Without Singletary, it will get only worse
March 14, 2008 12:16 am
Steve DeShazo: 540/374-5443
Email: sdeshazo@freelancestar.com

CHARLOTTE, N.C.--

Officially, the Sean Singletary era at Virginia isn't quite over. But if the Cavaliers struggled so mightily with their three-time all-Atlantic Coast Conference guard this season, just imagine how bleak the future looks without him.

Virginia fans probably haven't seen the last of Singletary. Even after last night's inauspicious 94-76 first-round loss to Georgia Tech in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, the Cavaliers (15-15) are postseason eligible.

The National Invitational Tournament seems a long shot, but the new College Basketball Invitational seems tailor-made for a mediocre team with a marketable star.

"I just heard about it tonight," Singletary said. "I grew up playing basketball, and I'm a competitor. If somebody tells me I can play another game, I'll do it."

Maybe Singletary can go out with a consolation prize, as Bryant Stith did by winning the 1992 NIT title. But soon, the Cavaliers won't have No. 44 to rely on. And that stark reality began to hit them shortly after the final seconds ticked away last night.

"He's our leading scorer and our leading assist man," said sophomore guard Calvin Baker, who'll likely assume Singletary's spot at the point next season. "Someone else will have to be that next year. He was a tremendous player, and he'll be missed."

As always, Singletary left his heart and about a gallon of sweat on the court at Bobcats Arena last night. But as often happened, even his considerable contributions weren't nearly enough.

Consider that at halftime, Singletary had amassed 10 points and eight assists. Thanks to his unselfishness and the constant attention he commanded from multiple Yellow Jackets, teammate Mamade Diane was open often enough to go 5-for-5 from the field (4-for-4 from 3-point range).

And despite all of this, the Cavaliers trailed by two points.

Said coach Dave Leitao: "It's very, very difficult to have two guys constantly guarding you and to come down and try to set up the offense and score. We didn't have anybody else penetrating or making plays."

Guess what? When the Cavaliers open their season in November, Singletary will be drawing a paycheck somewhere. Those teammates whose lives were made so much easier by his presence will have to fend for themselves.

And how's this for a sobering thought: If not for a late-season hit streak, Virginia would have finished last in the ACC, even with arguably one of the five best players in the program's history.

How bad will it be without him?

No player currently on the roster is even remotely qualified to supply the 20 points or six assists Singletary contributed on a nightly basis. The 2008-09 Cavaliers will have to be more of a collective effort than a one-man band.

Said Baker: "Whether it's one guy, two guys or three guys, his contributions will have to be made up."

The effects will go further than numbers, though. Diane and senior Adrian Joseph got plenty of wide-open looks this season that won't come so easily next season. Few teams will double-team Baker on screen-and-rolls.

No, even though Leitao has recruited some much-needed size in 7-footer Assane Sene and 6-10 John Brandenburg, the Cavaliers will have to reinvent themselves as a defense-first squad.

The 2006-07 Cavaliers shared the ACC's regular-season title by holding their opponents to 41 percent shooting, the league's second-best figure. This year's edition was second-worst at 44 percent. It may not sound like much, but it makes a huge difference. Last night, the Yellow Jackets went 13-for-24 from 3-point range, rarely with a hand in their faces.

"At times, we were really good defensively, and at times we were really bad," Baker said. "We need to make a commitment to playing consistent defense instead of trying to outscore every team."

That change won't come easily.

"For 100 years of basketball, three-quarters of playing defense has been mentality," Leitao said. "The other portion is execution, knowledge and know-how. ... Most players of this age, if there's a game, they run for the box score to see how many points they scored. For most defensive-minded players and teams, the mentality is, 'How did we do on defense? Did we make enough stops?'

"It's a process that we have not grabbed a hold of for most of the year. We did for stretches, but we've got to figure out how to get better at it."

The future of the program depends on it. If the Cavaliers can be mediocre with Singletary, their fans cringe to think about life without him.

 

Decoding the postseason
By Whitelaw Reid / wreid@dailyprogress.com | 978-7250
March 15, 2008

CHARLOTTE, N.C. - If you can believe it, there are actually people out there killing themselves right now trying to break down the various scenarios and potential tournament brackets for the NIT and the CBI.

A web site called NITology.com takes a look at “the other side of the postseason bubble” - those schools that aren’t in the running for a bid to the NCAA Tournament.

That is a place where Virginia is ensconced after a disappointing loss to Georgia Tech in the first round of the ACC Tournament on Thursday night.

According to the Web site, UVa has a spot in the brand-new College Basketball Invitational - if it wants one - and remains on the bubble for the NIT.

As of Friday, the site says Virginia (15-15) could be joined in the 16-team CBI field by Alabama, Seton Hall, Missouri, Akron, Washington, Wright State, Ohio, Sam Houston State, UTEP, Valparaiso, Utah, Cal State Fullerton, Boise State, Bradley and Rider.

Of course, there has been speculation that some schools may turn down a bid to the fledging tournament (dubbed by one John Paul Jones Arena usher as the “Can’t Believe It” tournament).

Following Thursday’s loss to the Yellow Jackets, Virginia Athletic Director Craig Littlepage said that the school had not made a decision one way or the other as to whether it would accept an invite.

The new tournament could pose some logistical issues. The biggest would be the fact that the teams making it to the finals are required to play a three-game series, with each school getting at least one home game. A Virginia-Cal State Fullerton matchup wouldn’t exactly be an easy commute.

“It’s a little harder this year than other years because I don’t think there’s a lot of information out there about [the CBI],” said Virginia coach Dave Leitao. “There hasn’t been a lot of conversation in the media about it or in college basketball as a whole.”

After the loss to Georgia Tech, Virginia seniors Sean Singletary, Ryan Pettinella and Adrian Joseph didn’t seem like they were ready to call it a season.

“Personally, I’d love to play another game if somebody gave us the opportunity to,” Pettinella said. “As far as what tournament that would be, I don’t know, but I’d love to play another game.”

Mo money?

Junior Mamadi Diane put together a good game in the loss to Tech. The swingman scored in double figures for the fourth straight game.

Diane nailed his first seven shots before missing his next five and finishing with 18 points.

“I don’t think they did anything in particular,” said Diane, when asked if Tech did anything that made him go cold. “I still got open looks. There were just a couple of shots that didn’t fall.”

Yo Adrian

If the Tech game was Virginia’s last game of the season, Adrian Joseph certainly didn’t finish his career the way he had hoped. The senior from Trinidad only played seven minutes, just two in the second half.

“I thought Mo came in and provided something for us,” Leitao said, “so I just rode Mo for more time than normal.”

The Invisible Man?

On Jan. 27, Matt Causey lit Virginia up. The senior’s 12 overtime points led Georgia Tech to victory.

Causey didn’t play in the second meeting between the two schools on March 3 because of a concussion he had sustained two games earlier against Duke.

On Thursday, Causey was practically invisible against Virginia. UVa held Causey scoreless in his 18 minutes.

 

ACC Tournament sees rise of non-traditionals
Underclassmen-to-NBA speculation begins
By Doug Doughty

Say what you want about ACC expansion , but look who won first-round games Thursday at the men’s basketball tournament:

Winners at Charlotte Bobcats Arena were Boston College, which began ACC play in 2005-2006; Miami, whose first season was 2004-2005; Florida State, whose first tournament was in 1991-92, and Georgia Tech, which began play in 1979-1980.

I’ll grant, it’s a stretch to refer to Georgia Tech as an expansion team in its 29th ACC season, but those four will be joined in the semifinals today by Virginia Tech, which joined Miami in the 2004-2005 class.

Gone after first-round losses are charter members Wake Forest, North Carolina State and Maryland, as well as Virginia, which joined the loop in its second season.

If you subscribe to the theory that ACC men’s basketball is in decline, don’t blame it on the new members.

And, don’t expect the old guard to make a major resurgence in the near future.

Of course, North Carolina and Duke are always going to be good, but Virginia, Maryland and N.C. State don’t look to be vastly improved in 2008-2009.

The Cavaliers loses three-time, first-team All-ACC selection Sean Singletary, Maryland loses No. 8 ACC scorer and No. 3 rebounder James Gist and those are just the seniors.

N.C. State freshman J.J. Hickson might not have come to college if players were allowed to go directly from high school to the NBA, and his 27-point, 14-rebound performance Thursday against Miami might support any notion that he’s ready to make the move next year.

If you think Virginia fans are unhappy with a 15-15 record in Dave Leitao’s third season, you should have checked out the N.C. State and Maryland message boards Thursday night (I didn’t, but I heard about them).

State’s season-ending nine-game losing streak matched the longest in school history and now Hickson could leave? How bad could the Wolfpack be next year? For its part, Maryland has won 18 games, but the Terrapins lost four of their last five games and five of the last seven.

There has been a little bit of speculation about the possibility of 6-foot-5 sophomore point guard Greivis Vasquez turning pro, but he came unraveled like all the other Terrapins during a late two-minute, 52-second stretch when they had five turnovers. Maryland had led 20-5 at one point.

The real enigma, though, is N.C. State. Here’s a team that won three ACC Tournament games last year and was picked for third in the preseason, with a preseason first-team All-ACC pick in Brandon Costner. Costner went scoreless and had four turnovers Thursday night in 17 minutes.

It was the second time in three games that Costner had gone scoreless and the third time since Jan. 31. Over that span, there also were games in which he scored one, two and three points.

It’s reasonable to think that Costner might have been a first-round draft pick following the 2006-2007 season, particularly after he scored 28 points against North Carolina in the championship game. He also scored 30 points against Duke in the first round.

(Duke was a seventh seed? I had forgotten that).

Surely, Costner couldn’t leave now, but stranger things have happened. Then-sophomore Josh McRoberts didn’t have a good case for leaving Duke after the 2006-2007 season, but he did and ended up in the National Basketball Development League.

You look at the underclassmen among the ACC’s statistical leaders and who could leave? Certainly, player of the year Tyler Hansbrough could leave and would be a very high draft choice, but the same thing could have been said after his sophomore year.

Hansbrough has made it clear that he will return to North Carolina for his senior year unless the Tar Heels were to win the national championship, at which point he would have a decision to make, which doesn’t mean an early exit would be automatic.

Who else? Boston College junior Tyrese Rice, a first-team All-ACC selection and the conference’s No. 2 scorer, probably would rely heavily on Eagles’ coach Al Skinner. I could see Rice placing his name in consideration for the draft, a la Singletary in 2007, and removing it before the deadline.

Then you’ve got Vasquez, the ACC assist leader and No. 4 scorer, whose height probably would make him more attractive than Rice. Besides, Vasquez, a native Venezuelan, already has turned 21 and is old for his year in school.

The fifth vote-getter on the All-ACC first team is Miami junior Jack McClinton, who stands fifth in the ACC in scoring and leads the league in 3-pointers made and 3-point percentage.

McClinton’s ascension to the ACC stage is relatively recent and I wonder how much attention he would command from the NBA, but consider this: McClinton, who sat out a year after transferring from Siena and was in prep school before that, turned 23 in January.

Florida State’s Tony Douglas, another fourth-year junior who spent his freshman year at Auburn, is 22. He had one late-season stretch in which he scored 20 or more points in six of seven games and he leads the ACC by a wide margin in steals.

If North Carolina sophomore point guard Tywon Lawson had not suffered a high ankle sprain that caused him to miss seven games, maybe he would be the topic of more NBA speculation. Of course, if the Tar Heels were to win the NCAA title, it might be 2004-2005 all over again, when Carolina lost underclassmen Raymond Felton, Sean May and Marvin Williams to the draft.

Things could get interesting in the month leading up to the NBA declaration date in late April and for six weeks after that as the underclassmen attempt to gauge scouts’ interest.
 

ACC Tournament Notebook: Singletary says U.Va. will be just fine without him
Posted to: Men's College Basketball Sports
By Ed Miller
The Virginian-Pilot
© March 15, 2008
CHARLOTTE, N.C. | What now, without Sean Singletary?

That's the question Virginia began contemplating following Thursday's ACC tournament loss to Georgia Tech, a game that may have ended the Cavaliers' season. They await a possible bid from either the NIT or a new tournament, the College Basketball Invitational.

Either way, the end of the Singletary era is near. If the Cavaliers could win just 15 games this year with a player praised for his indomitable will to win, how will they do without him?

Singletary insisted that the program is in good shape, with plenty of talent on hand. Assuming center Tunji Soroye is granted a fifth season as a medical redshirt, the Cavaliers will return 14 players, six of whom started at least one game this season. They'll add three recruits, including Sylven Landesberg, a McDonald's All-American shooting guard from New York.

Mamadi Diane is the only double-figure scorer returning. Freshman Sammy Zeglinski, who played in just eight games before having season-ending ankle surgery, is the heir apparent at point guard.

Soroye and Laurynas Mikalauskas would give Virginia a pair of experienced post players, allowing promising freshman Mike Scott of Chesapeake to move to power forward.

No matter the player mix, coach Dave Leitao said his team will have to improve defensively.

The Cavaliers, who were second in the ACC in field goal percentage defense last year, fell to 11th this year.

"It's happened for a number of reasons and a number of causes," Leitao said. "Defense, for 100 years of basketball, has been three-quarters-part mental. That has been a process we have not grabbed for most of the year."