Singletary fifth on Cavalier scoring list
Friday, Mar 07, 2008 - 12:01 AM

With 18 points Wednesday night in Virginia's 76-74 loss to sixth-ranked Duke, senior guard Sean Singletary moved into 44th place on the ACC's career scoring list.

Singletary, who's up to 1,975 points, passed Duke's Trajan Langdon (1,974), North Carolina's Antawn Jamison (1,974), U.Va.'s Junior Burrough (1,970), Wake Forest's Charles Davis (1,970), and N.C. State's Hawkeye Whitney (1,967).

On U.Va.'s career list, Singletary now stands fifth. He's not likely to catch No. 4 Ralph Sampson, who finished with 2,228 points in four seasons.

Singletary, who has scored in double figures in 50 consecutive games, also ranks in the top five all-time at Virginia in steals, assists, 3-pointers made and free throws made.

He has at least two games left to pad his totals. Virginia (4-11, 14-14) closes the regular season tomorrow night against Maryland (8-7, 18-11) at John Paul Jones Arena. Then comes the ACC tournament, which starts Thursday in Charlotte, N.C.

. . .

U.Va.'s second-leading scorer against Duke was guard Calvin Baker, who had 15 points off the bench. After the game, Baker had an ice pack on his right thumb. The sophomore right-hander said he'd sprained a ligament in his thumb in the first half.

Forward Mike Scott scored only two points Wednesday night -- on the game's first basket -- but the 6-8 freshman blocked a career-best three shots. Scott is now tied with Mamadi Diane for the most rejections by a U.Va. player in a game this season. Diane had three blocks against Arizona.

Among ACC teams, Virginia has by far the fewest blocked shots, in part because 6-11 senior Tunji Soroye has played in only two games. Soroye, the projected starter at center, came into the season with 78 career blocks.

. . .

In the crowd at the Duke game were several high school players who interest U.Va., most notably senior Wesley Witherspoon, a 6-8 wing from Georgia who was in town on an official visit.

Unofficial visitors included 6-9 John Manning, a freshman from Chantilly High whose parents are U.Va. graduates; 6-8 Josh Hairston, a sophomore from Courtland High; and 6-11 Matt Piotrowski, a junior at Atlantic Christian School in New Jersey.

Piotrowski's father, Tom, is 7-1. He starred at LaSalle University and then played for Portland in the NBA.

. . .

U.Va.'s baseball team, off to the best start in school history, opens ACC play this afternoon at N.C. State.

The Cavaliers (10-0) and the Wolfpack (6-2) are scheduled to meet today at 3 p.m., tomorrow at 2 p.m. and Sunday at 1:30 p.m.

Three players have started all 10 games for Virginia: juniors Jeremy Farrell (.467 batting average), David Adams (.395) and Greg Miclat (.355). Farrell and Adams have hit two home runs apiece.

Dan Grovatt, a freshman from Tabernacle, N.J., leads U.Va. with a .667 batting average.

. . .

Five games into their college lacrosse careers, the nation's most heralded freshmen have 11 points between them. U.Va. midfielder Shamel Bratton has four goals and three assists; his twin, Rhamel, also a middie, has two and two.

In Virginia's 14-13 win over Syracuse last Saturday, before a crowd of 19,165 in Baltimore, Shamel passed to sophomore Brian Carroll for the winning goal in overtime.

"It's amazing the range of opinions about what they've done," Cavaliers coach Dom Starsia said of the Brattons. "People say they're completely overrated because they haven't scored five goals a game. People say they're doing a great job folding into what we're doing. There's no way they can satisfy everybody."

Third-ranked U.Va. (5-0) meets No. 11 Princeton (1-1) tomorrow afternoon. Starsia can only hope it will drier in Princeton than it was Tuesday night in Charlottesville, where U.Va. whipped Virginia Military Institute 24-5.

"In 35 years, I've never stood in rain like that," Starsia said. "It reached the point in the second quarter where you almost couldn't see across the field." -- Jeff White

 

UVa gets first test on road
By Jay Jenkins / jjenkins@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
March 7, 2008

It seemed rather impractical at the time as dark green splotches dominated most of the weather radar.

Yet on Tuesday, Virginia baseball coach Brian O’Connor loaded the players on his 25-man travel roster onto a bus for a short jaunt to VMI.

Sure, O’Connor wanted to play first and foremost, but he also had a method to his madness. After playing 10 home games to start the season, the coach wanted a host of rookies, including eight freshmen, to be taken outside of their comfort zone and get a feel for the routine.

It was all with this weekend in mind - the 14th-ranked Cavaliers (10-0) open league play today at N.C. State (6-2) at 3 p.m.

“It is unfortunate that we didn’t get a chance to play at VMI,” O’Connor said. “I was looking forward to playing a team on the road before going down to play N.C. State.”

O’Connor can take some comfort as several veteran infielders and a host of pitchers played at Doak Field in 2006. Those returning players have not, however, won a game at N.C. State.

In fact, while O’Connor’s teams have dominated powerhouses such as Clemson and Georgia Tech, N.C. State has won 11 of the last 16 against Virginia.

“N.C. State has been talented on the mound and played good defense and usually they have been close ballgames,” O’Connor said. “Sometimes it just works that way with teams.”

The teams split four games last season, but the Wolfpack won the three-game series in Charlottesville by taking the final two games. Virginia’s typically reliable relievers were partly to blame, allowing 10 earned runs and 10 walks in 13 innings of work in the two setbacks.

“We just didn’t do the job out of the bullpen like we needed to do to win the series,” O’Connor said. “You have to perform better than that to put yourself in a position to win in the ACC.”

Virginia’s two wins against the Wolfpack, the second of which came in the ACC Tournament, came with right-handed pitcher Jacob Thompson (2-0, 0.00 ERA) starting on the mound.

The junior will look to continue his success against the Wolfpack today against LHP Erik Surkamp (1-1, 1.86).

“They have a great crowd and it always seems like an intense series,” Thompson said. “Those guys always play us tough.”

O’Connor is expected to complete his weekend rotation with senior LHP Pat McAnaney (1-0, 1.50) on Saturday and RHP Andrew Carraway (2-0, 1.64) in Sunday’s series finale.

McAnaney said the contrasting styles could help him following Thompson against ACC opponents.

“It is nice,” McAnaney said. “They are going to have spend all of [today] seeing JT throw heat with nasty stuff and I will come in behind him and, hopefully, they will still be geared up for low 90s and I can mix and match and get them off-balance a little bit.”

N.C. State has not announced its final two starters, although a source close to the Wolfpack program said he expected converted closer RHP Eryk McConnell (1-0, 3.86) to make his third weekend start. Another intriguing possibility for N.C. State coach Elliott Avent includes moving RHP Clayton Schunick (1-0, 0.00) back into the rotation where he finished the 2007 campaign.

Partly because of the rainout on Tuesday, O’Connor said he would not be reluctant to employ any and all of the pitchers on the trip, including LHP Matt Packer, a weekend starter last year as a rookie.

“We have everybody available this weekend,” O’Connor said. “Obviously, we are limited by a travel squad of 25 by the ACC, but we will have everybody ready to go and we will handle next week’s mid-week games when we get there.

“We are going to do everything we can to put ourselves in a position to have a chance to win these games.”

The Cavaliers enter the series leading the ACC in several offensive categories, including batting average, runs scored, stolen bases and triples, and will regain the services of senior third baseman Patrick Wingfield (wrist) for the first time.

 

Virginia's best all-time point guard?
You make the call
By Doug Doughty

Ricky Stokes probably could go a lot of places and not be as well-received as he is at the University of Virginia.

Stokes has been to John Paul Jones Arena several times this season in his new job as an NBA scout, most recently for the Cavaliers’ game Wednesday night with Duke.

Stokes didn’t like being put on the spot when he was the head coach at Virginia Tech and later East Carolina, but he didn’t beg out of the conversation Wednesday when talk turned to UVa’s great point guards.

Before sportswriters arrived at his table, Stokes had been talking to Tom Calloway, a Charlottesville native who began his college career at Old Dominion, transferred to UVa and has been working in game operations for many years.

Stokes and Calloway both played point guard at UVa; in fact, they were in the program at the same time but were never on the floor at the same time while Calloway was sitting out the 1983-84 season as a transfer.

Calloway said that Othell Wilson, who played from 1981-84, has to be mentioned in any conversation of the school’s top point guards. While he trails UVa’s other point top point guards in points and assists, Wilson is the Cavaliers’ all-time steals leader.

The funny thing about Virginia’s top point guards is that many of them were on the floor together. Wilson teamed with Jeff Jones and Stokes. Cory Alexander played with Harold Deane. John Crotty, at least briefly, played with John Johnson.

As Sean Singletary approaches the 2,000-point mark for his career, he probably has the best combination of numbers of any of the Virginia point guards. But, is he the best? We ask the readers to vote in the accompanying poll.

One player who isn’t on the ballot but probably could be is Donald Hand, who stands 16th on UVa’s all-time scoring list, fourth in assists and sixth in steals.

Here are the finalists:

Alexander: 1,286 points; 401 assists, 99 steals.
Crotty: 1,646 points; 683 assists, 129 steals
Deane: 1,763 points; 468 assists, 179 steals.
Jones: 850 points; 598 assists, 189 steals.
Parkhill, Barry: 1,437 points; 369 assists, steals (not kept).
Singletary: 1,957 points; 541 assists, 191 steals
Wilson: 1,469 points; 493 assists; 222 steals

Keep in mind that freshmen were not eligible when Parkhill enrolled in 1969. He played in only 79 varsity games, as opposed to a Jones, who played in 129, or Wilson (127).

Alexander was at Virginia for four years but played in only 85 games. He played one game as a junior in 1993-94, when he suffered a broken ankle; saw a redshirt-junior season end when he broke the same ankle in the 20th game of the 1994-95 season, then passed up a possible fifth year to turn pro.

Of course, numbers aren’t everything. Singletary, in all likelihood, will play in the NCAA Tournament once in four years. Wilson played in four of them and Crotty played in three, but, of course, they had better supporting casts.

There are other stats that could be considered, such as assist-turnover ratio and shooting percentage, both from the field and from the line, but it’s like a beauty contest. Point guard play is in the eye of the beholder.
 

Brand-new CBI a possibility for slumping Cavs
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
March 7, 2008

For the past few weeks, it’s been pretty much a foregone conclusion that the Virginia men’s basketball team - barring a miraculous run in the ACC Tournament - won’t be returning to the NCAA Tournament.

In addition, it’s become increasingly apparent that UVa (14-14, 4-11) - which currently sits in a three-way tie for last place in the ACC - might not qualify for the NIT, either.

But fear not, Wahoo Nation. All visions of postseason grandeur haven’t completely vanished.

Virginia may be in the mix for a tournament bid after all - to the CBI.

“What is that?” said Virginia junior Lars Mikalauskas recently. “I’ve never heard of it.”

Mikalauskas is not alone.

The first-ever College Basketball Invitational, which kicks off March 18, is a tournament for schools that didn’t make the NCAA or NIT field.

The fledging event - run by the Gazelle Group, organizers of the early-season 2K Sports College Hoop Classic that benefits Coaches vs. Cancer - will feature a 16-team field.

The CBI plans to compete with the NIT for teams that did not make the NCAA’s field of 65. Last season, the NIT reduced its field from 40 to 32 teams. That, plus the NIT’s addition of eight automatic qualifiers, set the wheels in motion for the CBI.

“Sixteen slots were sort of off the marketplace,” said Rick Giles, the president of the Gazelle Group. “This time of year, all you hear about is parity and expansion and people talking about so many good teams. On one hand you have [a reduction] of teams in the postseason, and on the other everybody is crying that there should be more teams playing.

“The combination of those two things, coupled with the fact there are a lot of good teams out there, caused us to believe there’s a market for an event like this.”

Giles says the CBI plans to use the same basic criteria for selecting teams that the NCAA and NIT use. But unlike the NIT, there will be no committee of athletic directors and former coaches making the pairings. The Gazelle Group will do the picking themselves.

“We’re looking for teams who have beaten good teams - teams that have demonstrated the ability to play at a high level and are playing well right now,’ Giles said.

The CBI will not automatically turn away teams with below .500 records. That, seemingly, could open the door for a program like Virginia - which could finish with a losing record if it does not beat Maryland in its regular-season finale on Sunday.

“We understand that some teams might have some hiccups or what some people would call a bad loss,” Giles said, “but we’re not that worried about that. We’re not worried about the RPI. We’re not worried about having a .500 record. We’re looking for teams that will provide the best field.”

The CBI will be a single-elimination tournament through the first two rounds and the semifinals, with all the games being played on campus sites.

Interestingly, the finals will be a best-of-three series with the higher-seeded team having home-court advantage. Surely, that could make for some interesting travel. Can you imagine Virginia playing a school from California?

However, Giles said that there is less missed class time for teams that make it to the finals of the CBI than those in the NIT.

The first round of the CBI is scheduled for March 18-19. The championship series will be March 31, April 2 and April 4.

The NIT semifinals take place April 1 and 3 in New York, while the NCAA’s Final Four is April 5 and 7 in San Antonio.

The CBI plans on announcing its draw after the NCAA pairings are announced on the evening of March 16.

Virginia fans shouldn’t get too hyped, though. If the Cavaliers were to wind up in last place in the ACC, its chances of making the CBI probably won’t be very good.

“It’s hard for me to imagine that a team that finished last in the ACC to have accumulated enough quality victories,” Giles said. “We only have 16 slots. People tend to make the mistake of saying the best 65 teams are in the NCAA Tournament. Well, that’s not true. Only about the best 40 are in the NCAA Tournament and the rest are automatic bids.”

The biggest positive on Virginia’s resume will be its early-season road win over then-No. 17 Arizona. Can that possibly outweigh the blemishes, which include lopsided losses to Xavier and Clemson?

“Our criteria is we’re looking for the best 16 teams that have had the best collection of wins,” Giles said. “If Virginia were able to win some games down the stretch and put themselves in that position, they would be considered just like anyone else.”

 

UVa tilt do-or-die for Maryland
By Jerry Ratcliffe / jratcliffe@dailyprogress.com
March 7, 2008

Scattershooting around the ACC, while thinking that if Virginia can’t make it to the NCAA’s, then the Cavs could probably put a torpedo in Maryland’s chances come Sunday ...

The Terps will come to Charlottesville this weekend hoping to enhance their chances for the Big Dance. Standing at 8-7 in the league and 18-12 overall, this is a must-win for Coach Gary Williams’ team.

According to Wednesday’s edition of the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) rankings, the Terps were No. 64. While the Terps will be rewarded for playing a tough schedule, they are only 1-6 against Top 50 competition, while they are 14-6 against teams ranked between No. 51 and No. 200.

But Maryland blew a huge opportunity to impress the NCAA selection committee last Sunday when it blew a 20-point lead in the final 11 minutes and lost at home to Clemson, 73-70.

It was a monumental collapse by the Terps, who led 59-39 with 11 minutes to play.

“Now I can say I’ve been through just about everything you can go through,” said Maryland senior James Gist, who watched as his team was outscored 34-11 down the stretch in the game. “We kind of gave this one away.”

Teammate Bambale Osby couldn’t believe it either.

“We had these guys down 20,” Osby said. “You’re thinking you’re 20 points better than these guys. Their RPI is better than yours, they’re better in conference play and you got them. But you don’t. You just have to look inside yourself and say ... ‘What allowed this to happen?’”

Williams said it would be tough for his Terps to recover, but that teams with good character do bounce back from losses like that.

“It can be devastating, there’s no doubt about it. At the same time, you have to take responsibility for the game. They won, we let it go,” Williams said. “Now we have to do something about it.”

Not counting chickens

North Carolina coach Roy Williams said that while it would be great to get a chance to play the NCAA Tournament at nearby sites Raleigh and Charlotte, that wouldn’t make the Tar Heels a sure thing to advance to the Final Four.

His Kansas team had a favorable draw like that in 1995 when the Jayhawks were sent to Kansas City, as Virginia fans will clearly remember.

“The Kansas people were talking all year ... ‘If we just win these first two games, we get to go to Kansas City,’” Williams remembered of his team’s hour’s drive from Lawrence to the regionals.

“And we did,” Williams said. “And Virginia kicked our tails.”

That was the last time the Cavaliers, then coached by Jeff Jones, made it to the Final Eight.

Quote of the Week

North Carolina coach Roy Williams on senior guard Quentin Thomas, who filled in admirably in the absence of injured point guard Ty Lawson:

“I don’t know that I’ve ever felt as good and had as warm and fuzzy feelings about something that’s going on with one of my players,” Williams said. “We figured out he had two surgeries. I thought he had 13. To have those things happen to him and turn around and be given an opportunity and step forward and be successful is really neart for a really nice young man.”

Stat of the Week

Wake Forest’s James Johnson and Jeff Teague are what our friend Dickie Vitale would call a pair of Diaper Dandies.

The two Deacons are bidding to become only the fourth set of freshmen in conference history to rank as the No. 1 and No. 2 scorers on their team. Johnson is averaging 14.6 points per game, and Teague is second at 13.4.

The other freshmen duos to lead their team in scoring in the ACC: Mark Price and John Salley at Georgia Tech in 1983; Johnny Dawkins and Mark Alarie at Duke, also in 1983; and Javaris Crittenton and Thaddeus Young at Georgia Tech last season.

On reaching 800

Actually, Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski won his 801st career game at Virginia on Wednesday night, but his 800th was a special moment last Saturday against N.C. State.

Coach K thanked a lot of people for their help throughout his basketball history, particularly his mentor at West Point, Bobby Knight.

“I’d really like to thank Coach Knight. He taught me in a way that probably didn’t like and appreciate at the time,” Krzyzewski said. “But because of him I’ve had so many opportunities to coach with great teams and great players and to work with some of the greatest coaches ever.

“I’ve worked with Coach [Henry] Iba. I coached against a great coach in this conference in Dean Smith and learned so much from him. It’s because of Coach Knight and all he did for me that I’ve had the opportunity to win 800 games.”

Coach K also paid tribute to the late Jim Valvano. The two became close friends after Valvano had retired from coaching and was dying of cancer. Krzyzewski wore a Jimmy V necktie for the game at N.C. State, something he has done for every game in Raleigh since Valvano’s death.

Hokie bubble

Virginia Tech didn’t hurt itself by pounding Wake Forest by 22 points on Tuesday night in Blacksburg.

The Hokies, standing at 18-11 and 9-6 in ACC play, are clearly on the NCAA bubble. Tech has won four conference games in a row, only the second time the Hokies have accomplished that feat since joining the league in 2004-05.

According to the latest RPI rankings, Coach Seth Greenberg’s squad is 56th (as of Thursday afternoon). Perhaps the biggest factor working against the Hokies is their nonconference record of 9-5 and a ranking of 92nd in the strength of their nonconference schedule.

They have not beaten a team in the top 50 of the RPI, which doesn’t help any either. Critics will argue there’s not enough quality wins to put them in. Their best wins are a pair of victories over Maryland, which is also a bubble team.

Others will argue that the Hokies are fourth in the conference with the best RPI in the country and own a 9-6 record, which in most cases is a shoo-in for the NCAAs.

Tech can probably make it academic if it can beat Clemson on the road Sunday, which would be a quality win over a Top 50 team - the Tigers were ranked No. 20 in RPI before last night’s upset loss at Georgia Tech - and would give the Hokies 10 wins in the conference.

No ACC team with a 10-6 record has ever been left out of the NCAA Tournament.

Free throws ...

...Good story in Sports Illustrated this week about Chris Long and his family.... Couldn’t help but notice that when Singletary put up a career-high 41 points against Miami last week that it marked the third time in UVa history that a Cavalier had hit that exact number in a game, and all three were point guards: Singletary, Donald Hand and Tony Laquintano (who resides in Charlottesville), the latter of which was the only one to do it prior to the 3-point field goal era.... Warning to opponents: don’t trail Virginia Tech at halftime. The Hokies have won 25 in a row when they have held the lead at the break. ...Coach Gary Williams’ Terps have held 42 straight opponents to less than 50 percent shooting from the field, the longest active streak in the ACC. ...You couldn’t blame Florida State’s Ryan Reid from dreading the Seminoles’ trip to the Dean Dome the other night. It was Reid who threw Carolina point guard Ty Lawson to the floor in a fight for the basketball back on Feb. 3 in the first meeting between the two teams. That’s when Lawson suffered a sprained ankle that kept him out of the lineup for eight games. Labeled a “goon” in some ACC circles, Reid has had a few scuffles with league players this season.