The Education of Chris Long
Thanks to the lessons of his Hall of Famer dad, the Virginia standout learned early that to be a top NFL prospect requires an uncommon passion
Posted: Tuesday March 4, 2008 9:27AM; Updated: Tuesday March 4, 2008 9:33AM
Al Tielemans/Sports Illustrated

As the ground shook and the trees swayed, Diane and Howie Long scooped the three boys out of their beds, grabbed armfuls of blankets and pillows, and made their way to the front door. The boys knew the drill by heart. Every day Howie would park his Chevy Suburban in the same spot in the driveway, just beyond the reach of the tallest trees. If an earthquake rattled Los Angeles, it meant they were all spending the night in the Suburban -- two adults, three kids and two dogs. "You had to think about aftershocks," Howie said.

The Longs lived in Los Angeles for 12 years, while Howie starred at defensive end for the Raiders and Diane worked as a corporate lawyer. But shortly after the Northridge earthquake in January 1994 -- 6.7 on the Richter scale -- they decided they'd spent too many sleepless nights in their Suburban. So they embarked on a national search for a new home. Possible destinations included Oregon, Cape Cod and the Raleigh-Durham area of North Carolina.

They settled in Charlottesville, Va., a genteel college town of red bricks, white columns and trees that generally stay upright. For the boys -- Chris, Kyle and Howie Jr. -- Charlottesville was a haven and a playground. They went fishing in Sugar Hollow and inner-tubing in the James River. They attended school four miles from home, at St. Anne's-Belfield. And when it came time for the oldest, Chris, to choose a college, all he had to do was cross Ivy Road from St. Anne's-Belfield to reach the University of Virginia.

It all looked so easy. He had the Hall of Fame father, the big house, the summers in Montana, the weekends in L.A. with Terry Bradshaw and Jimmy Johnson at the Fox Sports studio. But when Chris accepted a football scholarship to Virginia and e-mailed another recruit, linebacker Clint Sintim, to introduce himself, Sintim did not respond. "I didn't really care for him," said Sintim, who had yet to meet Long. "I thought he was just a rich kid with a famous dad."

Then Sintim got to Virginia and saw how Long approached game days. Chris had eye black smeared across his cheeks and D-Block blasting out of his headphones. He stalked around the locker room, screaming at himself and his teammates, explaining in vivid detail how he was going to annihilate the man in front of him and how his teammates would annihilate the men in front of them. "Who's going to ride with me?" he hollered. "Who's going to ride with me?" This did not sound like some spoiled rich kid. It sounded like Ray Lewis.

Football players, especially pass rushers, are often fueled by hardships they faced early in their lives. This is true for Lewis, for Shawne Merriman and for Howie Long. Chris is the opposite. He is fueled by the lack of hardships he faced, by the perception that his advantages somehow made him soft. The fuel is different, but potent nonetheless. After four years spent pile-driving quarterbacks as a defensive end at Virginia, Chris is projected as the possible No. 1 pick in the NFL draft on April 26. And Sintim, of all people, is one of his roommates and closest friends. The Longs refer to him as their fourth son.

"I was obviously wrong about Chris," said Sintim, who'll be senior in 2008. (He redshirted as a freshman.) "He is not soft or spoiled at all."

Ever since Chris arrived in Charlottesville, at age nine, he has been trying to make that point. In Los Angeles he did not play football, did not watch football and picked daisies in the outfield during his Little League games. He spent his free time writing science-fiction and adventure stories. His parents thought maybe he'd become an architect. After the family moved, Chris asked to try out for a youth football team called the Eagles, mainly because he liked their green uniforms. Howie told Diane the boy would get hurt in the first practice and give up. Even after Chris survived that first day, Howie told the coach, Mark Sanford, "I'm not sure he'll stick with this game."

As a ninth-grader Chris went out for the football team at St. Anne's-Belfield, a private K-to-12 school with an enrollment of about 840. But when he tried to run at his first practice, he looked as though he might trip over his size-13 cleats. Coach John Blake told him to get on the defensive line and drop into a stance. Chris bent down -- back perfectly straight, butt high in the air, free hand tucked behind his leg. Chris's eyes even bugged out. "Oh, my God," Blake said. "That's Howie Long." It was the first of a thousand comparisons.

Chris befriended a school custodian, McKinley Breckenridge, who let him into the weight room when he wanted to lift after 10 p.m. His devotion to football grew at the same rate as his body. Before every game Blake would gather the team in the locker room and read his favorite poem, The Man in the Glass. Chris knew it so well that he'd recite it aloud, right along with Blake.

Three days a week Howie worked with the St. Anne's-Belfield football team as a volunteer assistant coach. After Chris committed to Virginia in the fall of his junior year -- he made no other visits -- opposing fans continued to serenade him with chants of "Howie, Howie." During a high school baseball game, as Chris took his lead off first, the first baseman told him, "I can't wait until you get to Virginia and get your ass kicked every day."

At the beginning the first baseman got his wish. As a freshman Chris had to practice against Cavaliers junior D'Brickashaw Ferguson, one of the best offensive tackles in the country. Lying on his back every afternoon, with Ferguson standing over him blocking out the sun, Chris thought about that smart-mouthed first baseman. He too wondered if he deserved everything he had. "It makes you question if you belong, if you're any good," Chris says.

Howie was mostly out of sight, even though Chris and Virginia coach Al Groh pleaded with him to visit practice. He only attended open practices and stopped going to road games because the television cameras kept finding him. Even at Scott Stadium he wore a baseball cap and wandered the concourse like a nervous nomad, never wanting to draw the spotlight from his son. By Saturday night he was on his plane for Los Angeles so he could be at the Fox studio in time for the Sunday-morning NFL pregame show.

But on Monday nights, when no cameras were rolling, Chris went home to watch game tape with his dad. Sometimes they would move the coffee table out of the way and line up across from each other in the family room, Howie showing Chris how to rip through a tackle's hands and charge at one side of his body.

"You always tell young guys to learn offensive formations, and they say, 'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' " says Mike London, Long's defensive coordinator at Virginia and now the head coach at Richmond. "Chris could read formations and know what blocks to expect from each one. That's what Howie instilled in him. That's the work they did at home."

The Long house is decorated with sporting goods. In the foyer is a glass bowl full of used baseballs. On the couch are chewed-up tennis balls. Kyle, a senior at St. Anne's-Belfield, walks around with a wooden baseball bat. Howie Jr., an 11th-grader, dumps a lacrosse helmet on the kitchen counter. It's hard to pick the best athlete in the family. At 6' 7" and 285 pounds, Kyle was recruited by dozens of the best college football teams in the country. But he's also a lefthanded pitcher-first baseman with a 96-mph fastball and a .507 batting average. He has committed to play baseball at Florida State. Howie Jr. has committed to play lacrosse at Virginia. If all goes well, the Longs will have two first-round draft picks in the next three months -- Chris in football, Kyle in baseball. "That would be pretty cool," Kyle says.

Howie's childhood could not have been more different than the one he has provided for his sons. He grew up in the gritty Charlestown section of Boston, forsaken by his parents when they divorced and raised by his uncles. By the time he was seven he was fighting in the streets. In high school he missed 45 consecutive days of class. Three years ago Howie took the boys to Charlestown, to show them the dark corners and back alleys of his youth. The message of the visit was obvious. "He wanted to give us everything he didn't have," Chris says.

While Howie Jr. is the wisecracker and Kyle the charmer, Chris is more like his amped-up dad. He is 6' 4", 275, with blond curls and a square jaw. If he sits still for more than a few minutes, his legs start to shake in nervous anticipation. When he's happy and relaxed, Chris surfs opposing team's message boards, mining them for inflammatory posts that will rile him up again. "I can't be idle," he says. "I'm a restless soul."

Amid all the youthful energy in this house is 86-year-old Frank Addonizio, Diane's father, who has suffered from lymphoma for five years. He lives in a cottage on the Longs' 65-acre property, down a path from the main house. There he puts together a scrapbook for Chris, the way he once did for Howie. Every few days Chris stops by the cottage. Frank tells him about his poker games at the senior center. "I just want to see how these three kids end up," Frank says. "That's what keeps me going. That's the carrot I'm trying to catch."

At this time a year ago Frank had no idea that his eldest grandson would be a highly rated NFL prospect. Chris was second-team All-ACC playing in Virginia's 3-4 defense. He occupied a lot of blockers without making a ton of plays. But last summer ESPN's Todd McShay, the director of college football scouting for Scouts Inc., declared on the air that Long would be the best senior in the country. Colleagues asked McShay, "Are you serious?"

Then Long made an interception against North Carolina, blocked a field goal against Middle Tennessee and had a safety against Maryland, each play setting up a Virginia victory. He finished the season with 14 sacks and 23 hurries and became the first Virginia player to have his jersey retired before his last game. Tiki Barber had to wait 11 years for the same honor; his Cavaliers jersey was retired on the same day as Long's.

At some point the comparisons to Howie began to fade. Even though they both played defensive end in a 3-4, Chris is clearly quicker with his feet and his hands, so much so that he's capable of becoming an outside linebacker in the NFL. Steve Rosner, who represents Howie and used to represent Lawrence Taylor, turned to Howie during a game at Virginia last fall and told him, "Chris is as close to Lawrence Taylor as anybody I've ever seen."

In January, Howie walked into a meeting with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and was greeted by the league's executive vice president, Joe Browne. "It's great to finally meet Chris Long's father," Browne said.

The Miami Dolphins, who have the first pick in the draft, will have all the intelligence they need on Chris. Their new executive vice president is Bill Parcells, under whom Groh worked as an assistant during Parcells's stints with the New York Giants, New England Patriots and New York Jets. Groh has told Parcells, "He's your kind of player."

The evidence is in the anecdotes. After Chris was honored as the ACC Defensive Player of the Year in December, he flew home from the awards banquet with Virginia sports information director Jim Daves. During a layover in Philadelphia they learned that the Cavaliers would play Texas Tech in the Gator Bowl. Chris grabbed Daves's laptop computer, called up the Texas Tech website and clicked on the bio of left tackle Rylan Reed. Daves asked him why. "Because he's got my lunch money," Chris responded.

Virginia lost to Texas Tech 31-28; but even before the game began, Long had impressed Reed. "When you watch film, it can be kind of boring," says Reed. "But it was actually fun watching Chris Long. The guy won't quit. He thinks he's going to make every play. He will not accept getting beat. It was really an honor to be on the field with him."

There are other candidates to go No. 1 in the draft this year, including Boston College quarterback Matt Ryan and Michigan tackle Jake Long. Chris met Jake (the two are not related) at an all-star camp and keeps his number 77 Michigan jersey tacked to a wall in his apartment, alongside posters of Allen Iverson, Muhammad Ali and Ray Lewis. "I don't know of a player in this draft who has no negatives," says Gil Brandt, draft analyst for NFL.com and former vice president of player personnel for the Dallas Cowboys. "Except Chris Long."

While many prospects prepare for the draft at training centers in Miami, Arizona and Southern California, Long is shuttling between New Jersey, where Rosner is handling his business affairs, and Charlottesville, where he shares a duplex with nine teammates. The floor is strewn with laundry and Entenmann's boxes. He's still a college kid, even though he's no longer enrolled.

Chris's tour of Charlottesville is nothing like his father's tour of Charlestown. He passes bookstores, cafés and record shops. He pauses at Littlejohn's, a deli that serves a sandwich named after former Cavaliers basketball star Ralph Sampson. The owner, Chris Strong, says he's planning a new foot-long hot dog in honor of Chris.

The tour ends at Wayside, a chicken shack just off campus with the slogan, "This chicken 'clucks' for you." Wayside is the kind of place where you order at the counter and ask for extra napkins. After returning from the NFL combine in Indianapolis last week, Chris figured he could indulge in a little grease. Wayside was his first stop. He ordered a box of 16 fried drumsticks and ate about 10 of them.

Every few minutes, cooks and cashiers popped out of the kitchen to say hello and ask Chris where he's going in the draft. He smiled and shrugged, as uncertain as everyone else. It could be the Dolphins, St. Louis Rams, Atlanta Falcons or even his father's Oakland Raiders.

No matter where he's headed, the ground will never be as stable as it is right here.

 

Duke's zone cripples Cavs
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
March 6, 2008

One of the most magical moments in the brief history of John Paul Jones Arena came last season when Virginia star Sean Singletary hit a game-winning circus shot with just one second left on the clock to beat Duke.

On Wednesday night, roughly a year later, there was no such magic inside of JPJ - unless you count “the worm” dance move that a child pulled off during a timeout.

Early on, Virginia held its own against No. 6 Duke. However, the Blue Devils took control of the game late in the first half and never let up.

The Blue Devils, behind 19 points from Gerald Henderson and 18 points from Kyle Singler, downed Virginia, 86-70, in front of a sold-out crowd in Charlottesville.

“We knew that Virginia was playing its best basketball of the season,” said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski. “In the last two weeks, they could be undefeated. They’ve missed [Lars] Mikalauskas the major portion of the ACC season. To beat them tonight was a big win for our basketball team.”

With the loss, Virginia (14-14, 4-11) slipped back into the ACC basement. Depending on how you look at, UVa is either in a three-way tie for 10th place or a three-way tie for 12th place with Boston College and N.C. State.

The Cavaliers likely need a victory in their regular-season finale versus Maryland on Sunday to have a chance at earning a bid to the NIT.

The Blue Devils (26-3, 13-2), meanwhile, will host North Carolina on Saturday night in a game that will decide the ACC title.

“Duke is a very good team,” said Mikalauskas, who had 10 points and four rebounds. “We had a hard time stopping their guards. They definitely deserve to be in the Top 10 in the country.”

Virginia came out of the gates with plenty of intensity and enthusiasm.

Singletary, who had a team-high 18 points, scored nine of UVa’s first 14 points. The senior captain abused Duke defenders, easily blowing by them for buckets or to set up easy deuces for teammates.

Virginia took its biggest lead of the game at 26-22 after an offensive rebound and 3-point play by Mikalauskas.

Mikalauskas, as has become his custom, started pumping his fists wildly. He even, to the crowd’s delight, unveiled a new move - one that looked like something you might see from one of those bodybuilders on ESPN2 at 3 a.m.

It was shortly after the Lithuanian’s antics that Kryzewski had seen enough. He switched the Blue Devils from their customary man-to-man defense into a zone.

Singletary was scoreless the rest of the half.

“We couldn’t run and I had two or three people on me,” Singletary said, “and that forced everybody else to try and beat them.”

They didn’t. Virginia started firing blanks.

After a Mamadi Diane 3-pointer put UVa up 29-28, Duke outscored UVa 15-2 in the final 6 minutes and 45 seconds before halftime. The Blue Devils led 43-31 at the break.

In the second half, Virginia tried to hang tight. The Cavaliers pulled to 68-59 on a basket by Diane with 10 minutes left, but the Blue Devils - buoyed by strong efforts on the offensive glass - responded with an 18-5 run to thwart the comeback.

“We were turning the ball over too much and being too passive,” said guard Calvin Baker (15 points, four assists). “I feel that against a good team like that you have to be in attack mode the whole time. We were turning the ball over too much, including myself, to win.”

Virginia coach Dave Leitao admitted that his team didn’t adjust well to Duke’s zone. By the time UVa seemed to get the hang of it, the Blue Devils had gone back to their man-to-man.

“It put the onus on everyone to be more aggressive,” said Leitao, whose team was playing its third game in five days. “We stopped attacking the middle of the zone and got back on our heels … good teams like that exploit it. “They’re one of the best drive-and-kick teams that I’ve seen in college basketball in a real long time.”

Singletary, who plays his last game at JPJ on Sunday, was adamant that Virginia didn’t play poorly.

“We came out with good energy,” he said. “We didn’t make the smartest plays at times. We just couldn’t get over that hump. We didn’t have the energy to get over that last hump.”

Dunks

Calvin Baker said he sprained a ligament in his right (shooting) thumb during the first half. His status for Sunday’s home game against Maryland was not certain. …Baker and Mikalauskas started the second half in place of Ryan Pettinella and Jeff Jones. …The Cavs wore their orange uniforms at home for the first time since 2001 when they beat Duke.

 

Cavs still not getting defensive message
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com | 978-7251
March 6, 2008

Dave Leitao knew that his Virginia basketball team would have to play nearly perfect to be able to handle high-scoring Duke on Wednesday night. He also knew what would happen if his Cavaliers didn’t.

Less than perfect cost Virginia an 86-70 home loss to the Blue Devils to drop the Cavs to 14-14 on the season (4-11 in the ACC), with one regular season game remaining, plus the conference tournament.

The Devils, who Leitao describes as one of the best drive-and-kick teams he has seen in college basketball in a long, long time, played at their usual greyhound pace and Virginia couldn’t keep up. Once Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski found a way to stop All-ACC point guard Sean Singletary from cutting his team to ribbons, it was just a matter of time.

Showing early promise

For the first eight minutes of the game, Singletary was threatening to turn John Paul Jones into his personal shooting gallery, knocking down shots from all over and almost single-handedly keeping the Cavaliers close.

“[Singletary] was taking guys off the dribble, he was exploiting pick-and-roll, he was getting to the foul line, he was doing a little bit of everything,” Leitao said about his star senior’s early game heroics.

Before the Blue Devils could blink, Singletary had nine points and the Cavaliers were leading 14-12. Krzyzewski, who was leery of Virginia because of the good basketball the Cavaliers had played in recent weeks, had to remember last year’s game in Charlottesville when Singletary helped shoot down the Devils in a key matchup.

“I was really concerned,” Krzyzewski said about Singletary’s performance. “That was one of the reasons we ended up going zone to try to stop him. He is so good, and so fast.”

Duke essentially put two defenders at the top of its zone to stop the quicksilver Singletary’s penetrations into the lane, which put the onus on the rest of the Cavaliers to keep up the Devils’ blistering scoring pace.

Keeping up with the Devils

Leitao was well aware that Duke was third nationally in scoring at 85.1 points per game. He also knew that his players, for a myriad of reasons, haven’t exactly played the kind of defense that he insists upon.

That’s a recipe for disaster, especially for a team fighting for its postseason life.

Yet again, the Cavs didn’t follow Leitao’s defensive blueprint and it cost them. Duke hit 50.8 percent of its shots in the game and 44.4 percent of its 3-pointers.

Guess what? Duke is 18-1 this season when it puts up 80 or more points, a trend that goes way back.

In fact, the Devils are 458-45 when they hit that watermark under Coach K.

“What [Duke] decided to do this year is try to be the best offensive team in the country and their mindset never changes,” Leitao explained. “They could be down 18 at Miami or up 20 to St. John’s at home, and they play the same way mentally.

“It becomes harder because if you make a few stops in a row, then that fifth stop is a lot harder because [the Devils] keep playing through it,” Leitao said. “The only way that teams have been able to be successful in wins or losses is to play the same kind of aggressive offense and keep it as close as you can.”

The problem with that part of the equation for Virginia on this night was Duke’s zone draining the aggressiveness from the Cavaliers and UVa’s lack of energy on defense.

Leitao estimated that his team lacked aggressiveness on defense for 30 of the game’s 40 minutes. You can’t beat a basket-a-minute offense with that kind of effort.

“For what we do, or don’t do, it’s always on the defensive end,” Leitao said. “If you play aggressive defense you make the proper rotations quicker, you switch better. We got caught not communicating and that’s a byproduct of a lack of aggression on our part from an attitude standpoint. Good teams like [Duke] exploit it.”

All season long, Leitao has pined for his team to play his brand of fire-breathing defense, but seldom has it happened. Last year it wasn’t a problem and the Cavaliers shared the ACC’s regular season title. This year, UVa is one of the league’s worst defensive teams and as a result, it is struggling to stay out of the cellar, where it has resided almost the entire campaign.

Wouldn’t you think that would be a strong enough hint for this squad to buy into the defensive concept?

“What we’ve talked about for three years is defense and it is a simple thing,” Leitao said. “You’ve got to have a desire. For a number of different reasons that’s waned throughout the year.”

For some inexplicable reason, the coach believes his team is convinced that if it plays good offense, it will play better defense. Leitao said that is reverse thinking.

“It’s got to be the other way around,” Leitao said. “If you play really good defense, then your offense will come.”

Neither happened Wednesday night as Duke became the eighth ACC opponent to shoot 48 percent or better against the Cavs.

Once Coach K slapped the zone on Singletary it killed UVa’s aggressiveness for the most part. Calvin Baker (15 points) had some moments as did Mamadi Diane (12) and Lars Mikalauskas in the middle (10). Even Singletary finished with 18, extending his ACC leading double-figures scoring streak to 50 games (he is 25 points away from becoming the 38th player in ACC history and the fifth Cavalier to score 2,000 career points).

“I feel that against a good team like that you have to be in attack mode the whole time,” Baker said afterward. “They have good penetrators and good shooters on the wing, so it’s basically picking your poison.”

Most Wahoo fans would hope this would be a valuable lesson to their team, that they would finally get Leitao’s message that their fate lies in their defense. But recent history suggests that those lessons deflect off their skulls in the same manner that their jump shots carom off the rim.

With one game left, a huge one for Virginia, it’s not too late to finally get the point.

 

Devils thrash Cavs
Defensive move and effort on offensive boards help Duke pull away
Thursday, Mar 06, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By JEFF WHITE
TIMES-DISPATCH STAFF WRITER

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Senior guard Sean Singletary was in the zone, penetrating at will, and so Duke switched to a zone. And just like that, it seemed, the game slipped away from the University of Virginia men's basketball team, which lost 86-70 to the sixth-ranked Blue Devils last night.

The crowd of 14,273 at John Paul Jones Arena had reason to believe an upset was possible after Singletary passed to junior forward Mamadi Diane for a 3-pointer with 6:42 left in the first half. That put U.Va., which had won three of its previous four games, up 29-28.

But then the Devils went to a 2-3 zone designed to force Cavaliers other than Singletary to try to beat them. Against an opponent playing for the third time in five days, the Blue Devils scored 15 of the first half's final 17 points and led 43-31 at the break.

That the Cavaliers had 11 first-half turnovers didn't help their cause, but they took better care of the ball after intermission. After falling behind by 19, Virginia closed to 66-57 with 10:39 left. From there, however, Duke scored five baskets on put-backs and won going away.

"When you get offensive-rebound baskets, it gives you energy and knocks some energy out of the other team," Blue Devils coach Mike Krzyzewski said, "because you feel like you've played good defense - and they had - and all of the sudden we get it and we score."

Singletary, who scored nine points in the first six minutes, finished with a team-high 18, and he also had seven assists.

"He's damn good," Coach K said. "I love the kid."

Still, nothing came easily for Singletary or his teammates in the final 36 minutes, and now the Cavaliers (4-11, 14-14) find themselves in a three-way tie for last place in the ACC with Boston College (4-11, 13-15) and N.C. State (4-11, 15-14).

"It's disappointing, and obviously we've got to be able to regroup," said U.Va. coach Dave Leitao, whose team closes the regular season Sunday night against Maryland at the JPJ.

Duke (13-12, 26-3) moved back into a tie for first with North Carolina (13-2, 28-2) after shooting 54.5 percent from the floor in the second half. The Devils hit seven of their first eight field goal attempts after intermission.,

"We just couldn't get stops," Singletary said, "and when we don't get stops, we struggle."

Sophomore guard Calvin Baker (15 points), Diane (12 points) and junior center Laurynas Mikalauskas (10 points) made significant contributions off the bench for U.Va., but Singletary's fellow starters combined for eight points on 3-for-12 shooting from the floor.

"They have a number of guys capable of big nights," Krzyzewski said.. "We're fortunate none of them had that today."

Duke had no such problems with the basketball. For much of the second half, the Devils spread the floor on offense, and U.Va. appeared powerless to stop them.

"Any time we mounted a little bit of a charge, they just spread us out and attacked us off the dribble," Leitao said. "They're one of the best drive-and-kick teams I've seen in college basketball in a real long time, because they have essentially, when they go to a small lineup, five guys that think as perimeter players and really, really share the basketball."

Six players hit at least one trey for Duke, led by junior guard Greg Paulus, who was 4 for 7 from beyond the arc. The Blue Devils' sensational freshman, 6-8 Kyle Singler, struggled at times with his perimeter shot, but he finished with 18 points and eight boards. Sophomore guard Gerald Henderson led all scorers with 19 points and also grabbed seven rebounds.

"Duke is a very good team, and we had a hard time stopping their guards," Mikalauskas said.
 

Numbers add to Cavs' frustration
Thursday, Mar 06, 2008 - 12:07 AM
By BOB LIPPER
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST

CHARLOTTESVILLE The football coach who occupies Scott Stadium several fast breaks down the street likes to say you are what you are, and here's what the resident basketball team on campus is:

Last in the ACC against league opponents in shooting.

Second from the bottom against league opponents in field goal percentage defense.

And 4-11 and tied for last in the standings.

A plus B begats duh. Meaning Virginia's Cavaliers are what they are. They boast mega-guard Sean Singletary but not much in the way of complementary ingredients. They have limited options down low and are therefore overly dependent on jump shots. They have no defensive stopper so are vulnerable to rim assaults and stick-backs. Their perimeter cast tends to lose contact with shooters on defense and suffers the consequences.

That's been U.Va.'s flawed M.O. since the moment it fell at Duke in its ACC opener 7½ weeks ago, and the profile held to form in last night's 86-70 loss to the Blue Devils. The Cavs shot well (46.6 percent) by their standards, but the defense was plundered to the tune of 50.8-percent marksmanship. They yielded 11 offensive rebounds and 18 second-chance points to the smallish but more assertive Dookies.

And when their 10-0 surge closed the gap to 66-57 with 10½ minutes to go and got a rise from the crowd, they allowed Duke to score on three straight deflating possessions - twice after offensive rebounds and the other when DeMarcus Nelson drained a spot-up 3-pointer off Gerald Henderson's kick-out assist.

"For what we do and don't do, it's always at the defensive end," said U.Va. coach Dave Leitao. "For 30 minutes, I don't think we had the proper defensive aggression. Good teams like that are going to exploit it. They spread us out and attacked us off the dribble. That was kind of the story of it."

The words "victory over" and "Duke" aren't routinely mentioned in the same breath when it comes to Virginia. The all-time record now stands at 109-48 in Duke's favor, and that tilt is even skewed some by U.Va.'s 9-zip hold from 1980-83 when the Cavs had Ralph Sampson and the Blue Devils had gnats.

Counting this latest beatdown, the Blue Devils have claimed 24 of the past 27 meetings against U.Va. and 11 of 12. All but one of those 11 wins has come by double figures.

The decisive opening half of this setback couldn't have begun more promisingly or concluded more depressingly for the Cavs. They required only a drum roll at liftoff. They needed therapy at intermission.

Singletary personified the downturn. Seven minutes and change into the game, he had 10 points and two assists - a pair of dazzling penetrate-and-dish feeds to Mike Scott and Lars Mikalauskas. The second of those two layups drew the Cavs to a 17-16 deficit.

But this was U.Va.'s third outing in five days - an NBA itinerary. Maybe that's why Leitao pulled Singletary for a three-minute blow that bridged a TV timeout. The intention was to rest Singletary, not chill him. But that was the unfortunate byproduct for the Cavs.

Singletary had five turnovers, two missed shots and no points the rest of the half. And the Cavs, well, died. They did keep breathing long enough to lead at 29-28. Duke then closed off U.Va. with a 2-3 zone and scored 15 straight at the other end for a 43-31 cushion at the break - and that, basically, was that.

What's mostly left for U.Va. now is a shot at ruining Maryland's NCAA hopes on Sunday and giving Singletary a bell-ringing sendoff - that latter item no small consideration. If anyone deserves better from 2008, he does.

"It's tough having a losing season," Singletary said. "But we still have a game left. We have a game in the ACC tournament. We have to make the best of it."

Altering a season's worth of patterns would be a start. In March, that's a toughie.

 

Devils fall into zone to top Cavaliers
Duke is now one win away from an ACC regular-season title.
By Doug Doughty
981-3129

CHARLOTTESVILLE -- Teams with three-guard lineups aren't supposed to rebound the way Duke did Wednesday night.

Blame it on fatigue or blame it on negligence, but Virginia's inability to control the defensive boards proved to be its undoing in an 86-70 loss at John Paul Jones Arena.

Sixth-ranked Duke (26-3, 13-2 ACC) defeated UVa for the 24th time in the teams' past 27 meetings, setting up a showdown with No. 1 North Carolina (28-2, 13-2) for the ACC regular-season championship Saturday at Duke.

Virginia (14-14, 4-11) will entertain Maryland at 7:30 p.m. Sunday in the final home game for two-time All-ACC selection Sean Singletary and two other UVa seniors.

Singletary scored nine points in the first five minutes Wednesday but subsequently went to the bench for a breather and never seemed to regain his rhythm in the Cavaliers' third game in five days.

He finished with a team-high 18 points, however, and moved past Junior Burrough into fifth place on UVa's all-time scoring list with 1,975 points.

The Cavaliers led at several stages of the first half, the final time on a Mamadi Diane 3-pointer that made it 29-28 with 6:45 left, but that was UVa's last field goal before intermission.

Before Diane hit a pair of free throws with 37.8 seconds remaining in the half, Virginia had gone 11 straight possessions without scoring and fallen victim to a 15-0 Duke run.

Both coaches attributed the turnaround to the Blue Devils' switch to a zone defense, which coach Mike Krzyzewski has used sparingly in his 28 seasons at the Duke helm.

Singletary did not score in the final 14:17 before halftime.

"I think they made a conscious decision," UVa coach Dave Leitao said. "He was taking guys off the dribble. He was exploiting pick-and-rolls. He was getting to the foul line, doing a little bit of everything. They made a concerted effort to keep him at 25 [or] 28 feet with two guys guarding him."

It didn't help that Virginia had more turnovers in the first half (11) than it had in three of its previous five games.

The Cavaliers shored up their ball-handling in the second half, but Duke couldn't miss and extended its lead to 66-47 before Virginia went on a 10-0 run that cut the margin to single digits.

Krzyzewski responded by calling a timeout with 10:34 left and the Cavaliers' momentum was halted. It wasn't that Virginia let down on defense, but when the Blue Devils missed seven shots over the next 6:43, they were able to grab six offensive rebounds.

"You have to be darned near perfect," Leitao said. "Against another team in another instance, you might be able to get through a stretch when you don't rebound, but not against this team. They're too good."

Stickbacks resulted in 11 points, as Duke extended its lead to 86-64 with 3:11 remaining.

"When you get offensive-rebound baskets, it gives you energy and knocks some energy out of the other team," Krzyzewski said. "You feel like you've played good defense -- and they had -- and, all of a sudden, we get it and we score."

A failure to control the defensive boards also had hurt Virginia when it was on the verge of beating North Carolina before losing to the Tar Heels 75-74 in Charlottesville.

"We knew they had been playing their best basketball of the year," Krzyzewski said. "They could have been undefeated the last two weeks."

Duke went into the game as the ACC leader in 3-point field goals and went 12-for-27 (44.4 percent) on a night when it shot 50.8 percent overall. Virginia was only 6-of-18 on 3-pointers and shot 46.6 percent from the field.

When asked if the Cavaliers were feeling the strain of three games in five days, junior post man Lauris Mikalauskas said, "Absolutely not."

Singletary led four Virginia scorers in double figures, but for the second game in a row, three of them were non-starters -- Calvin Baker (15), Diane (12) and Mikalauskas (10).

Sophomore wing Gerald Henderson, one of five Blue Devils in double figures, led all scorers with 19 points.

"What they've decided to do this year is try to be the best offensive team in the country," Leitao said, "and their mind-set never changes."

 

Devils carve up Cavaliers
Duke's rare zone defense slows down Virginia, and its hot-shooting offense puts the struggling Cavs away.
By MELINDA WALDROP | 247-4634
March 6, 2008 

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Duke's defense looked a little different. But its unchanging offense was too much for Virginia in the No. 6 Blue Devils' 86-70 victory Wednesday night.

Along with a rarely seen 2-3 zone that slowed down Sean Singletary after the Cavaliers' senior guard scored nine points six minutes into the game, Duke used its patented penetrate-and-kick attack to make 12 3-pointers and shoot 51 percent from the floor. Five Devils, led by Gerald Henderson's 19 points, scored in double digits.

Virginia (14-14, 4-11 ACC) started strongly on both ends of the floor, going up by four on Lars Mikalauskas' three-point play halfway through the first half and leading by one after Mamadi Diane's 3-pointer with 6:43 left in the period. But that was the last basket the Cavaliers would score before halftime, as the Blue Devils reeled off a 15-0 run to go up 43-29 and take control.
 
"They're not the kind of team that you can come back against," Virginia coach Dave Leitao said. "What they've decided to do this year is try to be the best offensive team in the country, and their mind-set never changes. You watch them all during the year — they could be down 18 to Miami at Miami, they could be up 20 at home against St. John's, and they play the same way mentally. ... Any time we mounted a little bit of a charge, they just spread us out and attacked us off the dribble."

Duke (26-3, 13-2) opened the second half by making seven of its first eight shots, including three straight by Kyle Singler. But coach Mike Krzyzewski wasn't satisfied, calling a quick timeout after Jeff Jones' 3-pointer 1:30 into the period.

"As much as we were scoring, they were," said Krzyzewski, fresh off his 800th victory in Duke's 87-86 win at N.C. State on March 1. "It was like, you score, we'll score, that type of thing — and that's why I called a timeout right away, is to say, 'You know, we've got to play defense.' "

The Cavs cut what was once a 19-point lead to nine on Mikalauskas' reverse layup with 10:39 to play and again on Diane's bucket with 9:55 to go, but Duke had an answer each time. First, Singler came up with an offensive rebound and a stickback, and then DeMarcus Nelson hit a 3-pointer to boost Duke's lead — which eventually grew to 22 points — back to double figures for good.

"(It's) the same thing that's plagued us all year," said Singletary, who scored his ninth point on a 3-pointer with 14:15 to play in the first half but didn't score in the rest of the period. "We make a run, the team takes another shot, we make a little bit more of a run, and then the team ambushes us, and we don't have the energy to get back over that last hump."

Singletary's 18 points led four players in double digits for the Cavs, who shot 47 percent. But Duke, which shot 50 percent in beating Virginia 87-65 on Jan. 13, is the sixth ACC team to make more than half its shots against U.Va. this season, joining Georgia Tech (.508), Maryland (.519), Clemson (.533), North Carolina (.525) and Miami (.541).

"What we've talked about for three years is defense," Leitao said. "It's a simple thing. You've got to be able to have a desire, and for a number of different reasons, that's waned throughout the year. If I were to put my finger on it, I think we base a large part of what we do on, 'If we play good offense, we'll play better defense,' and it's got to be the other way around."

 

Stage set for fitting finale
David Teel
March 6, 2008
CHARLOTTESVILLE

Virginia offered considerable resistance early, darn little late and not nearly enough overall Wednesday to spoil the apt conclusion to this ACC basketball regular season.

Saturday night. Prime time. Duke versus North Carolina.

They are offensive machines, top-10 worthy and tied atop the conference entering their annual finale.

Miss or neglect to TiVo at your own peril.

The winner secures the top seed for next week's conference tournament and a possible (probable?) No. 1 regional seed in the NCAA championship bracket. The loser regroups and plots postseason revenge.

The Blue Devils completed the delicious scenario with their 86-70 victory over the Cavaliers on Wednesday. They did so with 50.8-percent shooting and a zone defense that defies all of Coach Mike Krzyzewski's Bob Knight, man-to-man roots.

Such details became footnotes as soon as the clock expired, and all concerned began gazing toward Saturday's clash at Cameron Indoor Stadium.

The No. 1 Tar Heels (28-2, 13-2) and No. 6 Devils (26-3, 13-2) are the ACC's top dogs. Have been and will be, too.

But not since 1991 have these teams entered the finale tied alone for first. Duke won that collision, UNC countered in the ACC tournament, and Duke went on to win its first national championship.

Both are capable of cutting down the nets April 7 in San Antonio.

Virginia coach Dave Leitao called Duke one of the best drive-and-dish offenses the game has witnessed in memory, and Wednesday showed why. Five Blue Devils scored in double figures, led by Gerald Henderson with 19, and six made 3-pointers.

It was arguably Duke's best offensive showing since Feb. 6, when it won 89-78 at UNC. But don't forget, Ty Lawson, the Tar Heels' jet of a point guard, missed that game with a high ankle sprain.

Lawson has since returned, and while he's not at full throttle, his presence will goose the pace considerably.

"He creates so many easy shots," Duke guard Greg Paulus said. "We've got to make them work for everything."

Much as his legion of detractors will hate to hear, Paulus is having an all-conference season. In ACC play, he leads the league in assist-turnover ratio and ranks second to Clemson's K.C. Rivers in 3-point shooting percentage.

Paulus' numbers Wednesday reflected those assets. He made 4-of-7 from beyond the arc and added three assists with just one giveaway.

Paulus also was effective in the 2-3 zone Duke used to combat second-half foul trouble and slow Sean Singletary's relentless penetration. But Paulus and his teammates will have to be better Saturday if they're to complete a sweep of Tyler Hansbrough, Wayne Ellington, Lawson and friends.

"It's what the Crazies have been waiting for," freshman forward Kyle Singler said of Duke's students. "It's what they've been camping out for for about three months."

Singler beamed at the mere mention of Saturday's contest. A native of Medford, Ore., his Duke-Carolina baptism came last month, and he responded with 14 points and 10 rebounds, his first ACC double-double, against the league's most imposing frontcourt.

"Looking back on it, it did seem like it had a different feel," Singler said.

Looking ahead would have doomed Duke on Wednesday. Despite playing their third game in five days, the Cavaliers (14-14, 4-11) showed admirable energy during the opening 15 minutes.

It was a marked contrast to the teams' first meeting, an 87-65 Duke victory that got squirrelly in a hurry. But Krzyzewski ordered the zone, and a flurry of Virginia turnovers, including two each by Singletary and Calvin Baker, fueled a 16-0 run that put the Devils in command at 43-29.

"We knew if we did take care of business tonight that the (Carolina) game would mean so much," Singler said. "I think it means more than the game itself."

The kid is catching on quickly. And just wait until he experiences a Carolina-Duke ACC tournament final or, heaven forbid, a Duke-Carolina NCAA tournament game.

Never have the Devils and Tar Heels met on that stage.

For now, Saturday will do just fine.

"I feel honored," Singler said, "to have the opportunity."

 

Duke has little trouble putting away UVa
By BRYAN STRICKLAND : The Herald-Sun
bstrickland@heraldsun.com
Mar 6, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- When Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski didn't like what his man-to-man defense was giving him in the first half of Wednesday night's game at Virginia, Krzyzewski signaled for a defense that he's loathed for virtually his entire coaching career.

Lo and behold, the zone got the job done -- again and again.

"We haven't really stuck with it like that since I've here at Duke," sophomore Jon Scheyer said.

Actually, the Blue Devils haven't stuck with the zone for that long since before Scheyer was born.

"Never," Krzyzewski said when asked if he had ever played as much zone in his coaching career as he did Wednesday. "Never in my life."

Yet on this night, Duke's 2-3 zone set -- named "Orange" in honor of Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim -- was so effective that Krzyzewski had no choice but to keep using it because the Orange-clad Cavaliers seemed to have no chance against it.

Duke scored 15 unanswered points late in the first half after switching to the zone to break open a close game, and the Blue Devils played predominantly zone in the second half on their way to an 86-70 victory at John Paul Jones Arena.

"They started out with a lot of momentum and a lot of energy, but our zone was great," Duke senior DeMarcus Nelson said. "That was something that we didn't expect to do, but it was great.

"We might do it for a couple of minutes here or there every other day [in practice], but we're a man team. We pressure the ball and we contest. But Coach called us to do it, and we really talked through it, and it set them back."

In addition to the zone defense, Duke was in the proverbial zone on offense, connecting on 50.8 percent of their shots to top the 50-percent mark for the first time since their final game of January.

As a result, the sixth-ranked Blue Devils (26-3, 13-2 ACC) moved into a first-place tie with North Carolina heading into their season finale Saturday night against the Tar Heels (9 p.m., ESPN).

Virginia (14-14, 4-11) moved into a three-way tie for last place.

There was virtually no separation between the teams before Krzyzewski called for the zone, a defense he has adopted on occasion this season since adding Boeheim to his USA Basketball staff.

Virginia led 29-28 against Duke's trademark man-to-man, hitting 12 of 21 shots along the way. But over the final 10 possessions of the first half, surprised by the zone, the Cavaliers missed all seven of their field goals and turned the ball over four times to fall behind 43-29.

Seemingly shell-shocked by the shift in strategy, the Cavaliers couldn't stop Duke at the other end, making it look like they were playing zone defense given all the open 3-pointers the Blue Devils got -- though in actuality Duke earned most of them with crisp ball movement.

After Gerald Henderson, who led Duke five players in double digits with 19 points, started the 15-0 run with an alley-oop dunk that was so good that they actually showed it on the Virginia video scoreboard, Greg Paulus (14 points) and Nelson (18) sandwiched 3-pointers around three free throws from Scheyer (10) after he drew a foul on a 3-point attempt.

"We did a great job of sharing the ball," Scheyer said. "It's fun to play like that.

"Gerald and DeMarcus really got a lot of attention tonight, and we made the extra pass and got better shots."

Duke freshman Kyle Singler (18 points) struggled in the first half, hitting just 2 of 10 shots, but he hit all of his four shots over the first three minutes of the second half to help the Blue Devils maintain their lead.

Henderson and Nolan Smith drained 3s soon after to extend the lead to 66-47. That's when Virginia seemed to figure out the zone, attacking it with a 3-pointer, an offensive rebound and by getting out on the fastbreak to reel off 10 unanswered points.

But Duke answered with a couple of put-back baskets -- the Blue Devils outrebounded Virginia 35-32 -- to increase its edge back to 73-59 with less than nine minutes left, and the Cavaliers never got within single digits again as the Blue Devils efficiently spread the floor the rest of the way.

Last season, when the Cavaliers earned a share of the ACC regular-season title, Duke's slowdown game let it down late at Virginia, and the resulting loss was the first game in a 4-8 finish to the season.

"That was something that was brought up," Nelson said. "We were 5-2 in the conference, 18-3 overall, and we came here and the game really turned our season.

"That was something that was in the back of our mind, extra motivation."

NOTES -- Sean Singletary paced Virginia with 18 points, but after scoring nine of the Cavaliers' first 14 points to forge an early lead, he didn't score again until Duke led 56-41 with 16 minutes left. "Against a guy like Singletary, that's one of the main reasons the zone is key -- because he's a tough guy to keep in front of you in man-to-man," Scheyer said. ... Henderson, who hit 8 of 13 shots, had his highest-scoring game since injuring his wrist in the first UNC game on Feb. 6. "Gerald really played a heck of a game," Krzyzewski said. "The last week-and-a-half now, he's become adjusted to that wrist injury. It took him about two weeks to really get acclimated to that, and that's when he was averaging about six points a game and we weren't playing real well."
 

Loss to Duke drops UVa into three-way tie for last
By Andy Bitter
Lynchburg News & Advance
March 5, 2008

CHARLOTTESVILLE - Visitors to TheSabre, Virginia's Internet fan site, logged on Wednesday afternoon as ESPN Classic aired the Cavaliers' 2001 victory against Duke. Some of the members went as far as to post a running play-by-play on the message board as if the game were live, all the way to Adam Hall's game-winning put-back in the final second that sent University Hall into a frenzy.
It was as close as Virginia's fans would get to watching their team upset the Blue Devils all day.

No. 6 Duke rolled to an 86-70 win against Virginia at John Paul Jones Arena, setting up a winner-take-all battle with No. 1 North Carolina on Saturday with the ACC title on the line.

Gerald Henderson scored 19 points, one of five Blue Devils in double figures, and Duke (26-3, 13-2 ACC) made 12 3-pointers to win for the 11th time in its last 12 meetings with UVa.

Virginia (14-14, 4-11) dropped into a three-way tie with Boston College and N.C. State for last place in the ACC and has only a home game against Maryland left before the ACC Tournament next week in Charlotte.

"It's tough losing, continuing to lose and having a losing season," said UVa guard Sean Singletary, who led the Cavaliers with 18 points and seven assists. "We've got a game left in the regular season and a game left in the ACC Tournament. And we've got to make the most of it."

UVa wore orange jerseys at home for the first time since that 2001 upset of the third-ranked Blue Devils, but it couldn't replicate any of that team's magic.

Playing their third game in five days, the Cavaliers hoped to stay in the game TV timeout to TV timeout. They succeeded early on. Singletary scored nine points in the first six minutes, and Virginia took a 29-28 lead with 6:42 left in the half on a 3-pointer by Mamadi Diane, who finished with 12 points.

But Duke, tired of seeing Singletary repeatedly blow by his defender, switched to a zone before halftime and held UVa scoreless for over six minutes.

"They made a conscious decision," Cavaliers coach Dave Leitao said. "(Sean) was ? doing a little bit of everything. 'OK, we're going to make a concerted effort. We're going to keep him at 25 to 28 feet with two guys guarding him. You've got to be able to rely on everyone else.'"

The Blue Devils reeled off 15 straight points, starting with a backdoor alley-oop dunk by Henderson over Ryan Pettinella and ending with a 3-pointer by DeMarcus Nelson, who finished with 16 points.

A pair of Diane free throws ended the drought, but UVa still went to the locker room down 43-31.

"Aggressiveness. Aggressiveness. Aggressiveness. Aggressiveness. Aggressiveness," said Singletary, who along with Calvin Baker had nine of Virginia's 11 first-half turnovers. "We weren't able to get into the teeth (of the defense)."

Duke built a 19-point lead in the second half before the Cavaliers made a final push. UVa reeled off 10 straight points to get within 66-57 with 10 minutes left. Lars Mikalauskas, who reached double figures for the fourth time in six games with 10 points, capped the run with a layup that brought the near-capacity crowd to life.

But the Blue Devils were unfazed. With a small lineup, they spread the floor, relying on penetration and kick-outs for open 3s. Nelson drained the first one to push the lead back to 13.

"It's difficult because they've got good penetrators and good shooters on the wings," Baker said. "It's basically like pick your poison."

When the shots didn't fall, the undersized Blue Devils still beat Virginia to the boards. Duke had six offensive rebounds for 11 second-chance points in the second half.

"It gives you energy and knocks some energy out of the other team," said Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski, who notched career win No. 801.

The Blue Devils shot 50.8 percent for the game, the seventh time a team has topped 50 percent against the Cavaliers in ACC play.

"What they decided to do this year is try to be the best offensive team in the country," Leitao said. Their mindset never changes. ? They play the same way mentally. If you make four stops in a row, that fifth stop is a lot harder because they keep playing through it.

"When you have a window of opportunity, you've got to be darn near perfect with it."