that matters in March, or any month for that matter:

Virginia is the most over-seeded team in memory. The Cavaliers shared the ACC regular-season title with North Carolina, but anyone who saw them play during the last month - losses to Miami, Wake Forest and N.C. State - should know this team does not merit a No. 4 seed.

Consider the Rating Percentage Index, hardly infallible but in this case enlightening. Collegerpi.com ranks the Cavaliers 55th, nearly double the worst RPI of any No. 4 in the last decade.

The previous low was Arkansas' 28th in 1999. The average was 15. Southern Illinois, Maryland and Texas, this year's other No. 4s, are Nos. 7, 16 and 26 on the RPI.

Per NCAA rules, Virginia athletic director and outgoing committee member Craig Littlepage left the room when his colleagues discussed the Cavaliers. But given the committee's history, cynics will consider the seeding Littlepage's parting gift.

New Mexico's controversial 1999 inclusion in the field coincided with Lobos athletic director Rudy Davalos' final season on the panel. The Mountain West's Nevada-Las Vegas was a surprising 2000 at-large choice as conference commissioner Craig Thompson's committee tenure ended.

That said, if guard J.R. Reynolds' mysterious injury - he says it's an abdominal strain; coach Dave Leitao says it's a hip issue - mends some, Virginia has a reasonable chance of surviving Albany and Tennessee to earn a South Regional semifinal against top-seeded Ohio State and freshman Greg Oden, a mountainous throwback center.

The regional semifinal worth craving is North Carolina-Texas in the East, Brandan Wright versus Kevin Durant.

Both long, lanky and elegant freshmen; both top-five NBA draft picks whenever they so choose.

Conversely, an East second-rounder between Georgetown and Boston College would match geriatric forwards voted player of the year in the Big East and ACC, respectively: Hoyas junior Jeff Green and Eagles senior Jared Dudley; Oregon-Notre Dame in round two in the Midwest Regional would showcase two racehorse offenses, led by Aaron Brooks and Russell Carter.

Oregon opens tournament play 400-plus miles from home in Spokane, Wash. But if you consider possible "homecourt" edges when picking your bracket, remember Louisville.

The committee assigned the Cardinals to the first- and second-round site at the University of Kentucky's Rupp Arena, about 80 miles from the Louisville campus.

Moreover, the Cardinals' opponent, Brigham Young, must cross two time zones from Provo, Utah.

Texas A&M figures to meet Louisville in a second-round game at Rupp, but should the Aggies win, they'll advance to the South Regional in San Antonio, where they would certainly enjoy an advantage.

The most amusing team-venue combination is Texas Tech in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The last time Red Raiders coach Bob Knight worked in Winston, his Indiana Hoosiers played miserably in a 1997 first-round loss to Colorado, prompting Knight to walk back to the team hotel - in the rain.

For all the chatter of upsets and parity that arises each March, it's worth noting that the top seed won five of the six tournaments in the major conferences - the exception was Oregon's victory in the Pacific 10, where No. 1 seed UCLA fell in the quarterfinals.

All the more reason to pick UCLA to join Georgetown, Texas A&M and defending champion Florida at the Final Four, where Acie Law IV leads A&M to the title.
 

Ex-U.Va. coach to analyze Cavs' game
Former Virginia coach Pete Gillen will be a radio analyst for the NCAA tournament game in Ohio Friday.
BY DARRYL SLATER
247-4641
March 15, 2007

As they return to the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2001, Virginia's men's basketball players will see a reminder of the program's past sitting courtside: former coach Pete Gillen.

Gillen, who recruited several current Cavaliers, including guards Sean Singletary and J.R. Reynolds, will be a radio analyst for Westwood One. He will work with play-by-play announcer Kevin Kugler, his partner for his previous eight Westwood One broadcasts this season, including the Big Ten tournament final.

Gillen and Kugler were assigned to the Columbus, Ohio, site about three weeks ago, well before the No. 4 seed Cavaliers were slotted to play No. 13 Albany in the first round at 12:15 p.m. Friday.

"I was surprised, but it'll be nice to see the kids we recruited," Gillen said. "It'll be different, but hey, it's life."

Gillen resigned after the 2004-05 season, and Virginia replaced him with current coach Dave Leitao. Gillen still lives in Charlottesville, where his daughter, Shannon, attends high school.

He occasionally stops by the Holiday Inn lobby lounge, just down the street from John Paul Jones Arena, to watch games. It's research for his analyst job with College Sports TV, which, like Westwood One, is affiliated with CBS. Gillen hasn't seen Virginia play in person since he resigned.

The Tampa Tribune reported Wednesday that Gillen was pursuing South Florida's vacant head coaching job.

The paper did not cite a source for the information. Asked Wednesday about the job, Gillen said, "I have no comment on that at all."

Westwood One vice president of sports Howard Deneroff said Gillen's seven-season Virginia coaching stint - he was 118-93, 45-67 in the ACC and 0-1 in the NCAAs - slipped his mind until Monday, when he and Gillen talked about tapes Gillen needed to watch to familiarize himself with the teams.

Deneroff said moving Gillen because of the Virginia connection would have been unlikely, because it would force several crews to swap personnel.

Deneroff noted that former Georgetown coach John Thompson will work as a Westwood One analyst at the Winston-Salem, N.C., site where his son, John Thompson III, will coach the Hoyas.

"I think if we had any qualms or any thoughts that Pete would be objective, then, yes, we would move him," Deneroff said. "I think, if anything, the familiarity makes for a better broadcast. We're certainly not worried about Pete rooting in either direction. If either school had expressed any concern to us, maybe we would have considered it."

Deneroff said Westwood One for the tournament brought in four to five analysts who never worked the NCAAs before. Gillen, he said, was his first choice off that list.

Known for his witticisms as a coach, Gillen once famously said, "Certainly, Duke is Duke. They're on TV more than 'Leave it to Beaver' reruns."

Cavaliers ready for Great Danes
With a No. 4 rank in the southern region, Cavs look to down No. 13 Albany in the NCAA Tournament
Anders Sleight, Cavalier Daily Associate Editor

For the first time in six years, the Virginia men's basketball team finds itself in uncharted waters, the NCAA Tournament. This marks the first time Virginia has received a bid to the tournament since the 2000-01 season, and it is the highest seed the Cavaliers have received in the tournament since 1995. Virginia, the No. 4 seed in the southern region, will face No. 13 seed Albany in the first round of the NCAA Tournament Friday at 12:15 pm.

The Cavaliers' No. 4 seed marks another accomplishment for Dave Leitao, ACC coach of the year. Leitao has led Virginia (20-10, 11-5 ACC) to the tournament in only his second year with the program.

"I'm very pleased to be a No. 4 seed," Leitao said. "It's a great tribute to the team, but at the same time we have to realize that there are a lot of very difficult challenges ahead."

Although Albany is the No. 13 seed, it will likely present quite a challenge. The Great Danes (23-9, 13-3 American East) won the America East Conference Tournament for the second year in a row and thereby received the conference's automatic bid. Albany defeated top-ranked Vermont in the title game to earn its second straight NCAA Tournament berth. Leitao has a significant amount of experience with the America East, as a player and a coach, and his experience will likely help the Cavaliers prepare for the contest.

"I know they are a two-time NCAA participant," Leitao said. "Having played and coached in the America East, I know how competitive it is. They are a veteran team and they are going to come in with a very high air of confidence."

Albany is led by senior guard Jamar Wilson, the America East Conference player of the year. This marks the second straight year Wilson has received the conference's top individual honor. He averages 18.6 points per game and five assists per game. Covering the star guard will likely prove to be quite a handful for the Cavaliers. Additionally, in the 2006 NCAA Tournament -- as the No. 16 seed -- Albany gave No. 1 seed Connecticut significant problems and even held a lead down the stretch.

"They gave Connecticut a very difficult game last year and almost won," Leitao said. "So we're going to have to make sure that we are prepared psychologically for a heck of a fight."

Leitao and the rest of the Virginia coaching staff have been preaching a last game attitude and mentality to the team, as a loss to Albany would end the Cavaliers' season. For Virginia to pull out a victory, it will need to stop the dynamic and creative play of Wilson. It will also need to find ways to beat the Danes' stingy defense, led by junior guard Brian Lillis, America East defensive player of the year.

"Like Coach said, this could be our last game," senior guard J.R. Reynolds said. "So we have to treat it like that."

At this point, every team in the tournament is in the same boat. Just one loss means elimination, whereas a win will prolong a team's tournament life. And as last year's example of George Mason can attest, every team is capable of going the distance.

"Like everybody, [Albany] is playing for their life," junior guard Sean Singletary said. "We know they'll compete. We're going to compete."

 

Adding a couple holidays to March
Clayton O'Toole, Columnist

Let's make one thing very clear right now. Tomorrow's men's NCAA Tournament game against Albany is the biggest sports event in the last four years for Virginia. And if the Cavaliers win, Sunday's contest against the winner of Tennessee/Long Beach State will be the new biggest game.

With apologies to men's and women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, and even possibly football, no other sports game or tournament in the last four years even comes close. The NCAA Tournament is the granddaddy of college sports. Say what you want about the importance of college football BCS games, but the fact is that a relatively small number of schools take part each season. The Big Dance, however, features (very arguably) the 65 best men's basketball teams in the country, each putting its season on the line day after day until only one team remains standing to cut down the nets in Atlanta. Glorious!

For Virginia, this tournament caps what truly has been a dream season. Much has been written in this newspaper and elsewhere about the incredible turnaround Virginia coach Dave Leitao has orchestrated in just two seasons in Charlottesville. But the stats are worth repeating. Picked to finish dead last in the ACC a year ago, Leitao and the Cavs finished 7-9, good for 7th. This season, after being picked by ACC beat writers to finish 8th, Virginia compiled a crazy 11-5 record, good enough for share of the ACC regular season title with No. 8 North Carolina.

As spectacular as this regular season has been for Virginia, men's college basketball in 2007 is all about the NCAA Tournament, plain and simple. Just ask my hometown Kansas Jayhawks, who have won the last two regular season Big 12 titles, yet regularly face (deserved) criticism for laying a pair of first-round eggs to vastly lower-seeded teams in the last two NCAA tournaments.

It has often been said that there are two main aspects of coaching: teaching and playing. Through the rapid development of many of Virginia's players as well as the team's regular season successes, Leitao has proven himself an excellent teacher capable of extracting the most out of his players. Tomorrow, however, Leitao will have his first opportunity to show off the "playing" aspect of coaching. By playing, I mean the ability to prepare players for a one-and-done scenario and have his team ready to play on the nation's biggest stage.

Now here's the fun part -- and I guarantee I'm the only one saying this right now -- I think this year's Virginia squad could be a great fit for the NCAA Tournament. Two things have caused Virginia to struggle this season: 1) teams with great big men (à la Stanford) and 2) teams that get to play Virginia more than once.

Follow me on this one. First, none of Virginia's potential opponents this weekend feature dominant big men. In fact, they are all guard-oriented teams, against the likes of which Virginia has had success all season. Second, Virginia's worst conference losses came on the road at Miami and Wake Forest and against N.C. State in the ACC Tournament. The common thread between these three losses (other than being away from home) is that all of these teams had seen Virginia before -- and in the Wolfpack's case, twice. Leitao said it best a few weeks ago when he mentioned that scouting reports had started to catch up with Singletary and Reynolds and said the team needed to be more creative in getting them shots and offering more support on the offensive end.

Well guess what Wahoo Nation, scouting reports in the NCAA Tournament are terrible, especially in the first couple rounds. Teams scramble for game tape, talk to coaches who have played against their opponents and try to put some semblance of a game plan together in two or three days -- quite a departure from repeat conference matchups in which coaches know the other teams in the league as well as their own.

These two factors make me pretty freakin' excited for this weekend's games. I'll be in Columbus cheering on the Cavaliers (silently) from the press box. Check back Monday for a recap of this weekend's big wins, my thoughts on how Virginia played, as well as a column about what it's like to be at the NCAA Tournament.

Get excited Virginia. After all, none of us have ever done this before.

 

Ramblin' men: the Cavs' life of travel
Playing consecutive road games adds extra challenge to achieving success in already tough ACC
Eric Kolenich, Cavalier Daily Senior Associate Editor

Top-of-the-line hotels. Free food. Open air and the excitement of new cities, new schools and new challenges each weekend.

This is the life of your run-of-the-mill, everyday NCAA athlete at the University of Virginia ­-- a little nicer than the week-old pizza and lumpy mattresses most college students are used to.

Some teams, such as the basketball and field hockey squads, are lucky to travel once or twice a week to play a game at another school before hurrying back to Charlottesville and repeating the same schedule.

The football team, on the other hand, travels days before its game begins, with all its focus on one day and one game to prove its worth.

But the pinnacle of sports travel -- the road trip -- is reserved for baseball and softball.

Each weekend, the Cavalier baseball team plays three games against an ACC school.

That means three different starting pitchers have to be ready to go -- sophomore Jacob Thompson, freshman Matt Packer and junior Sean Doolittle are expected to play this weekend against North Carolina -- and the lineup has to have enough energy to hit the base paths running all weekend.

This schedule involves three times as much work and the potential for three times as much glory -- or three times as much sorrow. But each game has to be won one at a time.

"You've got to treat each game as its own," Virginia coach Brian O'Connor said. "The successful teams in college baseball are the ones that can handle the peaks and the valleys in a season."

Though O'Connor wants his players in the "Al Groh mindset" of one game at a time, from the coaching standpoint, consideration of the whole series always factors into decisions.

"There's a lot of managing that goes in to a three-game series," O'Connor said. "You're up by four runs -- do you pitch your best guys out of the bullpen or do you save them for maybe a closer game later?"

While Dave Leitao expects junior Sean Singletary to start every game, and Groh knows junior Chris Long is ready to go every Saturday, when O'Connor puts the ball in Thompson's hand, he's giving all he's got for the whole week. Bullpen pitchers are ready to go at a moment's notice, but often can't throw more than one or two days a week.

"My feeling is that if you have a chance to win a game on the road, you go for it," O'Connor said. "You worry about tomorrow tomorrow. If you go a little over .500 on the road and do your thing at home, you're going to have a chance to win this league."

And with each pitcher the Cavaliers face, they modify their approach.

"You make adjustments from Friday to Saturday to Sunday based on what type of team they are," O'Connor said. "Maybe on Friday you're facing their No. 1 who's a strikeout pitcher, and you have to bunt a little more because it might be a 3-2 game. Later in the series we might not have as much of a bullpen and we might need to swing the bats more because it might be more of a high-scoring game."

This weekend, the Cavaliers will have to balance between senior Robert Woodard, who models his game after high velocity pitchers like Roger Clemens, and freshman Alex White, who bases his approach off control expert Greg Maddux.

But once the work for the day is done, it's back to luxurious confines and the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

Senior right fielder Brandon Marsh spoke about the schedule that the players keep during the road-trips.

"Thursday, you travel down there," he said. "You practice there or you practice here, and then you leave so you have the night to sleep in the hotel and prepare for the game the next day."

Marsh said off the field, the team keeps busy, often seeing parents and going to dinner with teammates.

"We let things take a long time, because if the game is at 1 and is over at 4, you don't want to be sitting at the hotel for seven hours," he said. "It's a pretty social time."

O'Connor gives his wisdom to the team on the bus after the game, then gives players their space.

"They need their time away from the coaches," O'Connor said. "They need to be on their own and enjoy each other's company."

After the bus ride back to the hotel, players take their minds off the game for a little while, resting in the hotel, watching a little Sports Center and heading out for some fun. And of course, getting some work done when possible.

O'Connor, however, said he never takes his mind off the game, adding that after Virginia lost the opener in the road trip to Wake Forest, "it took all night and the next morning for me to flush that one out."

This weekend, the team will keep its eyes on the Cavalier basketball squad, traveling to Albany for the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Though NCAA athletes are not allowed to bet money on NCAA sporting events, Marsh says he imagines a few players will have their brackets ready to go this weekend with the potential of non-monetary competitions arising.

With four more ACC road trips in their schedule, along with an ACC tournament in Jacksonville and an anticipated trip to Omaha, the Cavaliers will have plenty of time to enjoy the food away from dining halls, rooms nicer than their own dorms and a chance to escape the somewhat monotonous life of Charlottesville.